Are CGI Explosions Your Best Special Effects Option?

Few things can capture the attention on screen more than something going bang. Whether it is a central feature of a war film or an action movie, a plot device in a soap opera or a memorable part of an advert, they have a significant part to play.

The key question is what kind of explosion you need, and how realistic it needs to be. This, in turn, will help determine the kind of decisions you need to make when choosing between using real pyrotechnics, library footage of explosions, or special effects such as CGI.

In some cases, the answer may be simple. An advert or a satirical piece of TV may get away with low-level special effects, done for comedy value rather than trying to be realistic.

In other instances, however, the focus will need to be on making the effects look as realistic as possible.

What Should You Consider Before Planning Some Big Bangs?

There are several considerations to take into account when making such decisions about

commercial production in Manchester:

• Your budget for special effects

• The type of explosions you want to replicate

• The location and whether real pyrotechnics may cause a public disturbance

Some TV productions use a lot of explosives. Emmerdale is famous among soaps for this. Equally, certain genres of film could hardly do without them, from Bond movies to space operas.

In the latter case, CGI can be an obvious fit because it combines with other things generated by CGI, such as spaceships and fantastical fictional planets. Before this technology came along, such effects had to be created in different ways.

For example, in the famous Star Wars scene in which the Death Star destroys the planet Alderaan, the effect involved blowing up a model planet using gunpowder, with a blue screen behind it, to which the space background was later added. 

This was cutting-edge technology for 1977 and it was also used for other space explosions in the film, including the destruction of the Death Star itself.

However, 21^st century re-releases of the original trilogy used CGI for the same incidents, just as they were used in the prequel trilogy and then the subsequent episodes 7-9, along with spin-off films and series. Cinema-goers can expect the same in The Mandalorian and Grogu.

What Problems Can Setting Off Real Explosives Cause?

Back on this planet, conducting real explosions can be problematic. Emmerdale is now filmed in a custom-built replica of the original village where it was filmed, but in some cases, an outside explosion can cause disturbance or distress.

This issue was recently raised in Toronto, when a big bang was seen and heard in Canada’s largest city, the result of a controlled explosion for a video shoot in Downsview Park.  

Although the Downsview Park website and social media channels had stated there would be some bangs and smoke, not everyone had seen this, leading to locals becoming alarmed and thinking that something seriously bad was happening.

This is a major occupational hazard for urban areas and there have been cases of it happening in the UK, including the use of a smoke bomb to simulate a mushroom cloud that was set off in Sheffield when filming the 1984 nuclear war docudrama Threads.

In the Sheffield case, the BBC were reprimanded by the police for the distress this caused to members of the public who were not aware of the filming and thought a real explosion had taken place. Clearly, a big city in northern England is no place to set off such devices.

Other explosion effects in the film come from various sources. This included old library footage of real-life nuclear bomb tests (the grainy pictures giving away the fact that they long predated 1984), plus the blowing up of scale models of shops such as Woolworths and BHS.

Threads not only predated CGI, but also had a lower budget than The Day After, an American nuclear war film released the previous year. This used higher budget special effects for its attack scenes, although, like Threads, some stock footage was used.

When Is CGI The Best Way To Generate Explosions?

Modern CGI is the obvious way to go for any nuclear explosions, although the quality and how realistic they are may be debated. However, there are plenty of examples in modern films.

Smaller explosions such as the ones in Emmerdale may be more easily done with modest pyrotechnics, but for nukes and for space ships being blown up, using the best cutting-edge technology is likely to be easier, cheaper and infinitely less likely to alarm local residents.

If you want your production to go with a big bang, be sure to work with a production company that can help you make the most of the best technology for the effects you want to create.