Oppenheimer – Nolan recreated an atomic bomb explosion without CGI. How did he do it?

Scott R. Fisher is the special effects artist responsible for developing and supervising the on-screen recreation of the first atomic bomb explosion in the film Oppenheimer. The creators decided that they would do it without the use of CGI, which is how Christopher Nolan likes: practical. Fisher revealed the backstage of this scene in an interview with Total Film.

Oppenheimer – behind the scenes of the bomb explosion on the screen

It turns out that Fisher obtained the special effect thanks to a rather old technique, but with all safety rules. It’s something akin to using thumbnails on set.

It’s quite an old technique. We don’t call them miniatures, we call them great natures. We build them as large as possible, but scale them down so they can be operated. Then we can put them close to the camera. For the explosion we mainly use gasoline, propane and other things like that, because you need to achieve the intended effect worth the price. For this, we add aluminum powder and magnet to increase the brightness. That’s what we did here because we wanted people to discuss the brilliance of this outburst. We tried to recreate it as well as possible.

Oppenheimer – premieres in cinemas in July 2023.