Realistic Hollywood Explosion in After Effects

Published on March 27, 2020

Adobe After Effects Tutorials

In this weeks video we did an effect we wanted to do for a long time. Ever since we went to IBC, a huge media tradeshow, we had the desire to create explosions with miniature models. This is all because of two Swedish Indie filmmakers (Christoffer Nordenrot and Victor Danell). At IBC they were doing a presentation on their latest movie and showing behind the scene of sever effects. And the one effect that really amazed us, was a shot were the blew up a building.

The effect was so realistic and yet so simple. What did they do? They made a miniature version of the building they wanted to blow up. Of course not the entire building, but just a part of it. Then place this miniature in front of a green screen and also on top of one and blow it all up. Super simple no?

Well yes and no, the principle is quite simple and will give stunning results. However you still need to take a lot of factors into account. For instance the miniature model needs to resemble the building you choose to blow up. otherwise you will have a hard time matching it all.

And then the explosives. What do you use and how much of it? Well that was a problem we had. Because building the miniature took so long we only had one shot for this effect. So everything needed to be perfect. However when we did the explosion, we noticed we didn’t use enough explosives. So the bang wasn’t hard enough and part of the wall that needed to crumble was still standing. But we still had a hole and no time to do it again, so we made the effect happen with the shot that we had.

StoryBlocks Video

This video was supported by Storyblocks Video, an easy to use site full of stock footage, After Effects templates, backgrounds, motion Graphics and much more.