"You Were Only Supposed to Blow the Bloody Doors Off!"

 The quotation comes, of course, from one of the most famous exploding vans in cinema history, in The Italian Joh.

So this was the introduction to Tom Harris, of NEFX, who was talking about his long career of creating physical effects for the film and TV industry.  He wasn't involved in the Italian Job, but he did blow up a lot of vehicles in his time, and he had a lot of clips to show of the work he had done.

Some of the effects are so subtle they are not even noticed - a smoky atmosphere in a pub in Poldark, or rain (rain in film and TV is nearly always an effect that can be turned on and off).  When the ship in Hornblower was sailing through a howling gale - that was him.  He also made the cannons fire in Hornblower. 

Things like showers and kitchen stoves in TV and film are also effects, rather than the real thing.  He also showed a very scary clip from Spooks involving a fat fryer (which was not actually hot, but had to appear so in a torture scene). 

The very first highlight of his career was working on Morecambe and Wise - he built the toaster that was used in the justly famous sketch where they made breakfast to the tune of the Stripper.

He went on to work on Metal Mickey - not the robot, but all the other physical effects, which had to be done live in front of a studio audience, such as a floating (and crashing to the ground) tea tray, or a 'mad scientist' bench full of fizzing beakers for a science class.

This stood him in good stead for the stage production of Bugsy Malone - he brought along a splurge gun.  These had to actually work on stage, and he had to construct polystyrene shells for the splurge so they would hit the targets and splat on impact.

He also did a lot of pop videos - he built a chariot for Toyah Wilcox, and they hired the horse from the local Travellers in Wandsworth, where they were filming.  He put Diana Ross on a revolving platform with Roman candles shooting out of the sides for Chemical Reaction (there was a man underneath the platform, turning it by hand!) 

He set up the sugar glass window for Adam Ant to jump through in the Dandy Highwayman video - and he passed round sugar glass bottles, the sort used to break over people's heads in bar fights.  Just as he was saying that they were quite fragile, there was a crash and "Sorry!" from the back of the room!

When he worked on The Spy Who Loved Me, he took careful note of the 'cannon' they fired the Lotus Esprit out of to make it plunge dramatically off a dock - and used something similar for a van when he was working on Dempsey and Makepiece.  He was also responsible for a lot of fires on London's Burning, as well as things like collapsing scaffolding.  He even once set a listed building on fire!  Or so it appeared - the building was actually unscathed. 

I don't remember the series, but he showed a clip of a coach full of school kids overturning which was very dramatic.  If you looked carefully, the actual overturning coach, rolling down an incline next to a cement mixer, only contained the stuntman driver, but was cut cleverly with footage of the kids falling about while the camera revolved to make it seem like they were rolling over.  Part of the set up (he stopped the film to show us) was a small sign next to the cement mixer which said "Press the button here, Gabe" (Gabe was the stunt driver).  At that point, he was supposed to activate a canister of nitrogen which would push the bus over to roll down the slope.  In fact, he pushed it just a bit early, so the bus crashed into a telegraph pole at the bottom rather than the cars that they had set up.  They could only do the stunt once, though, so that was the shot they used. 

 It was a fascinating evening - and next year he's setting up an event where members of the public can "blow the bloody doors off" themselves!  He will show how the effect is set up, and you get to press the button!  For further information email unique@totallybespoke.vip