We're On Fire

Let's start with the creation of effects in a burning house, a scenario that requires two types of action: closeup and medium shots of people in and around the building, and long shots of the entire edifice on fire.

Night time fire sequences are easier to rig and appear more dramatic than flames in daylight; the latter depend heavily on smoke. So we'll burn on a moonless night, a night of big trouble in the home of the Steeds.

The fire began to the rear of the domicile, and has already spread to the upper floor.Jonathan's frightened screams have alerted the rest of the family; he and brother James are trapped in an upstairs room. They've opened the window and are crying desperately down at their mother, who has run round to the front of the house to wring her hands in dismay.

Now we watch Mr. Steed and his neighbor, Asprey Blythe, frantically trying to break the chain locking the ladder to the wall of the garage.

Out on the front lawn Mrs. Steed is screaming louder than her offspring. We see her, lit from above, with a whiff of smoke drifting across the shot.

From her point of view we see the two children, starkly backlit against the fire. For this we illuminate the room with all the lamps we can muster. Unless we want to silhouette their faces we must light them from the front.

We have to make the room look as if it's really on fire. Bright light will suffice as long as we add smoke-something clean and odor-friendly, as we're recording in the lads' actual bedroom and we don't want it fouled up.

Before applying the smoke we must know which way the wind is blowing. There's no point in releasing smoke if it's bound to be blown back into the room. Hopefully it's possible to open a window at the back of the building so the wind can blow the smoke out the bedroom window. If there's no such helpful draft the trick is to rig a sheet of clear polythene behind the actors to funnel smoke up and around them.

Remember never to use flame of any sort when people are backed with inflammable materials. And don't make too much smoke; we want our actors to breathe.

Now we need a really dramatic closeup of the faces of the trapped. This time, though viewers believe Jonathan andJames are still framed in the window, they're actually outside the house, recorded from a suitably low angle. The lads are backed by an out-of-focus sheet of white erected some distance behind, so now we may use flame and smoke more freely.

And soon James looks back over his shoulder, horrified to see flames rising b…