im looking for a way to throw a lot of dirt in the air to emulate a grenade or tank round explosion for my wwII movie. ive tried taking mortar fireworks and burying them 8" in the ground, the explosion only sends the dirt about 2 feet high, does anyone else know a better way that i dont have to have a pyrotechnic licence for?
As we discussed recently, Hollywood uses compressed air blasts from under the ground. I don't know whether anyone came up with a way to do that cheaply, if you can find the thread it may be worth a look.
Another solution is to have a lot of the explosions happen off camera. Guys throwing a shovel-full of dirt into frame sold with sound should be effective. When you get down to it, most explosions close enough to be a danger to the actor would have ripped the character to shreds so having the explosions a bit farther back isn't such a bad thing.
Unless you're Michael Bay but he probably has two teams of pyro guys.
RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA
RJSchwarz
