Okay here's the problem. Me and my brother are going to be shooting this movie soon. We would like to have it so that the walls get shot up a bit, but not extremely just bulletholes. I was wondering how i might go about doing that digitaly, since our house is a rental house, and we can't really blowholes in the wall. I uas watching the special features on Once Upon A Time In Mexico, and he added bulletholes in the wall digitally. Just wondering how that works, what programs I would need, etc. Thanks for the help.

Use photoshop or aftereffects

hi, Basically the hole in the wall is composited over the live action footage. So, very crudely, you would put a still picture of a tiny black dot on an upper video layer in your editing app--you could even use the text tool to make a period or asterisk for the black dot. You would do this for each bullet hole, stacking each new picture or text layer on a higher video layer. Then you would adjust the position, size, and skew of the image to where and how you want the bullet hole to fit. And if the camera moved (tilt, pan, dolly, handheld) you'd need a way to track the movement so you could do the exact same movement on the black dot. That's the basics.

If you want something more realistic, you could digitally create a bullet hole with debris flying and composite that in. Or, you could buy a piece of sheet-rock, paint it chroma green, actually make bullet holes/hits on it (and video them). Then compose that onto your live footage.

Whatever you decide to do, finessing the image controls, the skew of the bullet hit, the opacity of it, and the length each shot stays on screen will really help 'sell' the effect to the audience.

If you do end up doing something like this, post some pictures of the final effect. ...it'll be interesting.

Okay I've got this crazy idea, and I'm wondering if it would look any good. I was thinking if I made up some bullethole stickers and put them on the walls where thery needed to be. And then after shooting the footage, going in in photoshop or whatever and masking over the bulletholes with the same color as the wall. And then digitally add a small explosion/flying debris and then remove the mask. So it would look like mask mask mask explosion bullethole bullethole bullethole. So then there wouldn't be any need for motiontracking and no digitized bulletholes. Tell me what you think if you can even understand it. Thanks.

It . . . could work. It would take extreme patience, but if your willing to do it, go ahead.

I myself go out to a wall no one cares about, tape those string firecrackers to the wall, put plaster over them, get some close shots, and light the fireworks, plaster flies off, and I just cut those in every now and then.

Yeah I think I'm gonna do some tests with various methods. Thanks for the help joren and forsaken.

even though it looks like this subject is pretty much exhausted, I just had a cool idea for making it look like you're shooting holes in a wall, without any need for digital effects.
Take a large piece of foam board, big enough to fill the frame (long shots won't work for this effect). It should be the same color as the wall. Prop the board so that it's standing on end, like a portable wall. After this take a handful of plastic drinking straws and fill them halfway with talcum powder or some kind of white powder. Plug one end of the straws with white clay or gum, whatever it is it needs to blend in with the wall. Very carefully cut small holes the same size as the straws in the wall, and poke the straws through them so the ends completely fill the hole, making it look like the wall has no holes in them at all. When it comes time to shoot, have someone on the other side of the wall blowing on the straw, pushing out all the "dust". I just made this up so if it's unclear please let me know. If it turns out the way I imagine it may look quite nice.