RICHIE HELMER: 3, 2, 1...
[Snap]
[Laughter]
IAN HUNTER: Right now we've got
a little radio controlled tank
and we're going to try to show
what we can do for creating a barrel blast.
We just changed the battery,
so we're going to test our tank,
see if it's working.
We were having a little trouble before.
Ah! Here we go, okay perfect.
RICHIE: Mainly panning,
I think is the best thing we could do on this, Alex.
IAN: Okay.
ALEX: In that direction?
RICHIE: Yeah just uh, in this case,
that camera can get more of it than this camera.
This camera will get it more from the side. Nice.
IAN: Okay. So, oh, died again?
Awww. Too bad.
Well, next week we're going to go over
radio controlled vehicles
and also pulling vehicles on wires
and doing some other things,
so we'll cover the radio control aspects of this later.
But today we're talking about the effects,
so we're going to talk about doing a barrel blast.
Now, in our, in our show,
our monsters are going to be attacking our city
and our very brave
National Guardsmen,
they're going to be coming out in tanks
to try to defend the city.
So in order to get that kind of action
you'd expect to see from a tank firing,
we've built a
little pyrotechnic device into the actual tank itself.
So, Richie why don't we talk about
what we've done here.
We've replaced the barrel that was plastic
with a piece of metal.
RICHIE: Yes we did.
We've got a piece of brass tubing in here.
IAN: And then, what,
I see there's some wires coming out.
RICHIE: Yeah, for right now, just for
giving you guys a little look-see at what we're gonna do later.
Later what we'll do,
when we film this for real,
we will probably put a radio controlled receiver in here
and activate it with our radio control.
IAN: Which we're going to be covering next week.
So, but for now we have a
wire coming out of here.
What's inside here that makes this go off?
RICHIE: We have a little pop igniter in here.
And what we're going to use
in the barrel
is a small piece of flash paper.
I'm gonna push it down in the barrel.
I think I am.
IAN: So this is the same kind of
muzzel loading techniques used in the 1800s.
So we're still like that.
RICHIE: We're still doing 'em.
IAN: So that was a piece of flash paper,
put into our metal barrel
and then we have an igniter at the base.
And then we're running our wires this way.
When we do this for the shoot,
we're going to run these wires into the tank itself
and have a radio controlled switch that goes,
makes it - fires off the igniter?
RICHIE: That's right.
IAN: And that's on a battery.
But for now, imagine that is caught on to this.
What is this box here that we're using?
RICHIE: Okay. I could use a big battery box,
like I used in one of the other shots.
In this case,
this is something the blasters use out in the blasting field.
It's real handy for a single shot.
I use 'em all the time.
It's called a mini blaster.
IAN: And so what is it?
It's a battery inside?
RICHIE: It's a battery inside.
Charges up a capacitor,
which gives me about 200 volts,
which is way more than I need to do the shot.
But it's so handy to carry.
IAN: Okay.
So we've taken our metal barrel.
We've put in our igniter.
We have our flash paper we've pushed back into it,
we've run our wires to our blaster box,
we've hooked that in.
And now, is there a switch for that?
Are you just gonna push the button?
RICHIE: Yeah. A couple switches for it.
IAN: Okay.
RICHIE: So I'm going to
make sure everybody is clear.
Cameras are rolling.
And, I'm going to go hot.
Green light, that means I'm ready to go.
IAN: Okay, so I'm going to step back and be clear.
RICHIE: I'm going to say, "3, 2, 1" and I'm gonna fire this.
3, 2, 1.
[Snap]
[Ian laughs]
IAN: And now is it safe?
RICHIE: It's safe.
IAN: Thank you. I'll step back in.
Ah, so that's a very simple muzzle blast effect
that we're going to be able to put into our tanks.
Now that was very quick to our eye,
but when we shoot that with the miniatures,
we'll be shooting at a much higher frame rate,
so that flash will actually, um appear much bigger.
RICHIE: Yeah the flash will come like this...
[gestures with his hand].
About that fast too.
If we shoot it at 60 frames, boom.
IAN: Yeah. And then, that's again, a very simple,
relatively simple device
that we can reload
and do that again for other shots.
And in our world we're going to have several of these tanks,
so you imagine several of them surrounding our monsters,
firing away.