Practical Pyrotechnics?

B00uWhore

B00uWhore

This may require a bump, though I've done my best to find the appropriate forum for it.

Here's a good one for you, folks. I have a stellar idea for a miniseries, and I'd like to put a pilot episode into production. Should the pilot do well, we have enough material to release a 10-episode story arc, or market the show to production companies with larger budgets. I have a strong plot, several interesting characters, a wonderful casting resource and an able-bodied crew. However, we are hung up on one very tedious detail.

It's critically important to the plot of the pilot episode (as well as the entire series) that a car bomb is detonated when a character gets into the car to drive away. I have absolutely no clue how to accomplish this.

We've tossed around several ideas- render the entire ordeal into after effects and pray to God it looks decent enough to be believable; keep the explosion off screen somehow; we even talked about dropping $300 on one of those cash-for-junk-cars deals and actually blow the thing to kingdom come. I don't think we can actually blow up a car without a licensed pyrotechnician on site, and I'm figuring that will cost thousands of dollars that I simply don't have to blow with the car. So, assuming that my overwhelming preference would be to have the so-called 'explosion' on screen, what suggestions can you fellow indie filmmakers make to me?

I realize it's a tricky quandary. Any ideas are welcome. Even crazy ones.
 
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Well, a scale model car - probably several - some lighter fluid and a firecracker, combined with CG and perhaps even stock footage could do the trick. Put it in the background and out of focus; stay focused on the character in the foreground, if there is one.

Truly, your best bet, from a practical and financial point of view, is to have the explosion take place off screen. Then you only need do a little CG flame and smoke coming from that side, perhaps a few PAs to throw debris down from a ladder and across the frame/shot, and let some very carefully constructed sound effects do the heavy lifting. At worst you'll need a minor stunt from one of your actors as the character is pushed over by the force of the explosion; you don't need to throw him/her across the screen.
 
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As a filmmaker, you have to take proper safety precautions and keep the set as safe and easy going as possible. Never at any time should you danger yourself, your cast, or your crew. Before you do anything, keep that in mind.

First off, CG would be the cheapest and easiest way to go. If you are an AE wizard, or have a talented VFX artist within reach, that would be the best way to go.

If you insist upon doing it practical, there are a few options. You could always shoot it yourself, guerrilla style. Although there are a few small problems with that, but nothing major... including...

Burning a PA to death. Gotta love them PA's.
Burning yourself to death.
Burning a DP to death.
Burning your sound department to death.
Burning a cast member to death.
Going to jail for life.
Getting your face and/or nuts blown off.
Starting a forest fire.
Being another one of those filmmakers who nearly killed everyone, and never works in the film industry.
Become mentally damaged from seeing a PA burned to death, and live the rest of your life in a mental asylum next to that dude from The Green Mile.
Burying the body of a PA and having disturbed visions of his ghost, and then you kill yourself.
PA crawling out of his grave, and hunting you down.
PA surviving, then coming after you for disfiguring his face.
Ghost-you going after PA after he refused to hop in the car to get the "money shot".
PA invents time travel, and kills you before the production of the film so that he is never disfigured.
Court.
Everyone fights about where PA's body should be hidden. You get rid of him, but he hunts you down 10 years later and kills all of you.


Get a licensed pyrotechnic. Please. Please.

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
 
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Murphy's Law -
ChimpPhobiaFilms said:
Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
Click to expand...

3rd Corollary - Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong,at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way.

7th Corollary - If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.

8th Corollary - If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.

- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
- Nothing is as easy as it looks.
- Everything takes longer than you think.
- Everything takes longer than it takes.
- If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
- No matter how perfect things are made to appear, Murphy's law will take effect and screw it up.
- Just when you think things cannot get any worse, they will.


O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law - Murphy was an optimist
 
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B00uWhore said:
I have absolutely no clue how to accomplish this.
Click to expand...
I'm a licensed pyrotechnician. If you cannot afford to do this practically
the only way to accomplish this is with CGI.


B00uWhore said:
we even talked about dropping $300 on one of those cash-for-junk-cars deals and actually blow the thing to kingdom come.
Click to expand...
An interesting idea but what will you use as an explosive? The reality
is what you see on film in a car explosion isn't what an explosion really
looks like. And then there's clean up. You can't just park a POS, blow
it up and walk away.

I know you know that, which is why you aren't going to do it. Yep,
blowing up a car is expensive. You have CGI available. Most TV shows
are using that these days - much to the dismay of my paycheck....
 
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HOW to execute this effect will largely depend upon WHO is going to favorably respond after watching it - combined with - what their expectations are.

So, who's going to see this?
Youtube webseries?
Pilot for SyFy, AMC et al?
This is just a proof-of-concept pilot or you actually have a budget for X-minutes? What's that budget?
 
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B00uWhore said:
This may require a bump, though I've done my best to find the appropriate forum for it.

Here's a good one for you, folks. I have a stellar idea for a miniseries, and I'd like to put a pilot episode into production. Should the pilot do well, we have enough material to release a 10-episode story arc, or market the show to production companies with larger budgets. I have a strong plot, several interesting characters, a wonderful casting resource and an able-bodied crew. However, we are hung up on one very tedious detail.

It's critically important to the plot of the pilot episode (as well as the entire series) that a car bomb is detonated when a character gets into the car to drive away. I have absolutely no clue how to accomplish this.

We've tossed around several ideas- render the entire ordeal into after effects and pray to God it looks decent enough to be believable; keep the explosion off screen somehow; we even talked about dropping $300 on one of those cash-for-junk-cars deals and actually blow the thing to kingdom come. I don't think we can actually blow up a car without a licensed pyrotechnician on site, and I'm figuring that will cost thousands of dollars that I simply don't have to blow with the car. So, assuming that my overwhelming preference would be to have the so-called 'explosion' on screen, what suggestions can you fellow indie filmmakers make to me?

I realize it's a tricky quandary. Any ideas are welcome. Even crazy ones.
Click to expand...


What's the location of the shot. Is it in a parking lot or a more rural setting?
 
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Detfilmshd can help you. Here are some explosions of civilian vehicles:

http://www.detonationfilms.com/Vehicles_Ground_Civilian.html


As a filmmaker, you can utilize techniques to make this look more real, such as focusing on people in the forground, while the car in the background (greenscreen) blows up in soft focus. Editing - guy gets in, turns key, there is a high shrill sound, cut to extreme closeup of his eyes, then the boom, cut to nearby people falling on the ground as smoke (fog machine) enters the frame.

If the car in the det films clip doesn't match anything you are using, put the camera inside the car, when the character gets in and only show the outside, when it blows up.

Think this stuff out. There are a number of ways to do this.
 
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannerite
Binary compound that is perfectly legal to order.. used in very small quantities in hollywood a lot. Obviously as you said though, it's illegal to just blow shit up on a larger scale

A Minnesotan man was fined $2,583 and sentenced to three years' probation[12] on charges of detonating an explosive device and unlawful possession of components for explosives after he detonated 100 lb (45 kg) of Tannerite inside the bed of a dump truck by shooting it with a rifle chambered in .50 BMG from 300 yards (270 m) away on January 14, 2008 in Red Wing, Minnesota. The man was on probation when he mixed and shot the Tannerite and was not allowed to possess firearms or explosives.[13][14] The blast could be felt at Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant (roughly 5 miles away)
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:yes:
 
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and just in case it needs to be said

A man was killed by shrapnel at a farm in Fillmore County, Minnesota on June 15, 2013 after Tannerite was shot at a bachelor-bachelorette party.
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ahh hell i found out it became illegal specifically in MD to order this stuff. fine in the rest of the country
god this state sucks. practically illegal to own a pit bull too, i almost lost my condo bc of my dog
 
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