How Hollywood makes fake blood for TV and movies

• If you've ever seen a horror movie, you've seen some fake blood.
• There's a pretty simple formula for creating blood that looks real and there are even special techniques to splashing and spraying it to look like someone has been injured or killed.
• In the video above, special effects specialist Pam Elliott of Special Effects Unlimited Inc. shows us how it's done.

Following is the transcript of the video.

Pam: This is the lab, basically, where we do all of our, all of our mixing and potion-ing. So as you can probably tell, we've mixed a few batches of blood on this counter, but I can take you through a batch if you like.

Most of your run-of-the-mill bloods start off with corn syrup, you know, it gives it a little viscosity, if it was going to be a regular everyday blood, we'd put some soap in it, because that helps it clean up.

Interviewer: Oh really?

Pam: Like when you, when you get it in your wardrobe or something, it helps it wash out. If you were to just put color in here right now, it would kinda come out looking like cherry cough syrup because blood is a little opaque, it's not completely see-through, so we add an opacifier to it, to make it opaque before we start to color it.

So, basically, what you get is kind of this white-looking slurry, then we can start to color it. And we go through a lot of food coloring. Obviously, the base is red. Now, you're never really going to get to a really realistic blood red with just red food color, so what we do is we add a little blue, or black, and then that gives us a little depth. So now you know, it looks more like your classic, classic blood.

Now, we can take this, and take it out here and do a little something with it if you like.

Interviewer: Yeah, sure.

Pam: So we can do the, maybe a blood spray, and maybe the you know, classic blow out the back of your head on the wall kind of thing, if you want?

Interviewer: Yeah, sure!

Pam: For this, sometimes, you'd hide them behind somebody, and then, you know, at the moment where they get shot in the head, then splat against the wall.

Three, two, one... Now if we do more pressure, then it's a little more violent.

Interviewer: Right. Okay yeah go for it.

Pam: Okay, three, two, one. No!

Interviewer: Wow, that is brutal.

Pam: So this is going to be more directed.

Interviewer: Okay.

Pam: That's for when you get sliced in the neck and-- it sprays, it sprays out. So if you're doing blood on a floor that you can't really get blood on because it's gonna stain, or on carpet or you know stuff like that, then we make these rubber ones that we can just throw down on the floor and then pick up and go away.