strobe lighting for effects in a film

[Adrian1]

hi I'm doing research for a white explosion I have to provide for a film effect. I think the best way is to use a strobe lighting effect. My question to you guys is what is the brightest, most controllable (in terms of fps and flash intensity). We would like to sinc the strobe to the camera so we can maximise the flash with in the shutter opening. Thanks for reading this

[paulears]

Strobes look absolutely nothing like an explosion. you need pyros, or some time in your editor to create animations. The physics of the explosion are nothing like a lighting strike - which is the closest natural effect to a strobe discharge. In addition, explosions are a point source that expands rapidly, perhaps taking seconds to reach the edges of your video frame. A strobe lasts a very, very short time.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by a 'white' explosion.

 

strobe discharges can also be so short that the camera doesn't even see it, or worse, a portion of the screen does and the other doesn't;t giving a bright band of light!

[kerry davies]

Agree on strobes not being suitable but have you not thought of

and using small gerbs then superimposing the result?

[Dave m]

Depends what you're after

[Jivemaster]

First spend an hour watching youtube searching for explosions -there are millions. Then in conjunction with the script determine what you want the explosion to look like then work out how to do that.

 

Definitely plan to work in miniature and slow the "film" down for projection. Definitely plan EXACTLY how it's going to work and how big it really can or needs to be.

 

There are enough youtube vids of "how a bond film sfx was done" and they really don't tell much of the detail.

 

The Thunderbirds title sequence was done in a model no more than 1m across (including a full oil refinery!) and had a total NEC of about 10g! Lots of "flying debris" was the leather and rubber trimmings from a shoe repairers! Many trial runs were needed to co-ordinate every component of the scene into the title sequence and adjust every charge by decimals of a gram to make them all look right. IIRC it was shot at 60 or 75 fPS for display on TV at 25fps.

 

 

You explosion only needs to take about 10 frames / half a second, the rest is debris and flames, maybe no more than 5 seconds in all.

 

Alternatively do the BECTU HE SFX course (4 days £500 ish) and learn how much you need to know and how little you really do know after the course but without several months of experience.