Sometimes, school projects can be a lot of fun, like when you're assigned to decorate a poster or blow up a car using high explosives.
Okay, you probably never did the last one when you were in school. But that's because you were never a student studying special and visual effects at the National Film and Television School in the UK. Their school projects make everyone else's look lame and stupid.
Last summer for a pyrotechnics course under the supervision of instructor Richard Conway — a guy who has worked on movies like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and 28 Days Later — these students strapped explosives to a Saab 9-3 Convertible and filmed the results at 2,500 fps. Here's what they say about the video:
We used a total of 15 litres of petrol, vaporised and ignited by a few lengths of detonation cord to engulf the unfortunate Saab 9-5 (ed. note: It's a 9-3) in glorious, beautiful flames. The slow-motion footage reveals the complexity of the fireball and the sheer force of the explosion smashing, burning and ripping parts of the car clean off the chassis. Flanking the car are two additional explosions, as if to simulate a cluster bomb enveloping the immediate vicinity.
The result is one pretty awesome, movie-grade vehicular explosion. We're sad to see a Saab go out this way, but it died for a noble cause: the education of tomorrow's pyrotechnics experts. What cause could be higher?