Breakaway objects have been the constant companion of stunt men for some time. Without them, stunt men would repeatedly get injured whenever they would get thrown through windows or tables or chairs, and the high mortality rate would make replacing them difficult to a degree several times to the side of “uncomfortable”. Luckily, very early in the history of special effects someone found a way to make things that, well were kind of crappy in their construction, and in doing so we produced a way to allow stunt men to smash all sorts of things over each others heads with nary an injury. The most famous, and most awesome to watch breakaway object is breakaway glass. Action movie protagonists have done everything from jumping through it, getting hit by it, heck they have even driven cars through it! It’s safe, its affordable, and its actually pretty easy to make out of household items. No other breakaway object has gotten such a workout.

That video is an example of a plain old breakaway bottle. Since the bottle is essentially made out of melted sugar, it breaks about as easy as a candy stick. Sure you feel some impact, but the bottle pretty much shatters on contact into a million impressive pieces for your audience. You still need some training though, mostly in where to take the hit to your head without hitting a vital point or weak point. However if you can get that down, you’ll be smashing bottles over your head in no time.

On the contrary let’s look at this video, of a guy getting smashed in the head in the wrong way. You can see the crippling pain he is going through quite clearly from taking the hit wrong. I’m not actually convinced that the wine glass was made of breakaway glass, in which case these guys were being very irresponsible. Still, the possibility is there because a non breakaway glass bottle generally hits with enough force to cause serious injury, and most of the time knock you right out.

When all is said and done you can make a breakaway glass… well anything really. Tables, vases, windshields, anything made out of glass that you can think of can be substituted for sugar glass just as easily. In this scene, we see someone get thrown off the second floor into a coffee table and get up without a scratch.

If you are interested in making your own breakaway glass, here are some kids to tell you how to do it. Now I suggest you don’t try this at home… not because it’s that dangerous per say if you do it correctly, but more because you will ruin just about all the cookware required… (trust me I tried.) Also without say, bottle molds or whatnot, all you can make are solid round panes of sugar glass, which look much less impressive when being broken over your best friends head.

Related posts on 30ninjas.com:

• Maniac Takes Molotov Cocktail to the Head
• Use What You Got Lying Around: Stunt Improvisation
• Look Ma, No Brains!
• The World’s Biggest *TWANG*
• Kite Surfing Accidents
• The Art of Escape