Threading The Day After: The Importance Of Special Effects

The use of special effects and props can be what separates a top-quality commercial production from an amateur effort. It can be as significant as the difference between a real horse or a pantomime horse in creating a sense of reality for the viewer, every bit as much as the skills of the actors or the picture quality.

Props and special effects have come a long way, of course; one only has to compare the stop-motion technology used by Hammer Films in 1966 to animate the dinosaurs in One Million Years BC to the CGI used in the Jurassic Park franchise to see how far things have come.

Of course, a film projecting humans running away from dinosaurs requires a certain jump of the imagination. The same could be applied to science fiction productions. That is a very different matter to using special effects to create a scenario that is intended to horrify with its realism, not because it has happened, but because it might.

One Megaton Special Effects

This was exactly the aim behind two mid-1980s film productions, The Day After in the United States and Threads in the UK. The first of them painted a grim picture and reportedly had a notable impact on then-president Ronald Reagan, although his view was that it reinforced the case for the deterrence of ‘mutually assured destruction’, not for disarmament.

The psychological impact of Threads, however, was arguably far more profound, the scenes of war, aftermath and subsequent nuclear winter giving many viewers nightmares for weeks.

Both depicted a terrible scenario, albeit a more extended one in the case of Threads, but the special effects were somewhat different, even though both used some library footage from nuclear bomb tests. Overall, The Day After used more high-tech effects, while Threads was relatively low-budget, at only £400,000.

The reason all this matters now - quite apart from fears of events in Ukraine escalating - is that Warp Films, the company behind the TV drama Adolescence, is to produce a series based on Threads.

“This story aligns perfectly with our ethos of telling powerful, grounded narratives that deeply connect with audiences, said Warp CEO Mark Hervert.

He added: “Reimagining this classic film as a TV drama gives us a unique opportunity to explore its modern relevance.”

Total War And Traffic Wardens

Of course, a modern remake could take its inspiration from a 21st-century attack on Sheffield, destroying a world of mobile phones and online shopping and some different social attitudes and political priorities to 1984, concentrating mainly on how survivors adjust to a life in which no buttons work when pushed.

Nonetheless, the question of what special effects will be used will surely arise - and not just because there won’t be a Woolworths or British Home Stores to demolish.

Threads worked by using relatively low budget but smart filming techniques, such as camera filters to make the post-apocalyptic scenes appear darker under a sun blotted out by a sky full of radioactive ash, as well as clever use of costume and props to create iconic images, such as the armed traffic warden with a bandaged face.

It was not just these techniques that were used to create outdoor images in the original film. There were plenty of indoor scenes, including one during the attack sequence in which a couple is still frantically trying to build a makeshift shelter using mattresses even as the initial heat pulse has set the room on fire.

Other moments in this sequence include a pickup truck being buffeted by the winds of a blast at a military target miles away, and melting milk bottles.

Keeping Dystopian Destruction Up To Date

These techniques were ground-breaking in the 1980s, but, just as the stop motion used in films in the 1960s looked obsolete by the end of the 20^th century, so the effects used in Threads and the Day After may be improved upon.

Of course, it could be that the series pays little attention to the attack sequence itself and focuses so much on the lives of survivors in the aftermath that there will be little need for special effects and the props will be simple enough, with makeup and costume being more important. 

In Threads, even some of the scenes outside the rubble-strewn remains of Sheffield required some special effects (the broken windows on the large crescent in Buxton being an example), but these were limited.

Whatever choices are made, the fact is that when special effects are intended to be realistic and not fantastical, a certain level of quality is required. This is not diminished by the fact that it may be used to depict a world nobody hopes to live to see.