Big Bang Exploring The Joy of Explosives

Explosions can add drama, excitement, impact and humor to productions. A good bang can sustain or resolve suspense. And nothing makes a visual statement quite like blowing some object to smithereens.

I once produced a commercial for a computer dealer introducing a line of electronic abaci; the print ad support claimed the machines would "split the apple."

Naturally, I wanted to find some way to dissect an apple with a laser beam. Unfortunately, I was unable to borrow a sufficiently powerful laser from the Air Force. Since the advertiser's production budget was limited to a few hundred dollars, I eventually found a way to achieve the same effect with about 89 cents worth of props.

First, I bought an apple. I inserted a knife vertically into the side, through the core to within a half inch of the skin. Then I scored a vertical cross section through the meat so it would split like a clam shell when an appropriate level of force was applied along the resulting fissure. Then I brought out the firecrackers.

The questions now were: how many to use? How strongly does the skin of an apple bind it together? only one way to find out. And if it didn't work, well, my 89-cent prop budget would allow me a couple more apples.

I inserted a single firecracker into the incision in the apple and placed the booby-trapped fruit onto a black seamless background. The fuse protruded on the side away from the camera.

My camera was set up about fifteen feet away. I zoomed in fairly tight on the apple, rolled tape, and lit the fuse. Before I could back up as far as I wished the apple exploded with incredible violence, splitting perfectly into two major pieces, hurling smaller chunks all over the studio and covering me with applesauce.

In post, we played back the explosion in slow motion then superimposed a prerecorded laser beam over the doomed fruit. We used a circular wipe to mask the luminance key where it intersected the apple, so the beam appeared to be passing through the split. The effect, and the commercial, succeeded quite spectacu…