(explosion)
- We fabricate anything they need.
If it looks like it's physically there, we do it.
(ascending footsteps)
(glass shattering)
- That's cut.
(music)
- I'm Garry Elmendorf.
I'm the special effects supervisor.
I'm third generation special effects.
My grandfather started in the '20s.
My father started in the '50s, when I was born.
I started in the '70s.
They were good to me, but you always had to prove yourself.
It's not always that easy to be someone's son.
There's people who want to help you,
people who don't want to help you.
One of the guys that did took a liking to me and I went off
and at 21, we did the Deer Hunter.
I learned so much on that film
that it really kind of launched my career after that.
So this is the special effects department.
This is our fabrication shop
where we do all the pre-rigging, the design,
and the fabrication for the effects that are going on,
whatever they might be.
We bring a complete manufacturing setup.
We can do most anything right here.
We have a lot of unusual materials.
It's a metal shop on this side.
Here's the welding area.
And we bring a lot of tools.
We just bring a lot of supplies
that are specialized to Hollywood.
So it takes all of this equipment to feed those machines.
Everybody that watches the show is really
into the characters.
There's a lot of heart, big vistas.
There's a good balance between action and character.
We add our little piece to making it feel accurate,
dangerous, that type of thing.
(metal crunching)
That was good. (laughing)
Every time you turn around,
there's something really interesting to look at.
Mostly I've done feature films.
So I try to bring that quality of what we do to the screen.
It's difficult. It's television scheduling.
You kind of have to plan for actor availability, weather.
You know, you think you have a week to do something,
and it turns out it's tomorrow.
So then it's all hands on deck.
We're trying to hold it at a certain level
so that it's as real as possible.
(banging) (shots firing)
This is what we call an air mortar.
When we don't want to use pyrotechnics,
we can generate almost the same effect with air.
So today we have a shotgun blast here
as they round the corner.
- Three, two, one, go!
- The process is compressed air is in the tank.
When we initiate the button,
it opens a valve and dumps the air at a high rate of speed.
It opens instantaneously.
This is what we use for the explosion for Beth's office.
A lot of things happen in Beth's office.
We'll initiate the bomb, which is a pyrotechnic device.
It's going to be more or less a soft debris,
and we're only using this small diameter.
And then we'll fill the room
with dust and debris from the air.
- Weird.
- A box within a box.
- Wait, I don't know what that is.
Don't.
(explosion)
(people screaming)
(tires screeching)
- One of the scenes coming up is going to be Kayce.
There'll be someone enter.
He knows from the gunfire outside what's coming.
He flips the desk over and pulls his gun at the same time.
This desk weighs about 450 pounds.
So this is a lighter-weight version of the real desk.
So we'll have soft material in here
and a small pyrotechnic device.
And that gives you your bullet hit effect.
The hardware is antique.
So in order to match it, we have to stain and paint it.
We even took the books that are on the other side
and stripped the covers off
and put foam core in the middle of it.
And that lost 20 more pounds.
So it's all these things that we have to do
to create the illusion.
Set dec likes to get these beautiful one of a kind things
that we can't touch.
So we have to turn it into something that we can deal with.
There's some new technologies with 3-D printers.
This is going to be a shot
where Jamie punches through the window.
This is breakaway glass. So it's a thermal setting plastic.
You can't really cut it
unless you're only cutting straight lines.
So they make a form, which was this.
Then they'll pour the shape clear.
We took it to a company and they 3-D printed.
By utilizing the modern technology,
we can give them a better look and better parts.
(bluegrass music)
(grunts) (glass shatters)
I've been doing this 45 years,
and it's one of the nicest group of people.
Everybody seems to pull together.
- Action.
- The paint department, the construction department,
set decorating, art department's phenomenal, you know.
And we're kind of the engineers for everybody.
A lot of our work is making the scene come alive
and then keep it alive when things change.
It's never boring. We don't do the same thing twice.
Everything is a new challenge,
but each one has its own little unique thing
that you've got to worry about.
It's been really fun.
(music)