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In films like in Indiana Jones and National Treasure old temples, caves etc. have spider webs all over the place.

Assuming that these aren't real spider webs, how do they make these fake ones?

(I'm not talking about Spider-Man's web.)

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There could be various methods, a few are:

  • As @Meat Trademark said fake spider webs can be made out of cotton. Here is a good video to demonstrate it.

  • Another faster method using rubber cement is described here.

  • Another method is by using hot glue.

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    Good job. +1 I don't usually vote against myself.
    – Meat Trademark
    Jan 1, 2014 at 17:02
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It's often just cotton. Next October go to a Halloween supply store. There you will find finely woven clumps of cotton that, when stretched out, resemble webs. It's a common stock item. While a simple prop, it's highly effective and does not stick to you, meaning it can stay where taped / glued until you take it down.

Have you ever pulled a cotton swab apart or pulled on the end of a Q-Tip? Same principle.

(I'll add that one Halloween I spayed hair-spray on the cotton web and it was more realistic and stuck to you kind of like real webs.)

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    I don't have any Halloween store in my locality. Though thanks for the example to make it clear.
    – Anirban Nag 'tintinmj'
    Jan 1, 2014 at 12:10
  • Most grocery stores and pharmacies (Walgreens, CVS, etc) have a Halloween section or aisle in October. Same thing. They sell cotton at a huge mark-up touting it can be used to make fake webs.
    – Meat Trademark
    Jan 1, 2014 at 12:13
  • I didn't notice where you lived. The comment above is very North America-centric. My apologies. Still, though, finely woven cotton stretched out is one of the more common ways the effect is created.
    – Meat Trademark
    Jan 1, 2014 at 12:34
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I had assumed it would be something similar to cotton candy rather than cotton. Hot glue makes sense for the same reason because sugar solidifies similarly but overstretched cotton does seem most probable because it would be more visible much like spider web after it has been there for a while. That would make it an ideal choice because normally spiderwebs are used to give any object that "untouched for centuries" appearance.

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    @MeatTrademark you don't have to apologize for the popularity of American movies. Isn't it weird how North American as an adjective is less precise when compared with American. You know because some north Americans are not American much like central Americans and South Americans. It occurred to me when I was reading your comment after you realized he's from Kolkata. It's one largest cities in the world they have a flourishing Bengali film industry. I wonder where they get their supplies. This probably won't be read by you or anyone and mentioning your username won't help outside of that thread
    – Can Bot
    Nov 22, 2018 at 3:46
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    Welcome to the site - please ensure that your answers are qualified with objective evidence - 'I had assumed' is generally good enough for subjective discussions but SE:M&TV wants answers that can be verified by external fact or clear internal / 'in - universe' logic (if the question is about a specific piece of film or television).
    – Stephen Francis
    Nov 22, 2018 at 7:24

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