True Lies Had Just One Take To Capture The Bridge Explosion
Before we lost James Cameron to the virtual world of Pandora (where he is still doing fine work), he mounted some of the most physically daunting productions in the history of cinema. He submerged his cast and crew in 30-plus feet of water in order to authentically capture the (literally and figuratively) high-pressure environment of "The Abyss," executed a load of wild vehicular stunts in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (one of which was so perilous his cameraman refused to shoot it), and compelled 20th Century Fox to build a new studio in Mexico for his reconstruction of the title vessel in "Titanic." Though he was pioneering computer generated visual effects throughout this period, he loved practical spectacle — and, judging from the box office on most of these movies (save for "The Abyss"), audiences shared his ardor.
1994's "True Lies" was no exception. The Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick, about a secret agent who blows his cover when he wrongly suspects his wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) is having an affair, features some of Cameron's most inventive set pieces. The horse-versus-motorcycle chase sequence in a hotel is utter insanity, while the Harrier jet finale is so seamlessly shot-and-edited it feels like Schwarzenegger is really piloting the aircraft (at least it felt that way at the time of the film's release).
And then there's the masterfully staged pursuit on the Florida Keys' Seven Mile Bridge, which concludes with the very realistic-looking demolition of a chunk of the road. Obviously, Cameron didn't blow up an actual stretch of the bridge, but he did blow something up. And this required meticulous preparation because the crew only had one shot at pulling it off.
How to blow up a miniature bridge in a big way
According to an article at the visual effects publication Befores & Afters, the sequence, wherein the Marines slam four missiles into the bridge to knock out trucks carrying stolen nuclear warheads, was shot practically in two locations. There was actual stunt work done in the Florida Keys, while the bridge explosion was filmed via miniature. And this was one massive miniature.
Leslie Ekker, who supervised the sequence for Stetson Visual Services, told befores & afters that the plaster bridge model — which was 100 meters long, one meter wide and three meters tall — was shipped to the bridge location for its explosive close-up. Given the detail that went into crafting the miniature, the Stetson team could only blow it up once.
One of the key elements of the sequence involved executing the right kind of explosion. It had to look absolutely spectacular, with flames and debris filling the screen.
How do you blow up a bridge the right way? Per Ekker:
"...[W]hen you build roadways like this, we usually use plaster. If you load too much pyro into that plaster, you've got a model in one frame, and the next frame, you have a puff of dust, and the next frame after that, it's gone. So it has to be blown up in just the right way in almost a slow explosion, to see particles and to see chunks and the guardrail bending and flying and things falling and splashing in the water, not just vaporizing."
More miniatures, less CG please
The explosion was captured in seven shots, and though it's only a few seconds of film, it's the scene that got the biggest "wow" reaction from the audience when I saw the film theatrically in 1994. Clearly, Ekker aced their assignment (which is good because a perfectionist like Cameron only accepts A-plus work).
25 years later, it's a sequence to savor because, nowadays, that moment would be all ones-and-zeroes. And while Cameron would deliver the CG goods in all their photorealistic glory, your eyes would know the difference. There's simply no substitute for an expertly crafted miniature sequence. For years, I was convinced Steven Spielberg filmed an actual ferris wheel rolling off a pier in "1941." And with "True Lies," while I was fairly certain Cameron didn't shut down a major Floridian expressway for what would've been months if not a year, my eyes were convinced he had.
Sadly, that's the kind of movie magic we rarely get to see anymore.