A glass shattering entrance

A glass shattering entrance-filmmaking tips-fake glass and more


 







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  A glass shattering entrance


Author Topic:   A glass shattering entrance
Matthew
posted 04-07-1999 01:51 AM           
In my recent project the opening scence involves the three main characters swinging through a stained glass window shattering it. What is the best way to go about doing this? The window has to appear to be huge as massive, however the actually room is'nt that big. Any ideas?
Thanks Matt

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Suffication
posted 04-07-1999 04:31 PM           
What you can have is you actors jumping through the window but you would have to make some brakeaway glass do you know how to make it? Plus it would save you some money

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Matthew
posted 04-08-1999 07:06 PM           
Yeah I know how to make the glass in cookie sheets, But I need a huge window

jstern
posted 04-08-1999 07:34 PM           
you could make a bunch of sheets of fake glass, tape them together with clear packing tape, and hang it from a tree.
then get tie a rope to the tree, and have the characters swing through. you may want to put some mattresses in down in the general area of where they are swinging.
a good way to make something look high off the ground is to shoot from underneath the subject, where you cant see the ground.
the downside is a) you could only do it once b) I don't know about the *stained* glass part. you could try cutting up different colors of cellophane. it would only look okay though if the camera was out of focus.

by the way, how do you make fake glass with cookie sheets?

kwil316
posted 04-08-1999 10:29 PM           
If you can make the fake glass just spray paint each piece a different color in whatever pattern you have the glass,
be sure and back light the glass and your actors and their silloettes will show thru
before the big break.

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crazy lou
posted 04-10-1999 03:45 AM           
how bigs the window how complex is the pattern/picture? you could use balsa wood to make the frame work for the window, seal it with spray paint, lay out the enitre frame on something big enough and smooth enough to make the glass on. make the glass and pour the glass into the individuial "frames"

you might want to try this on a smaller scale first, but i think it should work, and probably look a little better since it will look more like a real stained glass window.

gotta try new things and push the envelope

theraves
posted 04-10-1999 01:59 PM           
yeah! I wanna know how to make glass from cookie sheets too! It would be incredibly useful for a 'shoot out' scene like people running being shot at, but the bad guys are missing and shattering the glass.

Dale Jenner
posted 04-10-1999 07:25 PM           
The Problem with cutting up bits of cellophane or spray painting it different colours is that it wont smash like stained glass it would just shatter like a normal window. Staind glass windows are made up of bits of coloured glass cut up and made into a picture, stuck together with lead strips.

Dale Jenner

captainfrag
posted 04-10-1999 08:11 PM           
Well, although this is the *low* budget special effects forum, just in case you guys wanted to know how the pros do it, i'll tell you. Most of the time when guys are thrown throgh windows, it is either a type of gun or breakaway glass. When i mean a sort of gun, they have a little gun-like thing in the window frame hidden from your view. This gun fires a little pellet into the glass right_before the guy actually hits the glass. This causes the glass to shatter a split second before the guy falls through it. I dunno how much this costs or anything, just how it's done.

Matthew
posted 04-12-1999 12:31 AM           
I meant just pouring the glass mixture into a cookie pan to get a sheet of fake glass, for those of you who asked. I know how to make the window, know I just need to know how to make it look like its in the room which is'nt that big. THanks Matt

crazy lou
posted 04-12-1999 04:50 AM           
depending on the size of the room, you could do a forced perspective type thing with a bluescreen behind the window to put in the appropriate "outside" later. youd have to build a model of the room though, paying very close attention to detail

t

Stuntman
posted 04-12-1999 03:36 PM           
Close, when we go through tempered (real) glass we use a device called a "Window popper" it is a small tube with a hardened steel pin inside, it is bolted to the window frame (Some are glued, but those tend to fly off!)A small explosive fits inside, and just before we hit the glass it is detonated, the pin hits the glass and it shatters into tiny pieces, you just have to make sure it's tempered safety glass, plate glass will break into big, SHARP pieces...

Play safe,

Nick

tan
posted 04-12-1999 04:00 PM           
for mathew just look in archives or into faqs, they have everything you need to know
tan

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