Explosives engineer and professor Paul Worsey, and special effects supervisor Tassilo Baur, fact check explosion scenes from ‘Mission Impossible,’ ‘Drive Angry,’ ‘The Hurt Locker’ and ‘No Country for Old Men' and analyze each film from both an engineering and a filmmaking perspective.
- I think what really makesthis scene, is Nicholas Cage.And he's really bad ass.[explosion]- Any one who can escape from Satanis a bad ass by definition.[laughs][TV static][explosion]- Hi, I'm Paul Worsey.And I'm a Professor ofExplosives Engineering.- And I'm Tassilo Baur.Special Effects Supervisor in Los Angeles.And we're back for part two.- We're gonna look at even more explosionsfrom TV and films,from a scientific perspective.- And a film making perspective.Let's look at some clips.- [Speaker] Mission Impossible.- Stick of gum, right?- No.- No.You mash them together-Just don't chew it.[intense music]- So,why don't wequietly get out of hereand onto a plane.[glass breaking]- There wasn't really any explosive.That smaller piece would have that muchof an affect on people.There's only a certainamount of chemical energyin an explosive.With just a few grams, there's no wayyou can get that sort of effect.- You mash it together.- We do have a lot oftwo compound explosivesthat we actually use.In this case, it's probable,the gum would be explosive.And then the two colorswould be two ingredients,and when those were mixed together,that would cause an exothermic reaction,which means puts up a lot of heat,the explosive wouldthen be heat sensitive,and would fire.As far as CIA's concerned,they threw enough money at itand got the technical expertise,they could probablycome up with something,but not as powerful as in the movie.You see the blaze that justflies out of the scene,as if there's a huge airblast that blows him out.But look, it doesn't evenaffect the table topsand linen on it.So,that stuff's reallygood speckling in there.- From a film making standpoint, well constructed scene.With Ethan Hunt, we know he'sgot stuff up his sleeves.We just wanna see what itis he's gonna pull out.And sure enough, it pays off,and it pays off huge.The breaking glasses iscreated by a tempered glass,which is the type of glass you'd seein the side window of acar in the United States.It has a property ofbeing very, very strong,until any part of it is broken,in which case the whole thing shattersinto tiny little pieces,which makes it veryconvenient for effects use.Similarly, when the waitergoes through the glass,you'll notice that the glassis broken before he hits it.Tempered glass unbrokenis very, very strong.He or she would bounce off it with injury.If on the other hand, the glass is broken,even if it's a fraction ofa second before they hit it,the glass itself no longerhas any structure to it,and they just fly through the fragments.In the reverse shot where yousee Tom Cruise running away,was probably done with dump tanks,and likely in anticipationof several takes,they would have wet down the whole plazato avoid a possible continuity problem.Anytime you're gonna causesomething to get wet,something to get dirty,something to get dusty,if you can dust down orwet down the whole area ahead of time,it's to your advantagebecause then you can do multiple takeswithout having a verytime consuming reset.- Whether or not you wannakeep that in your pocket,that would be questionable.Technically, you could make it fairly safebut this is explosiveswe're talking about,it doesn't matter howsafe the explosive is,because a boom is a boom,and that's the dangerouspart when it blows up.[TV static]- [Speaker] Drive Angry.[rock music]- Now in this, Nicholas Cagehas the shotgun from hell here.- Nicholas Cage is from hell here.That's the cool part.[chuckles]- Now, the questionis, is would a shot gunactually set that off.I think the answer tothat is, yeah, it can do.If you're close enough.And if you've ever shot a weapon at night,often times you'll seea big flame come out.You can even get flamethrower charges for shotguns.So in reality, a shotguncould set gas on fire.But when that trail hitsthe car, in reality,what it'd look like is one big whoosh.But in this scene, what we see appearsto be multiple charges firing.- What you're seeing hereis a very clever combinationof several different shots and materialsto create the effect that we want,namely, this apparent chain of reactions.We see the close up of the shotgun strikeon the trail of flammable liquid,and that's a surprisinglydifficult effect to do.Just because it's verysusceptible to wind,temperature conditions,and everything else to make it reliable.And they need it to be reliablebecause they've got acamera movement on it.So my guess is that they usedsome sort of spark charge off to the side,so as to create the appearance thatthe shotgun blast was igniting it.They also seem to have useda different flammable liquid.There's very little smoke,but you look at the wider shot,it burns like gasoline.So then, we cut, we reset,we put the explosives in the vehicle,we get Nicholas Cage in the front,and we pour out some gasoline to makethe trail manually light it,and while it's burning there,we set it up so that it doesn't burn intothe charges that we've setbecause of course wedon't want them damaged.They're triggered electricallyand they're triggered in sequence.So, first you see the smallexplosion out of the side.And just when you thinkyou've seen the full effect.Suddenly you get the largerexplosion in the background.Which is great 'cause you get somethingthat builds visuallyand thus, helps to sell the idea,that he is one hell of a badass.So you can see how the smoke looks whitewhich is a signature of black powder.If you don't mind thatwhite smoke, it looks great,but if you do, then youprobably wanna use somethingother than black powder.Possibly a high explosivewhich is mainly forcedin very little visual impact.That way you could add your own smokeif you needed to,chemically or mechanically.- [Speaker] The Hurt Locker- Nice and hot in here.Okay the dents are good.Laying on the charge.Nice and sweet.Good to go.- Butcher shop, twoo'clock, dude has a phone.- Put it down!- Put down the phone!- Come on guys talk to me.[distorted screaming]- [Soldier] I can't get a shot.- [Speaker] What we're seeingis an Ordnance Disposal Team,in a war scenario trying to disposeof an improvised explosive device.And it doesn't go as planned.- They have decided they'regonna blow it in place.Its gonna be too dangerousto defuse or takeout.So they're gonna put anotherexplosive charge on itto sympathetically detonate it.- Looks like we're gonna need a charge.- Oh I got that.Figured four blocks,that'll give us about20 pounds of bang total.- In the scene they say, they'vegot 20 pound of bang thereand bang is a militaryterm for explosives.- [Speaker] K Slang- I don't think there's 20 pounds there.I noticed in the scene they'reusing civilian detonatorsrather than military detonatorsand I think the reason for this is that,you know civilian detonatorslook a hell of a lot moresexy than military ones.Military explosivesand military detonatorsare generally olive-drab, OD green.Obviously, the militarywanna camouflage things,they don't want them too obvious.But in the film industryyou want somethingthat pops for the eye.- An ordinary viewer will not knowor appreciate the difference.Though in this filmthey were trying to be spot on accuratein a lot of places so itdoes surprise me a little bitthat they would make that change.- Yeah that looks, that suitlooks like the real thing.I get to see one, twice a year minimum.These things are immensely heavy.You're talking about 30, 50 pounds,they're just for the suit,and then you've got theweight of the helmet.- That's even without anycooling devices on them.This guy's supposed to be in Iraqand if its in the summer time,man he'd be sweltering, sweating insideand there's only certain amount of timethat you can actually wear them.But yeah you can run in them.And to actually pass theEOD school, part of it is,they lay 'em on the backand they have to be ableto get up onto their feet,from that laid back position.They have to pass thattest for physical fitness.[robot kart roaring]- Oh [beep]- I think its a little bit weirdthey've got this real rickety kartthat they're taking out with'cause that's not usually theway the military operates.In this example of break in procedurethey've send in the robot,they don't have a problem with the robot,they have a problem with the kart.Should really be sendingthe robot back in again.- Of course it advances the plot.If the robot couldcarry the bomb by itselfand do it successfully there'dbe no need for the humanto become in jeopardy which isthe whole point of the scene.That's probably something they decidedwould be a convenient wayof creating that scenario.- Nice and sweet.- Hang on,right there!That is wrong, he places the explosiveson top 90 degrees out.It's completely in the wrong direction.And what you wanna do with explosivesis make sure that those plastic explosivesare right up against thatmetal in contact with it.So it can put the maximum amount of shockinto that device and make surethat you actually detonate it.In this direction here, shown in the film,okay, its teeing on the top of it.So there's only a very, very small amountof that explosive actuallytouching that metal.So you're not gonna get avery good energy transferand its amazing how much a little air gapwill stop a heck of a lot of shock.- That is surprising because I'm assumingthey had technical advisors on this.You would think theywould've noticed that.- It looks more sexy this way right.- Well, no, I don't think it does.I think its just the wrong choice.Yeah, I don't see why thislooks any better visually,than doing it right would.- Maybe what we're seeing in this movieis not technically correct.You gotta understand that,the special forces guys are getting us,it's not the way we do itbut we do like it that way.Because ISIS watches these filmsand they think that's what we do.Its good that they getit wrong in the moviesbecause then its not intelfor unfriendly forces.- Appearance of theexplosion is quite good,in the sense it looksvery jagged and violent.And yet they've added a coreof what looks like gasolineor some flammable liquid.To make it more visually interesting,you've got a hero in appareland we get to see not only the explosion,but we also get to seeits effects on things like the car body,where the car body isshedding rust and-so-forth,really adds dramatically to this sequence.I think I'd approach it bycreating some sort of dustthat looks like rust,placing it on the vehicleand then creating a mechanical shockto that vehicle somehow,with a pneumatic cylinder- Yeah.- Yeah or beatingwith a sledgehammer maybe,but its a little bitmassive for a sledgehammer.- The old rusted vehicle, looks great.But in reality,if you got an air blast,what'll happen is that,material will go one way,away from the explosion,and then get sucked back intowards the explosion afterwards.- [Speaker] No Country For Old Men.- Technically for this to work,there really should notbe that much gasolinein the tank of the vehiclebecause what's going to explode,is the gasoline vapors mixed with air.The actual gasolinevapors push the air out,so its not an explosivemixture inside the tank.So technically,a little farfetched.If you put a rag down a gas tank,it would act like a candle,then it would continuouslysuck up gasoline along that,and that would then be burningon the outside of the vehicle,but you certainly wouldn'tget a huge explosion.- Contrary to popularstereotype, at least,most of the filmmakers I've worked withare very conscious of that.They wanna make a coolpiece of entertainment.Not an instruction manual on how to,you know, kill your neighborsor for 16 year old kids,to have accidents or anything like that.So yeah, they will oftentry to show somethingthat looks like it would work,but really doesn't createthe way cool effectthat you think it would.- 'Cause they're gonnaget a lot of backlashif it does work.- And this extends to stuntsand a lot of things like that,where they'll try topick something that looksvisually cool, advances the story,but isn't just a huge recipe for disaster.This whole sequence isa nuance combinationof different effects.Both in the actual explosionand in the building,all keyed together andall without overwhelmingthe dramatic affect ofwhat we're trying to do,which is sell the ideathat this is a distraction,not something that is way cool,and is supposed to make usbelieve in the explosionas the main focus of the scene.Breaking the glass is again,like a tempered glassbroken with detonators.To control not only the breakage of itbut the exact timing, you'llnotice it does not comeas exactly the same timeas the car explosion,there's a slight delay.Which is goodbecause if you saw theglass break at the same timeas the explosion, it wouldobscure the explosionwhich would be stupid.- That glass in thewindows fall straight down.with an explosion, we'd have a blast wavethat would break that glass,would either push throughglass into the shop,okay, or would flex intothe shop and then reboundand fall outside, but itwould not fall straight downlike a waterfall, whichis the effect you getwhen you watch it.- Filmmaking is the artof creating an illusionin the minds and thehearts of the audience.Technical realism only hasto be there to the degreethat the audience expects it.- And when you're a professionaland you're doing it for entertainment.You have to think about the audience.- Its important that the audience believeswhat you're doing enoughto be entertained.And that's what we're striving for.