Splatter Movie

[Purple Fire]

Hey all, back at last!
Ive just been approached by a friend of mine who is making a comedy splatter movie ("Bad Taste" ish I believe) to enter into a competition. For the dramatic and humerous deaths, he has befriended a butcher and can get hold of a 44 gallon drum of meat chunks when he needs it, and he wants me to make it explode :) He plans to bury it at the bottom of his farm, the barrel is unseen and the top is open so when it goes off he wants a "column of meat". While talking with him we also came up with some other alternate effects based around the same idea such as pouring in some water with the meat (and food colouring if necesary) and using a low velocity explosive to make a bubble of gas that will make the meat/blood "slop" out of the barrel or using a larger charge that would make the meat rain down out of the sky.

[Purple Fire]

That was crazy! it just automatically posted that before id finnished?!?!

Anyway, i was wondering if anyone here has had any experience with blowing up large volumes of meat before, or if anyone has any ideas on the subject that they think would be useful before i start workin this all out. I was thinking that for the "slop" effect i could maybe pop some CO2 cannisters at the bottom of the barrel with a small charge, use a small ANFO charge for the "column of meat", and for the "shower", well, I really think that that might be a bit out of my experience range for the moment. How much explosive am I likely to need to move 44 gallons of meat and get it airborn any ideas? I will be very grateful for any feedback that people can give me here as I cant say as ive ever tried anything even remotely like this before!

[mongo blongo]

I made some squibs once for one of my mate in his film if you are interested. I used two pieces of small circular paper stuck together with a flat rocket ignitor in some Lead Azide between the two pieces of paper. These are easy to tape to what ever you want.

[Bitter]

How bloody is this meat going to be ? You don't want it to dampen the charge.

If I were you, I'd test whatever you plan to use beforehand; make sure you get the size of the explosion right and make sure it is done correctly first time.

[A-BOMB]

I myself when doing movie sences use alot of ziploc bags and mothballs. And how big of a "column of meat" does he want? First you'll need to make this in a couple of shots so find some editing software. The first shot should be of a thinned out meat sause that consists of a bit of blood some meat and water/fooddye. Next put it into some .5/.75 gallon ziploc bags and set them aside. After that get you lift charge. Forget every thing I've said here, I'll post a pic of what this should look like a little later.

[Purple Fire]

i expect that the meat will be quite bloody, so i was intending to put the charge into a sealed plastic bag (snaplock bags sound like a very good idea). I think his expectations on what i can do with this meat are probably very unrealistic but i gather he was looking at something like a 2-3 meter high column that then spread out into a splatter.

[Azazel]

When i was a lil tiny kid many years back, my first kinda "BOMB" was made from Eno, a product on the australian market which is used if you have a tummy ache. You basically put a tea spoon of the stuff in a glass of cold water and drink it ass its fizzing. Quite funky stuff.
Anyways, me and the neighbour decided we were bored shiteless. So we took a 2 Litre coke bottle and shoved shit loads of eno down the bottle. Filled the thing with a lil bit of water, caped it, shit our pants, threw down a drain... BOOM haha very very funny. The whole contents of the drain came out... there ya go. Doesnt involve any dangerour flames... still dangerour in a way. Maybe you could use some kind of chemical like this to provide your uplifting meaty experience :D

[tempest]

Ha this reminds me of an honourable meantion in the darwin awards , where there was a beached whale that died on shores before people could push it back into the sea (Florence Oregon 1970).They stuffed it full of dynamite apparently , but far too much (half a ton or so) and it caused a whale meat rain which to put it lightly was unpleasant

[PYRO500]

I have seen that video several times and I could have told them what the outcome when you take a gelatonous substance such as hale jelly and try to shatter it with dynimite, just common sense, the stuff is going to get shattered into big blobs witch are going to go everywhere. as I recall the chunks of whale destroyed cars and stuff

[EventHorizon]

I used to have that movie in quicktime. Its a riot. They blasted whale meat a ¼ mile away, one big chunk smashed a car and rancid meat rained down on everybody. :D

The weight of a drum of meat and juices is going to be heavy, so a rather large charge is going to be needed. I'd say a pound or two of ANFO, maybe 3, will obtain the desired results. Its slow moving and has good "heave" properties whilst not turning the whole drum of contents into a red mist as an HE would.

[Arkangel]

I'd heard about it too, and if anyone has a copy, it would be great to have a look somehow.

In a similar vein, I was talking to an old soldier recently, a really interesting guy who'd seen action all over the world, and even been around at the Christmas Island H Bomb tests - must have been something to watch. Anyway, he and some sappers were tasked with destroying an unwanted WW2 bunker on the south side of the Thames Estuary. They had a newly commissioned officer in charge, who despite their protests, ordered them to put way too much explosive inside.

The bunker was destroyed pretty effectively, but the roof was thrown away violently as one piece, landing vertically in the water about 300 yards in front of a collier heading out to sea. They reckoned it must of gone at least a couple of miles, but how much I believe that I'm not sure. I imagine it was a fair bang regardless.

Edit: I got off my ass and found it myself. Here's a link to the "definitive exploding whale website"

<a href="http://www.hackstadt.com/features/whale/" target="_blank">http://www.hackstadt.com/features/whale/</a>

The download is there.

<small>[ May 30, 2002, 04:56 PM: Message edited by: Arkangel ]</small>

[Purple Fire]

You really think itll need 3 pounds? that is a hell of alot of ANFO! I thought ANFO was probably the way to go, and lacking experience with ive been readin anythin and everythin i can find on the subjuect. are there any really important things i should know about anfo? can people direct me to any really good sources of info on the stuff? and for future reference, how much AP would i be needing to set off 3 pounds worth? (im assuming AP will be the easiest thing to set it off with?)

[BrAiNFeVeR]

I don't think AP has that good initiating capability's for ANFO, you might want to consider using a booster of some sort. If you want to set off ANFO, you'll need a lot of confinement anyway, otherwise you'll just blow it away, because you'l need quite some AP (10 grams ?) if you're not using a booster charge.

Why not use a black powder charge ? I think a kilo in good confinement (cardboard tube of carpet ?) would do the trick quite well ... And it's allso a lot safer, not messing around with AP and all.

[Spudkilla]

Why not just blow up a Ketchup bottle :D ? ANFO would work for what you want to do, but, like somebody else said, you need good confinment, so the ANFO just doesn't get scattered around. I have no idea what you could use for confinment (certainly not a plastic bag!), and PVC or steel tubes would not work, as you and your friend might get hurt. You could try using a very thick cardboard tube. Yeah, thats a good idea. Thick, heavy duty cardboard tubes are available at model rocket hobby shops.

Oh yeah, go here: <a href="http://www.roguesci.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000579" target="_blank">http://www.roguesci.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000579</a>

<small>[ June 07, 2002, 12:02 PM: Message edited by: Spudkilla ]</small>

[DBSP]

I'd say you would need about .5-.9 kg of ANFO. I suggest that you go to the high explosives section and have a look at one of my post at the bottom, you'll find what you need there. I belive that you could get it off with 100g of APAN. Have a lokk and you'll know what I'm babbling about.

Anyway I don't think that you need any large ammounts of explosive for your experiment since the charge will be placed at the bottom of an oil drum which is buried in the ground. There will only be one way the gases can escape wich means you will get the force directed directly uppwards meaning that the meat will go the same way as the gases.

[PYREX]

Just an idea: If you have enough explosives and 44 gallon drums you could replace the meat by water and waste paper for experimenting, this should have about the same consistency as your meat-blood mixture. Altough it won't look so impressive, it has some great advantages you can figure out yourself (prize, mess, doesn't stink when it rots,...)

[Spudkilla]

I was just thinking, its going to be funny when it doesn't work. You'll have to dig through 44 gallons of meat to get your explosive. Haha.

[Purple Fire]

I intend to get it work the first time! Ive been reading the 5 page thread on APAN and it looks as though it might be promising. Does it have the same "earth moving" properties as ANFO? on the 138g movie clip it sounds like a rather high pitched crack as opposed to the deep BOOOOOOM of AFNO. does this mean it wont be as good for lifting meat? if it is, then it will make things alot easier as i think detonating APAN is much more feasable for me that detonanting ANFO!

[xoo1246]

APAN will lift meat, be sure of it, though I would recomend using ANFO with a ANNM booster since you don't seem to have worked with H.E. before.

[Purple Fire]

no i havent worked with HE's before but i think i know where im headed with this now. thanks for all the help guys :)