Yeah, Tins aren't a mood killer, but honestly I don't see the point of them.
Too much chance of something meant to be fun, turning into a bad day because of a bad throw.
Something about my nature is inherently risk averse, so I'm always seeing potential problems in how it can all go to shit due to materials or equipment failure, or just plain Murphy.
Example: Once during College I saw a girl break another girl's nose at a Sorority Pie throw, just because she had no concept of how launching a pie at someone's face with a hand still firmly attached might as well have been a punch.
For a thrown pie, a tin can be risky but for a pie smeared into the face a tin is helpful to keep the crust from breaking in the pie throwers hand before or during the pieng. I have thousands of pie scenes and while accidents can happen it doesn't seem like it happens often.
When it's pushed or smushed, a tin is definitely better. Something about seeing the person delivering it staying spotless - not even their hand gets messy.
Plus you can use the tin as a hat, which is extra humiliating
piedbehind said: Tins are hazardous. Throwing metal at people is violent, and the sharp edges can cut.
Can confirm. The only time I tried pie tins with my wife, she threw a pie at my face and it cut the bridge of my nose. With that said, I do make my pies heavy. Pudding in the bottom, whipped cream on top. Maybe shaving cream pies wouldn't have hurt because it wouldn't have impacted so hard.
Now, I DO prefer the LOOK of pie tins when watching content here. It's just not worth the extra money, hazard, and cleanup to use them myself. Cleaning up pudding and whipped cream is easy. It all can go down a bathtub drain. But with the crusts (Graham cracker or otherwise), it's not as easy as just washing it down the drain.
There's a third option that no one seems to do... which is to replace the tin with the clear "liner" found in store-bought crusts.
You get to hold the pie like it's in a tin, including smearing and smushing, and the crust adheres in the same way. But when throwing, you also see the impact of the hit because the liner is see-through. And it has no sharp edges so you won't accidentally injure the target.
Golly, people...perhaps this 'hack' or tin tip is obscure or too infrequently made...but if one is concerned about the tin 'lip' cutting some part of the face, there is a fix: before throwing, simply curl back the lip of the tin (that is, bend the edge down and back in towards the pie as much as possible) and do this all the way around the pie...this will eliminate >95% of the cut risk from the pie tine edge hitting the face first.
The good thing about a solid (opaque) tin is the REVEAL, that is, as the tine falls off, or is flicked/pulled off the face, after impact we see fully (the pie-splattered face) what we first must imagine without seeing...so, there is a more 'dramatic' effect/gag there. Of course, with a thrown pie, there is more randomness (I wrote 'rando-mess' initially) as to how the tin 'behaves' (it often bounces off, so , there is little time with it stuck to the face to offer the 'reveal').
Now, when I made my first slapstick video, I sent a copy to a well-known person in the community, and he advised me to "ditch the tins" -- even though, only once in the video did I have to flick the tin away because it stuck to Tabitha's face too long...otherwise, all the tins fell away fairly quickly and did not, imo, hurt the gag.
Of course, there's no pleasing some people...years later, in my very last slapstick video (Brandy's DUMU), all the thrown pies were 'de-tinned', but, because the filling was so heavy, it broke the crust, and as a result, I had to use those styro-foam plates, which worked fine, mostly (except that they did not contain the pie as much as tins, so there was pie splatter EVERYWHERE)...Naturally, I got scolded for using them by a customer ("Real pies don't have paper plates!" Haters gonna hate.).
Interesting historical note: The 3 Stooges -- renowned for their pie fights and goopy pie hits (and close-ups, which I imitated) NEVER used pie tins, but always some type of paper/cardboard (or other material) to hold the pies together for throwing (there were also some crust only thrown pies too).
Here is a nice reveal with Tabitha (before and after, alas, no 'during', but you get the point)
A tin, hand smushed right to the face.....no problem. Because it's logical that it would have a tin.
But man I have always hated HEARING that tin sound hitting a model. It's why when we started shooting I completely stole Neil's technique of the baked pie crusts.
Although I also discovered with today's easy digital editing I would have come up with a pie splat sound similar to Soupy Sales or a 3 Stooges pie hit because the thrown pie crusts are too muted, plus the sound done right does add a bit.
If it's a thrown pie, no tin, just the crust. If it's a smashed pie a tin is way better than a clear plastic pie holder. That's just my opinion, to each their own.