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Blowing someone up!

Rodney Petrie

Rodney Petrie

How would one go about portraying someone exploding on film?

A friend of mine is directing a short and there's a scene where someone explodes. We don't want it to be Monty Python style and we are filming in a location that we can't mess up with practical effects.
 
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Take a look at the free After Effects tutorials at videocopilot.net - if you combine one of the lightning tutorials and an explosion one with some good explosion stock footage it'll probably work pretty well.
 
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Ok I would go into after effects to make this one happen. It isn't hard if you have a handle on that massive app. but here are the sets I would go through to make it happen.

1. I would lock down the camera in on static position. If it moves it will be a motion graphics night mare. Then shoot some footage without you're talent. Then have you're talent go act out the scene as they would in you're script.
2. After you are happy with the takes turn the camera off record and import the footage into you're video editing software. Cut down the exact clip how it will be in you're final product. also make a clip of you're clean plate or the part without the talent so you can throw it behind the footage you want to use.
3. bring theses two clips into after effects and make new composition. Lay the shot with you're talent over the top of the shot without you're talent.
4. Now comes for the fun part. Create a mask over you're talent and go frame by frame moving it in a manner that mask out you're talent to reveal the clean plate be hind it. For this project it shouldn't take to much effort to make that one happen. I would say accomplish this one in no more than 10 frames, even less might sell the effect better.
5. Now go to detonationfilms.com find yerself some fire assets (stock footage) to lay over top of everything else. Compositing this shouldn't be that hard because their footage is generally in a luma matte format or already pre keyed. Adjust the size scale and rotation to you're liking key framing and tweening as needed. You may want to use a mask with a feather or the top of the fire assets to contain how far the graphic will extend out in you're final product. (they also have blood assest there that you may want to composite into the mix)

and wala there you have it somebody blowing up on film. This is a simple version of this effect there are more tutorials out there that can explain it better than I just did but hopefully this will give you a rough idea of how it is done.

check out

video copilot they have a good lighting strike tutorial that they have put together check them out. Remember also if you are going to do a good visual effect the audio effects will help sell it completely
 
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If you want, you can get source footage of blood splats (aka Hemostock) and explosions from here:

http://www.detfilmshd.com/Collections_Overview.html


Or you can use Action Essentials 2, which was used in the Lightning Tutorial, as stated in the above post. I have it, but you'll need to buy the whole pack. Detonation Films allows you to buy just the parts that you need, if you prefer.




We blew up my wife in this video, and I quite like the effect. Explosion happens around the 3:10 mark:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2wLA175WQ


Notice that the actual explosion is very quick. I used After Effects to expand her body and composite the blast. What helps sell it is the blood hitting my face and the smoke from a fog machine.

As the poster above was saying, you can have the blood splats stick to the walls, without actually being there.
 
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