a lot of things in common.

- It looks like a bunch of talcum powder.

- Somebody were to grate drywall.

- It has the appearance of flour,

but it's odd.

- [Narrator] But, they've had one very specific

use in Hollywood.

At some point or the other they all start as snow

in the pictures, but snow making in film

isn't just one thing.

It's more involved and if you're anything like me

you might be surprised at how much thought

and effort goes into your holiday movie snow.

(gentle Christmas music)

If you ever wanted to make a Christmas movie,

in Netflix case, if you ever wanted to make

like four Christmas movies, there's one ingredient

that you absolutely need to have, snow.

Snow in flurries and swalls and snow banks.

And, this need for artful accurate big screen snow

has been so intense that film makers throughout history

experimented with everything and we mean everything.

There were mounds of salt and flour in Charlie Chaplin's

"The Gold Rush."

Painted cornflakes which were used in John Ford's

"Airmail" and which are so noisy that you have

to re-dub the actors later.

And marble dust, which gave Dr. Zhivago its sad

pristine permacrust beauty.

And infamously, there was asbestos.

That right there was these flakes on Dorothy's face

after good witch's snow spell is actually asbestos,

which unfortunately, wasn't yet known

to be a carcinogen.

In fact, it was even packaged and sold

as artificial snow in the 1940s.

Of course, we've moved beyond using absurdly

dangerous materials, but the search

for the perfect snow effect continues

and we don't always think about it as what it is,

a special effect, but films like

"It's A Wonderful Life" won Academy Awards

specifically for their revolutionary snow making technique.

Everyone I talked to for this piece agreed

making snow is still difficult, in part

because every snow scene is different.

So, film makers have to do and redo a kind

of snow calculus each time.

Appearance, availability, affordability,

continuity, sustainability all matter.

A lot of snow scene preps starts like this

with the producers making a huge choice

filming it on location versus filming

it in studio.

The benefit of filming on location is of course,

that real snow looks and acts like snow should,

but it's also unpredictable, fleeting

and as every New Yorker can tell you,

it gets disgusting after like three hours.

The crew of "Let It Snow" for instance,

drove around snow chasing for days

until they lucked into finding suitable

spots like this.

And even when there is some real snow or when the producers

decide to film in a studio, something extra

is often needed to fill a gap or augment

what's on the ground.

In fact, even when there's enough real stuff

on the ground, sometimes warm, artificial snow

is piled on top of cold real snow

for the comfort of the actors.

Artificial snow almost certainly means a call

to Snow Business, whose mail I just got.

A snow effects consultancy who works on at least

a dozen huge films per year, plus TV and commercials,

along with the film's production designer,

they choose the snow substitute

or on average eight to 12 snow substitutes,

from their 200 variety strong arsenal

that best evokes a snow look or a mood

without of course, eluding the location.

Paper snow is commonly in the mix.

It's made in huge machines which tear and shred

the edges to get it to clump and drift

like real snow because if you cut it

it just acts like confetti.

It's then sprayed at high pressure,

combined with a fine mist of water

to make it stick onto the set.

Paper snow is a good solution for big spaces

and it interacts well with the actors,

but it can't be used in a studio

where fire becomes a concern.

- No.

- [Narrator] There's also plastics, cellulose, foam,

shaved ice, snow blanket, snow membranes,

they all have their pluses and minuses.

So, there's no one magic snow bullet

for dressing snow, industry talk

for snow on the ground.

There is however, a bit more of a clear winner

for falling snow.

90% of it is evaporative foam shot out of a blower.

The machinery can be loud, but pretty.

But, we're not quite done because this

is Hollywood in 2019 and of course,

visual effects plays a huge role.

You might not guess it, but holiday movies

like "Let It Snow" have around 500 visual effect shots

that either supplement or actually supplant

it's practical effects.

Snow of course, changes when actors or nature

interacts with it, so the visual effects team

often serves as a guardian of continuity,

fixing footsteps or compensating for changing winds.

They also fill in, quite literally in some cases,

by using giant mat paintings to cover areas too big

to fill with artificial snow.

But, also figuratively when practical effects

are impractical.

The falling snow in the window here was done

by the visual effects team because the blower

proved itself too loud.

But, with increased number of shots

and shot complexity visual effects get really expensive.

It too is no magic snow bullet and probably

nothing ever will be.

Maybe instead of a magic snow bullet

film makers will have to settle

for a magical snow ball, a big bundle

of little techniques that joyfully lob

at our holiday movies to make them

wintry wonderlands.

But, enough from me.

Who better to get you excited about snow

than Miss Joan Cusack?

- [Joan] See, didn't I tell you?

Snow can make a difference, especially on Christmas Eve.

- [Narrator] The question that Snow Business gets

the most often, their biggest job.

It turns out it's Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet."

In order to turn England into Denmark,

Snow Business covered, wait for it,

156 acres of land with artificial snow.

To freeze or not to freeze.

That is the question.