Explosions and Car Wrecks

Hey Guys,

We had a question asked under our first blog that says:

“Ok. What are your suggestions for say a car wreck or explosion? Is there any way at all to accomplish that cheaply? Also, what would be some easy ways to get locations?”

This is such a great question that I thought I’d answer it in a new blog post. So thank you to Grebanahs for the question. . . And on to the post. . .

In my opinion, short of a possible arrest and hospital visit (both of which would make great behind the scenes footage), The only way for us low/no-budget filmmakers to pull off an explosion or car wreck is pure creativity. Instead of showing the event, use sound, clever editing, lighting and your actor’s reactions to fool the audience into believing what you want them to. If you do it well enough your audience won’t even recognize the trick, they'll be too wrapped up in your story to stop and think about it.

For example: If you want to blow up a house... Show the bomb ticking down, then your actor running out of the house, then your actor running away with the house now out of the frame. Then use a bright light flashing to simulate the burst of fire that we now believe is exploding the house just out of our sight. Add a great sound effect and some flying debris to really sell the effect. A car crash would be the same principle. Show everything up until the point of impact, then sell the rest using sound effects and reactions.

But if you really want to show it and have a little money to spend, try looking through a footage library like this one:

http://www.buyoutfootage.com/pages/col.html

There are some great free tutorials that will take you step by step showing you how to achieve different effects. This is by far my least favorite choice, because unless you are amazing at After Effects (and lets face it, most of us aren’t), the effect will look fake, which will then discredit your film and pull the audience out of the moment.

As far as locations go, most of the time if you just ask enough places/people, you will be able to find a location that you can use for free. Your best bet is to go for locally owned stores, restaurants or whatever it is you're looking for. Tell them you'll give them a producer’s credit or something. :) Big chains are really hard to get, there is a lot of red tape and insurance protocol they would have to go through to let you film there. So unless you can offer something in return, odds are they are going to say no.

But, at a low/no-budget level the locations should really be known before you even write the script. In other words, write a story around the resources that are already available to you. So if your mom owns a flower shop, write a story or scene with that location in mind.


Hope this helped,
-Ryan

P.S. I keep getting emails asking when the first episode will be up. We are almost finished with it and will be posting as soon as we possibly can.