Today we have another bit of fire from the video below.
Observations
This is a nice crop of some very violent flame. This flame was over 8ft tall and lasted no more than about 4s. There really isn’t much to be said about this fire other than that it is incredibly pretty. The motion is fun to watch, the way it rolls over and around the top of the window frame.
Today I finally get to show you the project I was referencing with the flaming window shots. This is the video for “The arms of sorrow” by Killswitch Engage. The flames were used in that little segment with the firefighter. That was our only part in this video, but the rest of the video is a good showcase of slow motion footage. Special thanks to Eric, Nick, Brandon, and Matt for their assistance with the shots.
Video Direction: Aggressive
VFX/Compositing: Aggressive
Production Company: RefusedTV
Record Label: Roadrunner Records
Materials
A wood framework window.
Black tin-foil (from FilmTools)
Gun powder
Kerosene
Procedure
This was a fun shot to make. We first built the framework and the flu to guide the fire. We then filled a small metal bowl (about 12″ in diameter) with 1/2lb of gun powder and misted it with kerosene to slow the reaction down. We also sprayed the sides of the enclosure with kerosene to leave give the impression that the fire was burning the wood frame.
Observations
This was an absolute blast for us to film. We don’t often get people asking us to do specific shots for them so this was especially fun for us, not only did we get to make something for a really nice music video but we got a chance to do a bit nicer setup than we ordinarily do (this happens when you have a budget). This video is a prime example of what slow motion filming is good for as it pertains to entertainment. Most of this video was filmed with a Phantom high-speed camera. Sadly, I myself have not yet had the opportunity to film with a Phantom camera but I hope that will eventually change. There are so many things that can be observed in this video that I will leave it up to the viewer to decide what is worth observing.
This is another shot from that as of yet unnamed project.
Observations
There isn’t much to say about this that can’t be seen. The difference in color from the sides and the primary flame comes from a difference in fuel, the main flame is fueled by gun powder, the sides have been sprayed with kerosene.
This is the start of the Diet Coke and Mentos fountain I posted last.
Materials
Diet coke
Mint Mentos
Procedure
Drop the Mentos in the 2-liter.
Result
Instant sticky fountain.
Observations
This was the start of a rather nice fountain, though sadly too high to capture all of it. It is interesting to note the beginning of resistance, where the fountain stream begins to become turbulent and fall back onto itself. The subsequent collisions are really rather cool too.
Yesterday was another fun day at Matt Deal farms. Brandon, Eric, Matt, Nick and myself all busied ourselves about the business of blowing things up. As usual it went wonderfully. Eric had a black powder bomb (see a Hollywood Special Effects book for details) and a precisely measured amount of gasoline, 1.5 gallons in this case. It resulted in a whole heap of flaming fun. Remember kids (and adults!) that any explosion is dangerous and potentially life threatening so please do not attempt this unless you are a trained professional.
Materials
We can skip this, if you don’t know how to make this already, you don’t need to be making it.
Procedure
Detonate using electronic detonation.
Result
A huge fireball! This was filmed with a 25mm which gives you approximately 13.3 degrees fov (field of view). Doesn’t sound like much does it? What this means is that at 100ft the left to right span is around 18ft. The camera was a little more than 100ft from the explosion, this makes the fireball roughly 17ft wide and probably 30-40ft tall, its hard to tell exactly as the fireball was cropped at the top. The fireball itself (including the residual smoke) rose well over the tops of the nearby trees. The trees were all mature Georgia Pines (60-90ft tall). All this to say, it was big! Though the camera didn’t catch it the smoke from the explosion was gorgeous, a nice little mushroom. Eric set this up perfectly, there was not a bit of residual gas around or in the tube. The most interesting thing about this explosion to me is the manner in which the fireball evolves, grasping at the vaporized gas.
Today we look at the secretions from a very large Ungulate in the subfamily Bovinae, of the family of Bovidae. Ok, ok. So it’s milk from a cow, processed milk at that. But somehow one sounds so much stranger and interesting than the other.
Materials
A cow. Or you could save some effort and pick up some in a bottle at the store. I did.
Large transparent container.
Light cube with a black background. The light cube is used to reduce the reflections from the glass container.
Water.
Procedure
Pour the milk into the water filled glass.
Result
Initially the intent was to capture the entire view of the milk but that turned out to be impossible with the lens selection and the light cube I was using. I plan on redoing this shot with better lighting conditions as well as a larger cube. The billowy nature of fluids interacting with one another has always fascinated me and in fact is one of the things that first got me interested in cg fluid simulation. Primarily because creating fluid simulations in CG allows you to slow it down. A high-speed camera can do the same thing…only faster. A fluid simulation done similar to this shot would take on the order of two days or so to simulate. This shot took less than three seconds to film. I’m a big fan of that kind of time savings. The billowing of the milk is neat to watch at any rate.
Today we look at another Diet Coke and Mentos shot. This one I captured only the trailing end of the fountain.
Materials
Diet Coke 2 Liter
5 Mint Mentos
Standard fare of black background material.
Procedure
Drop the 5 Mentos in the Diet Coke and back up quickly.
Result
In this one we get to see a really large spray on its way back down. The spray fanning out and breaking is especially interesting to watch. The strands and globules that rain down shortly before the larger umbrella are a fascinating study in terms of deformation. At any rate, enjoy!
