Priming the Pump
In this snippet the prop crew is prepping a blood spurting rig. The hapless fellow has a ballpoint pen sticking in his neck, the result of a desperate suicide attempt that detectives Bernard & Lupo will thwart in the nick of time. It is meant to appear that the pen has torn his carotid artery, which makes quite a mess, so it needs to make an impressive splurt of blood on cue. A slender tube runs up his back, beneath his shirt, and to the base of the sawed-off pen, delivering stage blood pushed by air pressure to splatter forth. Ron and Eric are adjusting the pressure and priming the pump in preparation for the exciting conclusion of the scene.
