My last post I talked about doing a small insert shot for Fair Game using flash paper and fire. It brought to mind other times I’ve had to use fire for insert shots in my films, because the shot we just did for Fair Game is very similar to a shot I did in Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Early in that movie, there’s a scene that takes place down in Columbia, right after Brad and Angie first meet, and they’re dancing. She then takes a shot glass and throws it into a barrel that has a fire in it, causing a big whoosh of fire to come out of the barrel. That whoosh of fire I shot in a charcoal grill behind our editing office in Santa Monica with lighter fluid and a match. I just practiced and filmed different whooshes until I got a nice big one that I liked, and the effects people created a composite for the movie in which it looked like my whoosh of fire was coming out of the barrel.

The first time I had to play with fire and explosions was when I was in film school. I’d been hired to do a commercial with a company called Mall TV that involved exploding a TV in the middle of the desert. An effects guy taught me how to blow up the TV, and one of the things I needed for the effect was gunpowder. So I went to a gun shop in Culver City. It was the middle of the afternoon, the place was packed, and I went up to the counter and said I was looking for some gunpowder. When the man behind the counter asked what I was going to use it for, I was honest, and said I was shooting a TV commercial and I needed to blow up a TV in the middle of the desert. He told me he couldn’t sell me gunpowder for that; he was only allowed to sell gunpowder for musket loading “OK,” I said, “I’m using it for musket loading.” Well, he didn’t go for that and said it was too late since I’d already told him the truth. So I crossed the street and bought the gunpowder at another store, making sure this time to declare my solemn intention to use the powder for musket loading.

My biggest takeaway from that shoot was that I found it’s actually very hard to make gunpowder explode. You can drop a match on gunpowder, and it won’t go up. Not that you should try this at home, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that whatever grade of musket-loading gunpowder I bought, it would not go up unless you added a fair amount of pressure. So for that, I found I needed a detonator, and I did eventually blow up the TV.

Probably my most dramatic experience filming fire inserts was on Go. In that film, there’s a scene where a character sets a hotel room ablaze in Vegas. We had done a scene with all the effects people that looked really great, setting the whole room on fire for real with the actress in it. But we were missing the close-up shot of the fire actually starting. The fire starts with a tissue that’s smoldering, and it goes from smoldering to catching on fire, and from a small fire to lighting the curtains on fire. We needed a close-up for the scene if it was going to be really successful. So I went to a Home Depot and bought a lantern battery, lighter fluid, a switch, steel wool, curtains, a curtain rod, a carpet, and a fire extinguisher. If I was Home Depot and saw what I was carrying when I went to the cash register, I would not have sold myself these things, especially given what I looked like, but luckily they did. When I got to the editing room I went to the producers’ office (the producers had moved out) and I set the curtains up, put the carpet down to match, and played around with how you create something that smolders and catches on fire. In the movie, the whole hotel room goes up in flames, so in the producers’ office I ended up lighting the tissue and shooting the fire as it leapt to the curtains, setting the smoke alarms off. I then put the fire out with the extinguisher. It’s just me in the producer’s office, and my editors in the next room over, and there was smoke everywhere when I put out the curtains. Steve Mirrione, my editor, threatened to quit if I ever did that again, and for the whole rest of the film, there was a huge charred black wall in the empty office. It’s a great scene in the movie, and I’m really proud of it. Gotta love playing with fire.

Related posts on 30ninjas.com:

• Doug Liman Blog: VFX Shots and the Amazing Combustible Producer Avram Ludwig
• Doug Liman Blog: Previsualizing a VFX Moon Rover Chase
• Doug Liman Blog: We’re Still Waiting for the Director to Show Up
• Doug Liman Blog: What I Learn From Sherlock Holmes, My Dear Ninjas
• Doug Liman Blog: Fair Game and Covert Affairs Collide in DC
• Doug Liman Blog: Fair Game Reshoot Tests — Abducting an Arms Dealer in My Basement