See the range at http://www.tvandfilmsupplies.co.uk/fireworks.html

Local jobs for local people… Today saw the move of Blue Peter to the BBC’s new studio at Media City in Salford, with Barney & Helen arriving in dramatic style. While Barney came across the quays by jet ski, Helen in a ride in a Sea King Helicopter, provided by the Royal Navy (771 Squadron). When the director wanted blue and white smoke this is where we came in, with a series of smoke canisters, securely fastened down to cope with the 60mph down draft, fired as the aircraft was on its final approach.

As a Manchester based special effects company, Quicksilver SFX are only 30 minutes away for those last minute jobs, urgent recces and production meetings.

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Secrecy and confidentiality often surrounds our work, especially on soaps such as Coronation Street and Hollyoaks, however our work on Red  & Black, hosted by Ant & Dec took it to new levels when we were asked to blow up six drum of paint, a total of over 1300litres. While it is always important for explosive effects to work first time without misfires, the pressure is always more intense when there is no second chance.

Initial small scale trials were carried out with steel drums filed with water and the results were quite interesting. If the charge was too big the explosion split the drum and the water escaped sideways rather than being projected upwards as required, too small and there would not be enough force to eject the water. The ideal charge size resulted in the fluid being ejected and resulted in the empty drum collapsing inwards due to the negative pressure created when the water was expelled.

Once on site at a very muddy quarry near Cardiff a full scale trial was carried out with drums containing water only. This was very successful and allowed us to get on with the covert  job or preparing 1320 litres of paint. This then had to be transported to the quarry cliff face without spilling a drop, we even had to avoid any being seen on our clothing. Have you ever tried using 10ltrs of paint at home without leaving a trace anywhere but where it is needed - brushes, clothes, trays etc?

To ensure reliability of firing the charges had been made specially for us with a waterproof coating and  twin igniters which where connected  to two independent firing systems. All of which resulted in six explosions of 220 litres of RED paint.

We don’t rely on luck, we create it through hard work and lots of testing and retesting.

The products used in creating this effect have now been added to our product range and will soon be available from our consumables website www.tvandfilmsupplies.co.uk or call us on 0161 320 7232 or 0800 016 2264

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 What happens now does she get an e-mail offering an alternative colour/size, will a card be pushed through the door informing her that she has to go down to the local Post Office, as they tried to drop one off but she wasnn’t in.

We have just set up a new website ( www.tvandfilmsupplies.co.uk ) supplying special effects and art department consumables (dirty down, cobwebs, smoke etc) with on line ordering and live stock control so that when we say it is available, it really is available. Not all our products can be sent by carrier (due to their explosive nature) but delivery on our own vehicles can always be arranged. When Media City is fully up and running we expect to be providing regular local deliveries, maybe even a mobile shop. For those who can remember Open All Hours I am already starting to dust off the old mountain bike and I am on the look out for a suitable wicker basket.

That 10 seconds of footage took all day to film and for us, getting to the location proved to be a bit of a nightmare. The 10,ooo litre water tanker almost didnt make it to the top of the hill, it struggled even in 1st gear but eventually, inch by inch, I managed to get it there.

Richard Hammond proved to bit a good sport when it came to getting wet, and despite the cold wind and numerous takes, he didnt moan once.

Looking at the footage, i’m very pleased with the final result as i think the rain looks pretty good!

I started writing this blog last year (yes, last year), but thought I had best finish it while references to current politicians were still accurate, I think I may only have minutes to go as they are assembling a lectern in Downing Street as I speak.

Our office is at our shop/trade counter and on quieter days I will often serve customers to allow me to get away from doing the VAT return (don’t worry Darling you’ll have your expenses on time). Over the years we have had may requests from the unusual to the potentially unlawful and today was no different. 

Customer - I want a firework.

Darren - What sort would you like, what is it for?

Customer - One with potassium nitrate in it, I need it for my chilli seeds!

At this point I’m thinking either nutter or terrorist, but after a long and interesting conversation I learn that potassium nitrate was used to promote germination in Chilli Pepper seeds. He only needed a few grams and I don’t think it would be an adequate defence if you parked a transit full in central London, however temping it may seem.

I must point out that I didn’t sell him a firework as (a) it would be difficult to extract the said chemical and (b) it would be a criminal offence to try. However I was able to supply a small amount of the pure chemical, which is also used for curing meat,

Anyway, back to the matter in hand, what have we been up to. It won’t come as much of a surprise that we haven’t been too busy on drama productions - because most of them have been shelved or axed during the recession. The green shoots of recovery however have lead to a boom in advertising and this has kept us very busy.

Recent productions (or ones we are currently working on) include Three (Wind rain & snow), Powerade (smoke/fog), Nike(smoke), Co-op (Fire/Bar BQ), Warburtons(Stream & haze), to name a few and the time, effort and budget per minute that goes into these productions can be very significant.  The increase in this type of work is an indication of high regard that the Northwest film industry is held in and we are looking forward to the BBC’s move to Manchester and the opening of Media City.

We’ve been busy with many TV productions and commercials since our last blog and my aim now is to try and remember what we’ve worked on and write a little about each project. So hopefully over the next few days there will be many more blogs, with hopefully some interesting stories and information.

A thousand litres of water (1 cubic meter) has a mass of one metric tonne and a moderate size tank eg 30ft diameter, 6ft deep contains over 128,000 litres and hence has a mass of over 128 tonnes - this is one of our standard tanks used on BBC’s Cutting It and ITV’s Primeval.  It’s most recent use was when we were using a much smaller thank inside an ITV studio and safety requirements meant that the smaller tank (full of water) had to be placed inside a second tank in case leaks or spillage as actors and camera crew climbed in and out of the tank.

The impossible comes as standard, miracles take a little longer.

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A little practice, during our preparations of the “boiling” swimming pool for BBC’s Apparitions.

Anyway, what have we been up to?  In a recession you might think that production of TV adverts would decline, however this area of business has been very busy for us recently, with work coming from Pataks Curry, Virgin Trains, Nike and Asda - all strong brands working hard in difficult times to keep their products at the front of the marketplace.  

Recent work on the Nike Livestrong advert can be viewed on the  Nike website. This was shot at 1000 frames a second and shows every detail of the raindrops as they explode on impact.

More Nike ads from the days filming can be found at;

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Livestrong: Lunar Everyday

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