Most peo­ple think SFX tech­ni­cians do noth­ing else but to blow up things all day long. In real­i­ty, pyrotech­nic effects make up only 10% of our work, but they are cer­tain­ly among the most impres­sive ones we realize.

But not all explo­sions are done with pyrotech­nics by us, some­times we also use oth­er tech­niques to sim­u­late them, espe­cial­ly near actors. We have a wide range of bespoke equip­ment made in-house which allows us to do this.

Noth­ing beats the real thing, as a proverb says, and this is only too true when it comes to explo­sions, pyrotech­nic effects and fire­works of any kind and size. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, in all these areas, dig­i­tal effects have been tried again and again for years — with usu­al­ly poor­er results and often high­er costs in post-pro­duc­tion. With our work we take care of the lev­el of real­i­ty you want in front of the cam­era and with our decades of expe­ri­ence we ensure the suc­cess of the effect and the secu­ri­ty of all par­ties involved. No mat­ter what the scale.

The safe han­dling of pyrotech­nics and explo­sives on set requires a high degree of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and expe­ri­ence. Through­out our company’s entire his­to­ry, we have been able to imple­ment the wish­es of direc­tors and pro­duc­ers in hun­dreds of pro­duc­tions with­out any accidents.

BASICS

With every appli­ca­tion of pyrotech­nics on the set, we have to involve dif­fer­ent author­i­ties in the plan­ning and need to obtain a per­mit, with­out which our work would oth­er­wise be a crim­i­nal offence. In rare cas­es, how­ev­er, this can also lead to the effect not being allowes at the desired time, loca­tion or size.

In any case, please cal­cu­late at least two weeks in advance for correspondence.

In case of larg­er effects, we also need a water source to be able to extin­guish any fires that may occur. Our fire engines have built in tanks, but these are only suf­fi­cient for small fire-fight­ing oper­a­tions. If there are no func­tion­ing fire hydrants, we have to install mobile water stor­age tanks on site and work with tanker trucks. Depend­ing on the effect and fur­ther cir­cum­stances, a pro­fes­sion­al fire brigade will also have to remain at the site of the effect for sev­er­al hours to pre­vent fires to reignite.

ON LOCATION

Of course, the own­er or man­ag­er of a loca­tion must give his (writ­ten) con­sent; obtain­ing this is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the pro­duc­tion and with­out a per­mit we will not start work in any case!

Real explo­sions are rarely made in exist­ing struc­tures, unless they are ruins or build­ings due to be demol­ished. We rather recre­ate parts of the orig­i­nal as so-called break­aways and assem­ble them on site or some­times sim­u­late explo­sions only. In build­ings, it is nec­es­sary to pay atten­tion to exist­ing fire alarm systems!

Explo­sions are usu­al­ly not a prob­lem out­doors, but dam­age to the ground and veg­e­ta­tion must be tak­en into account.

IN THE STUDIO

Explo­sions in the stu­dio or on stage are only car­ried out in small scale and are oth­er­wise sim­u­lat­ed. In prin­ci­ple, the approval of the admin­is­tra­tion, the respon­si­ble stage man­ag­er and the local fire brigade is required. The size of an effect in the stu­dio also depends on the size of the building.

Also many restric­tions may apply here. We will dis­cuss the effect with the con­struc­tion crew before­hand to avoid the use of unsuit­able mate­ri­als and sta­t­i­cal­ly unsuit­able struc­tures on the set.

ACTORS

Talk about planned effects with your actress­es and actors before­hand, because not every­one man­ages such scenes with­out any prob­lems. We will also dis­cuss the effect with them in advance and, if nec­es­sary, we will car­ry out a train­ing or tests; espe­cial­ly in scenes with larg­er crowds.

The cos­tumes of actors and also props should also be adapt­ed to the cir­cum­stances; We will be hap­py to advise the respec­tive depart­ments and, if required, also make non-com­bustible copies of items.

CREW & EQUIPMENT

The big­ger and more dan­ger­ous an effect, the less per­son­nel should be in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty — in case of an emer­gency, every unnec­es­sary per­son on set rep­re­sents a risk in case of evacuation.

The cam­era crew usu­al­ly wants to be as close as pos­si­ble to the action; exact risk assess­ment is nec­es­sary here. Shields and hear­ing pro­tec­tion can be used in some cas­es, but often the use of remote heads is bet­ter and safer. Some­times how­ev­er, only cam­eras in spe­cial hous­ings can sur­vive near the effect. We can offer you bespoke con­struc­tions in our workshop.

AFTERWARDS

The effect and the scene are wrapped. Now you can start clean­ing up and repair cal­cu­lat­ed (!) dam­age. How­ev­er before we do this, we’ll do an inspec­tion to make sure that there are no remains of pyrotech­nics left on the set.

In rare cas­es, also a check of the struc­tur­al integri­ty needs to be done after the effect..