Ball of fire exploding car

[Nicholas Kinsey]

In a couple of weeks I need to shoot a burning car (at night) with a ball of fire around it. The explosion will simply be the reflected light on the actor faces looking at the scene (propane gas ball of fire effect). We have to show the burning car for perhaps 5 seconds so that spectator will think that no one could have approached the vehicle to save the person inside.

 

We shoot on 35mm and then do CGI for these effects. I need to know how much can be done on the original negative before adding the fire effects or smoke or whatever.

 

We have an actor we will put in the front seat behind the wheel with a blackened face and clothes hunched over the wheel. I was thinking of putting smoke inside the vehicle or behind the vehicle and blowing inside the vehicle. Backlight all this so the smoke stands out.

 

What about windows? Would they have blown on the explosion or not?

 

Has anyone done this before and can provide some advice. I am not sure how good fire effects are in CGI. Also the cost of doing everything in CGI might be too much for our budget.

 

Regards,

Nicholas

[jasonknightvfx]

In a couple of weeks I need to shoot a burning car (at night) with a ball of fire around it. The explosion will simply be the reflected light on the actor faces looking at the scene (propane gas ball of fire effect). We have to show the burning car for perhaps 5 seconds so that spectator will think that no one could have approached the vehicle to save the person inside.

 

We shoot on 35mm and then do CGI for these effects. I need to know how much can be done on the original negative before adding the fire effects or smoke or whatever.

 

We have an actor we will put in the front seat behind the wheel with a blackened face and clothes hunched over the wheel. I was thinking of putting smoke inside the vehicle or behind the vehicle and blowing inside the vehicle. Backlight all this so the smoke stands out.

 

What about windows? Would they have blown on the explosion or not?

 

Has anyone done this before and can provide some advice. I am not sure how good fire effects are in CGI. Also the cost of doing everything in CGI might be too much for our budget.

 

Regards,

Nicholas

 

Fire effects in CG can be quite convincing, but also time consuming. What I would suggest is setting a car on fire in a controlled envoronment, from a wreckers for example, and compositing it with the car you shot with your actor in it. That way you have live action fire as well as your actor, and control over how much fire you want in your shot because you have both plates to use.

 

Any additional fire can be created digitally (if you have the resources) and added in post to enhance your shot.

 

jasonknightvfx.com