Special effects on screen are something we've come to expect in every movie, ad and TV drama we see. Whether it's burning buildings, exploding cars, rampaging dinosaurs, extra-terrestrials, flying saucers, avalanches, storms, volcanic eruptions or any other phenomena, natural or man-made - yup, we've seen 'em all.
Some films such as Jurassic Park and the forthcoming Star Wars prequel are largely defined by their effects: others such as the James Bond series have always relied on a Martini of special effects, gadgets and stunts to entertain. We not only expect special effects now, we take them entirely for granted: any effects that seem particularly special are automatically attributed to computer graphics. Except that's not always true.
Anyone who has stayed on in the cinema to watch the rolling credits after certain films will have been amused by the names of one of Ireland's companies responsible for special effects, Team FX. Along with Pat Redmond, the names Aidan Byrne, Brendan Byrne and Kevin Byrne appear; such pyrotechnic surnames seem exceptionally apt for the type of work this company does.
Team FX, who are based in Ardmore Studios, set up a company in 1995 after several years of freelancing together. The three Byrne brothers went into partnership together with their friend, Pat Redmond; "the time seemed right to go out on our own," Brendan says.
Among the many special effects which they have created as a team are the Ballygowan ad in which a tree is struck by lightning; the 1998 Guinness Hurling ad in which two hurlers hurl a ball of fire at each other; the extraordinarily convincing location explosions at the Four Courts in Michael Collins; the shoot-out in the opening scene of The Devil's Own; the poitin explosion in Sweety Barrett; and the mammy and daddy of a storm scene in the closing episode of a recent season of Ballykissangel.
Their workshop in Ardmore is a barn with a tiny office in the loft upstairs. The space is a cross between the props department in a theatre, a building site, a (fake) arsenal, and a chemistry lab. One of the swans which appeared in the Ballygowan ad seemingly levitates over the loft, held there by wires.
So how do they create illusions of snow, rain, explosions, breaking glass, and gunshot wounds? Logic, creativity, and precise planning are the invisible elements behind every scene. "You're given a visual image by the director and then you go away to work on it. You never know what you'll be asked for. What you do with it depends on how you interpret it."
One Byrne fetches small plastic bags and creates a miniature snow scene on the office desk. "You have to think ahead, about how much time it'll take to clear the location or set of the snow," Brendan explains. "For wide-angle snow scenes, we use foam, which will dissolve after a few hours."
Then there are biggish bits of torn paper, which he sets fluttering down on the desk. This is followed by the snow used in close-up shots, which is smaller bits of paper. Hailstones are salt crystals, and powder snow (very fine salt crystals), for those footprint scenes, looks so like the real thing that the office suddenly feels cold. "That's probably the smallest snow job ever done in Ardmore," Aidan laughs.
For the Ballykissangel storm scenes, they pumped 17,500 gallons of water in one day alone, which they fetched from Roundwood Reservoir. Rain effects are done by pumping water up the height of a cherry picker and sending out in different-sized sprinklers. When the Man Above doesn't send wind, wind comes courtesy of machines called "air movers" or "air amplifiers".
Really big wind for wide dramatic shots comes from a machine they made themselves. The engine from a Rolls Royce aircraft has been put in a trailer-mounted box with bars and grilles that looks like a cage for some exceptionally dangerous animal.
Then a prosthetic arm is slapped down on the table. This is the arm that was used by the actor playing Martin Cahill's victim in Vicious Circle, for the infamous pool table crucifixion scene. There follows a simple demonstration on how the sac at the top of the arm can pump "blood" down to emerge from the hole in the palm. It is nastily convincing. The third Martin Cahill movie, Ordinary Decent Criminals, for which they also did some FX work has not yet been released; "No, we didn't use the same arm in that film!"
Many of the props used for effects are made by the team in the workshop. They take out some of their many casts for bottles and glasses, which are made of sugar-glass: a substance which looks like glass but which is made of resin. Thus windows can break open safely, bottles be conked over someone's head, and glasses chucked around in pub fights. One Byrne hits another with a shillelagh. It's made of strong painted foam. There's a real one too, exactly the same shape, which will be used in other scenes.
The General provided Team FX with their most challenging job so far: blowing up a car while the actor actually remained seated in it. "We used the same car all the time when we were experimenting, and exploded bits of it at a time," they explain, winding and rewinding the explosion scene from the film. "Then we put the pieces back together each time. Every time we exploded a part, we saw exactly what happened them and where they landed. It was a totally controlled effect. When we added smoke, fire and the sound of an explosion, it got fairly dramatic."
They worked on one of the most memorable scenes in Michael Collins; the location explosions at the Four Courts. No, there were no computer graphics helping out here either. Sure they even had calls from madly impressed folk in LA, once word got out in the industry that the scene depended entirely on old-fashioned special effects. How did they manage to make the roof of the Four Courts look as if it was a) on fire, and b) about to fall into the Liffey?
They replay the scene on the video. Then they point out containers in the studio which look like large cast-iron flowerpots. "We put those in various positions on the roof and exploded soft matter in them - peat moss, cork. Stuff that looks great flying, but doesn't hurt anyone when it lands, or won't damage any building structure." False archways were built along the quays: the real archways were shown first and then shots of the false ones being blown out.
Team FX is as coy about the question of profit as everyone else connected with the entertainment business. "We are putting back into the company about 70 per cent of our profits," is all they will give away by way of hard figures. Yet in the next minute, they're listing off the steep prices of the new fans and rain and wind machines they've recently invested in: Team FX are clearly doing quite nicely.
What originally interested them in making their living from working with special effects? "There's a little boy in every man," Kevin confesses. The others happily chorus their agreement, while at the same time shooting plastic-coated dust-filled bullets into the corrugated iron walls, and demonstrating automatic fire from a range of (fake) firearms. "We get to play with bigger toys - and we get paid for it," Brendan shouts, over the sound of gunfire.
