Break Through Wall Technique (Page 1) - Production - Forums

1 Topic by AFewBricksShort March 23, 2013 (03:17pm)

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Topic: Break Through Wall Technique

Thinking about a new film, and there's a technique that I've seen folks use in their films, that I can't even imagine how its done. It would work great in an upcoming story we want to do, but I'm hitting a wall, technically, when it comes to planning the shot.

Specifically, I am talking about the effect of something bursting through a wall. I am thinking about the shot being head-on while an object (at speed) blasts through the wall and bricks go flying with the object continuing toward the camera. How do you guys do that? Even a side view. The effect is basically the same, just the camera angle is different.

I've tried to frame by frame through some others films to see the effect, and I see the "stretch" of the wall before it blows open, but I don't understand how to do the breakthough and flying bricks.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, especially if you have (or can put together) a couple of shots showing how you did it.

Thanks!

~A Few Bricks Short Productions

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2 Reply by Pritchard Studios March 23, 2013 (05:10pm)

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Re: Break Through Wall Technique

Alrighty, here we go.

The animation challenge thread is always a great place to start looking for specific things to analyze.
For example, the winning entry for "Wall Smash" was this. Which is really more of a bricksplosion than a wall smash, but whatever.

Here's a frame-by-frame look at this window smash.

I seem to remember Squid having done a wall smash, but can't find it right now.
Namchild did a fantastically amazing window smash, and it really deserves a mention here.
It's just too bad that the nut deleted the video.

And I did a fairly lame one here.

One good trick to remember (If you're doing a front view) is that the flying bits don't have to fly towards the camera, they can just scoot parallel to the wall. With most of them doing that, and a few pieces sliding on the floor toward the camera, that'll be all you need. If done well, nobody will notice the "Cheating." A side view is much harder, so all I can say for that is happy masking.

A side view (especially in Slow-mo) would be a really good "Money-shot."
Just pretend that somebody off-camera is force-pulling a bunch of bricks towards himself. I know it'll take a while mask out so many support systems, and you may have to do several "layers" to insure everything gets masked properly, but the effect, if done well, could be spectacular.

I'm sure there are better examples of wall smashes somewhere, I just can't find them right now.