Graham Maunder
The only time I ever worked with some ammunitions, I was unfortunate to be travelling through Heathrow the next day with the same camera assistant that had been with me on the army base.
I went through security and scanning etc with no issues (even with the camera, etc) but was suddenly aware of a big police presence surrounding the adjoining checking area. Sure enough it was my poor assistant with his trusty Billingham bag and they obviously didn’t like what they found when they had ‘swabbed’ it!!
Luckily with yesterday’s call sheet in my backpack and some understanding officials, we put their mind at rest that we had indeed been near explosives but for a legitimate reason.
Took a few swift ones at the bar to calm him back down though.
I often reminded him of the need to be nice to me after that as I could have just walked away!
Pat Heigham
This was precisely the scenario that passed through my mind when travelling through Munich airport at the time of a G8 conference. The Betacam was whisked off for swabbing and I wondered if it had maybe previously been used on a shoot in a quarry where explosives had been employed. It came back clean, thankfully.
Peter Hider
I was making a tv series called “Echo Beach” for ITV at the Longcross Studios near Chobham which was formerly an army testing site for, among other things, transport, lasers and gyro systems. When it was made over to civilian use the army did a final sweep for munitions and the all-clear given. As the site was being developed as film studios the Site Manager was called out urgently by one of his ground staff to look at a tarpaulin covered mound which had pointy bits sticking out. The Bomb Disposal squad were called and confirmed that there were three armed Exocet missiles. The Sergeant in charge immediately took out his phone and asked for the M3 to be closed, trains to be diverted and Heathrow to change their flight paths. The controlled explosion that followed could be felt for miles. He said if one had gone off it could have reached Guildford.
At the height of the ‘troubles’, Grandstand was on the air in G at Lime Grove. Brian Cowgill was in full flow such that when a very respectful member of the Corps of Commissionaires slid into the gallery nobody took any notice for some time. Finally the TM2 noticed him and asked what he wanted. He said there had been a bomb warning and that the studio should be evacuated. Ginger’s ears pricked up at this point and turned to asked what time it was going off. The Commissionaire looked at his watch and his piece of notepaper and sheepishly said “Oh I’m sorry it seems I’ve waited so long we’ve missed it.” Ginger went back to firing and shouting at P.A.s I have to add that I was not present for either of these events so can’t vouch for their veracity but I’ve been told about them by different people.
Roger Long
When filming “Monocled Mutineer” on the Somerset levels, Special FX has explosive charges a-plenty left over from the trench scenes. They piled them together in various thunder pots and let rip. I had placed spot Sennheiser MD 441s quite close for the bang. It was enormous, the whole peat surface formed a wave and shook violently. FX still had some short ends and were rigging a final blast when an irate Farmer screamed up in his Landy and told us in no uncertain term to desist. He was milking in his parlour some 2 miles away and the dairy herd had gone berserk. One of my 441s went missing. 6 months later, Design returned it, when they were clearing the site, it still worked perfectly.
In Belfast filming a “Man Alive” story on the Falls we were staying in the Europa and had the inevitable bomb warning: the camera man Tony Pierce Roberts and I decamped to the convenient pub across the road, all Brass and Mahogany. Tony was straight out of the shower dressed only in a towel… We had a fun night. There was a controlled explosion and we returned to our rooms at 2 am. They had all been burgled in our absence. I enjoyed recording machine guns from Bapty. The Lewis gun in particular firing wooden blanks, a tremendous bark. The Vickers and the Hun MG not quite as terrifying, but they were firing wadding blanks.
Bernie Newnham
I don’t have much experience of bombs, but perhaps a little more than most, having spent some days filming on a bomb disposal course – “Everyone has to blow something up, even you”.
At one point I was changing tapes and my assistant Antonia appeared with four sticks of plastic explosive that she had been handed, to use to blow some stuff up. Well, we’d filled in the risk assessment.
[As regards actual Bomb] disposal, we watched two methods of sorting a 1000 pounder. One was to pile discs of sheet plastic explosive seven high, separated by Vaseline, then stick a remote control detonator in the top of the pile. It would force a disc of the shell into the bomb, whizzing around inside. The seal was thus broken and the explosive “just” burns.
The other was to run a circle of shaped charge around the flat end and blow it off. One we didn’t get to cover was what they did with a faulty rocket, because we were too busy. The chaps doing that one got it wrong and when they blew the charge, it set off for France, though it didn’t get very far. They had to come back the next day and do it right. They couldn’t do it that day because the tide was on its way back.
Another way, when the bomb is in deep hole, is to cover it with a huge tarpaulin, and fill that with water. We didn’t get to film that one, as there wasn’t a suitable one whilst we were around. They provided us with an army recording – a lot of water going everywhere.
John Nottage
Puts me in mind of when Special Defects were going to blow up the Cybermens’ spaceship on “Dr Who”. The EM (Ian Dow?) stepped out of the scanner to discover them pouring petrol into bin bags right next the scanner power input! Needless to say, he was not happy…
Mind you, it looked impressive when they set it off, but the sound was very disappointing.
Pat Heigham
Having worked on several ‘action’ movies with multiple explosions, I chatted to the SFX guys, who explained that most of the debris thrown up was vermiculite and coal dust/sawdust – looks good on camera, but lightweight for sound. Resorted to dubbing on a few thumps from naval gun! They did say that to make the right noise, it would take out the whole studio! I was intrigued that to show human bodies being blown into the air, the stunt guys would jump onto a trampoline out of frame, and as they hit the net, the charge was triggered in sync, so it looked as if they had been blown up.
I had an interesting job, once for the Army, on Salisbury Plain, showing how to deploy and fire a 25 pounder, towed by a Landrover. Used a 4037 close to the breech to get the loading and firing commands and FX, then put up an 816 pointing vertically upwards, down range at the extent of my cables. Captured the whistle of the shell passing overhead – I was delighted with that!
The BBC instituted a gadget called the Programme Effects Generator (PEG) which used special tape cassettes with instant start for playback and ran for a max of 30 secs. Ideal for spot FX, and I was able to keep a WW1 battle going for some time with gunfire and bangs accurately interspersed with the dialogue. Effectively dubbing the track as we went along.
Chris Glass
I can’t remember the program in Television Centre, but it was an audience show.
Special Effects had made a trough about 2 ft long and 3inches wide and deep, and it was divided into 6 sections with a pyro to trigger each section.
WHOOPS!! the percussion from the first triggered the whole lot and blew the trough to bits. Fortunately, the bits didn’t hit anyone.
Pat Heigham
Sounds like a Michael Bentine “Square World” prank!
Doug Puddifoot
A “Tomorrow’s World” item about safe breaking. If robbers blow a safe, a capsule inside bursts and coats everything in indelible dye.
Worked well on rehearsal. On transmission, the explosion blew a 30 cm hole in a very heavy carpet covering the door, and shifted it about 4 metres across the studio. My ears were ringing for days.
Alan Taylor
When we were shooting “The Tripods”, there was a scene where the Tripods attack our heroes in a building and destroy the building.
The location manager found a semi-derelict building which not only looked the part, but could be completely blown up too.
Special Effects wired up the place with explosives and as we all know, special effects explosions only come in one of two sizes, too small or too big. Come the big scene the explosion was hopelessly underwhelming and most of the building remained standing. Special Effects quickly discovered that most of their explosives charges hadn’t detonated.
We couldn’t do a retake as the building was too damaged, so it was decided that they would reconnect them to the firing control and set them off like fireworks, with the added thrill of destroying a building for good measure. We were graced with the presence of a BBC safety officer who decided to supervise the safety precautions.
Most of the crew were marshalled into a safe area, away from harm but able to get a good view. He was supposed to ensure that nobody approached the house from the other direction. However, if he did that, he wouldn’t have been able to see much of the explosion, so once the explosion was imminent, he moved to get a better view.
Meanwhile in the scanner, we were packing up for the night and nobody had thought to tell us that they were going to blow up the remaining explosives. I was puzzled why so few radio talkbacks had been returned and set off to find them. I walked down the lane to the house and just as I got through the gate, there was a huge explosion. I was shaken up, but miraculously unharmed. The safety officer appeared and when I discovered that his particular task had been to stop anybody doing what I had just done, I had what could tactfully be described as a robust exchange with him.
After we left site, a company was engaged to finish off the demolition and they discovered some further explosives which meant that bomb disposal engineers had to be called to clear them. All in all, not a particularly good day for special effects dept.
For those of you who have spent your life in studios, explosions obviously have to be at the “indoor firework” end of the spectrum, but when on location and especially in remote locations, the SFX people can work on a more spectacular scale, limited mainly by the budget available.
One aspect … is using substances like Fuller’s Earth or bags of cement to blow up and create a massive dust cloud too. I’m not sure if current H&S regulations allow that, but it used to be commonplace in locations where there was no need to clean up the mess afterwards. You get the big mushroom cloud followed by billowing dust and smoke clouds rolling along the ground.
When we were shooting “Woman in White” on location, the last day of shooting was a half day on Nov 6, which meant that the wrap party was going to be on Nov 5th. The location was a large country estate near Sudbury, so it didn’t take a lot of original thinking to come up with the idea of having a bonfire party.
There had been a number of unit parties throughout the shoot and each week the crew put a nominal amount of money into a kitty for alcohol. By the end of the shoot, the kitty had built up nicely and somebody asked SFX if they would provide fireworks in exchange for the cash leftover in the kitty. There were two schools of thought about what SFX would deliver for such a paltry sum. It could have been a damp squib or alternatively something akin to the opening salvo of WW3. Fortunately they gathered a lot of ‘leftover stuff’ from other jobs and it turned out to be the latter.
The first thing needed was a bonfire. Art dept donated scenery and other flammable materials, while the riggers toured the estate in land rovers collecting fallen branches. In a very short time a huge bonfire was built and SFX were left to make preparations.
On the night, the bonfire was to be lit by the PA Janet Radenkovic, using a script rolled up and lit to make an Olympic style torch. The cast and crew were all marshalled into a roped off viewing area and it soon became clear why. Janet lit a sort of gunpowder trail which fizzed and sparked its way along to the bonfire and when it reached the bonfire triggered a massive explosion. SFX had topped the bonfire with 5 gallons of diesel and petrol, blown up with gelignite, which created a massive mushroom cloud and it felt like it was singeing our eyebrows. The bonfire itself was laced with napalm type jelly and ignited instantly, like you’ve only ever seen happen in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
Then the fireworks started, again on a massive scale with large fireworks being fired from mortars to produce spectacular aerial bursts. One other thing they did was to dig rows of small charges into the ground just in front of the viewing area. They set up a massive flare firework aimed sideways along that line and when it went off, they followed on by detonating the buried charges sequentially in the manner of being strafed by machine guns. None of us were expecting that and it was quite scary for some because they thought that it had gone wrong – which was exactly what they were intended to think.
The location had a number of young Dutch ladies working there on exchange conservation attachments. Obviously they were invited to the party and they were hugely impressed by the pyrotechnics. The sparks assured them that it was a typical British fireworks party and pointed to flashes from other ones happening all over the skyline.
Nick Ware
Just out of nosiness, what mic, what recorder and was it via a mixer, and if so, what? (So that we can understand gain structures, clipping, etc.!)
Alan Taylor
The mic was a Neumann RSM191 stereo gun mic. In those days I normally used a Filmtech FSP4 mixer with custom remote slider faders ( the mixer had VCAs ), but for explosions covered with no more than two mics, I would usually ditch the mixer and feed the mics directly into my HHB Portadat. Minimising the stuff between the mic and the recorder tends to reduce the chances of anything screwing up the transients.
The SFX people had told me enough so that I could work out that it was going to be more of a woomph than a bang, so I there was little point in using a second, more distant gun mic to pick up the reverberation off the surroundings to make it sound bigger. Besides, it was a terribly noisy location and an ‘air’ mic would have only gathered more unwanted noises.
Mike Minchin
I passed this info on to Janet Radenkovic, and she remembers “the bonfire” at Kentwell Hall well. She also used it to dispose of unwanted scripts – those being the days before recycling. She remembers Alan Taylor, and also Bert Robinson, EM1.
This exchange was via my partner, Margot Hayhoe, one time AFM, then Production Manager. Since her retirement, she has, from time to time, done Extra work, and, relevant to Alan’s missive, she worked on the day when SFX “blew up” a bus on Lambeth Bridge for a Jackie Chan film. She was positioned on the bridge, some way from the bus, facing away (towards Lambeth Palace), and on “action” she started walking. When the big bang happened, she acted surprised and turned towards the bus – and promptly received a wad of cork in the face! There was a great outcry about the stunt, because it was relatively soon after genuine terrorist bombings around London. It was well advertised, but, naturally, the message didn’t get through to many people, and those in the vicinity of Westminster thought it was a real outrage.
Alan Taylor
[Here is an] explosion picture taken while filming on location for “Alas Smith and Jones”. I’m on the right of frame with my trusty Ursta Cart.
When shooting sequences like this, or something like a car crash, you rarely get a second take, therefore setting the level correctly for an explosion entails a certain amount of informed guesswork. A chat with the SFX people often offers a clue about how loud it will be and after that, the technique is to turn off the limiters and feed the microphone to two channels, with one set at a lower level than the other, just in case.
I used to work a lot with the lighting EM John King and we often had a bet about how accurately I could anticipate the explosion level. I would mark chinagraph lines on the PPM at 4 and 6 and if the needle peaked within the lines, he bought me a drink and if it peaked outside, I bought him a drink. He ended up buying me more drinks than I bought him. Guessing the level of an explosion to within ± 4dB might seem like a tall order, but it’s not as tricky as you might think.
During the closing ceremony for the commonwealth games in Manchester, my scanner was also covering the 21 gun salute. There was some sort of tie-in with Audio Technica where all microphones had to be from their range. Their rep lent m a stereo pair of large diaphragm capacitor mics, complete with proper Rycote windshields and distant gun mics for ‘air’ and reverb. The only rehearsal was before the games even started. I set the mics up, turned off the dynamics and EQ on the sound desk and quickly homed in on the optimum gain settings. All settings were carefully noted, but those particular channels were able to be left untouched for the duration of the games and when the closing ceremony was televised, the same mics were put in the same positions and we got some rather splendid howitzer effects peaking a touch less than 6 on the PPM.
