The Quicksilver Special Effects Blog

The dog ate my homework - 15-Apr-2010

Having just had a visit from our web designers who also do all the other “techy stuff” to make sure it appears on Google, we have been well and truly told off. Being old (that is over 40) I’m still under the misapprehension that birds tweet and the news comes from Radio 4. How wrong I am, we need to twitter and the news comes from an app on your i-phone. Where is all this le ...more

Filed under: Fire & Smoke,General,Rain SFX,Snow SFX,Wind SFX — Tags: BBC, Co op, media city, Nike, Powerade, Warburton's — Darren Wallis @ 1:56 pm

Where have we been?? - 14-Apr-2010

Well, it’s been many months since we’ve posted a blog and we noticed it looks like we’ve been quiet and not done any work, which i can assure you is not the case. 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 ...more

Filed under: General,Random — Wayne Bennett @ 2:15 pm

A rainy day - 13-Aug-2009

As I suspect with most other eager youngsters my view of special effects involved lots of setting fire to things or blowing them up or both. However, in reality for every caravan you blow up there are days and days of making it rain – it isn’t glamerous and you don’t get much of a smile from the crew. In fact there is a lot of water on TV that isn’t all that it seems ...more

Filed under: Mechanical SFX,Rain SFX,Random — Tags: BBC, Cutting It, ITV, Rain, special effects — Darren Wallis @ 6:10 pm

Is there anybody out there? - 9-Jul-2009

When we started to put this site together the web designers stressed the importance of the blog – these days you’re nobody if your not twittering, blogging or on face-book, but is anybody reading it? Clearly there is as I have had lots of feedback from well meaning potential customers offering to replace my Rolex (they must be confused as it my Plastic Casio that needs a new strap) ...more

Filed under: General,Rain SFX,Random — Tags: Add new tag, Asda, Nike, Pataks, Rain, Virgin Trains — Darren Wallis @ 10:05 am

Hollyoaks – Claires return - 21-May-2009

The big fire scene we worked on for Hollyoaks will be shown during the week commencing Monday 25th May 2009. Once it’s aired I’ll go into a little more detail as to how we achieved some of the effects.

Filed under: General — Tags: Hollyoaks, special effects — Wayne Bennett @ 2:07 pm

Virgin Trains - 21-May-2009

The New Virgin Trains ad is now being aired. We worked on the ad a few weeks ago over two days. The 1st effect was the large bonfire seen in the background during Becky’s ad. As she looks out the window there are a few “hunky” guys working in a field with a large bonfire burning away to the right. Usual stuff really, Gas fed bonfire that can be ignited and ex ...more

Filed under: Fire & Smoke,General,Mechanical SFX,Random,Wind SFX — Tags: Virgin Trains — Wayne Bennett @ 1:30 pm

No Goldfish were harmed in the making of this production - 23-Apr-2009

It is a couple of years since we were involved in producing a comedy pilot for Granada TV with comedian Justin Edwards AKA Jeremy Lion, Children’s Entertainer, but the memories are as clear as if it were yesterday. Picture, if you can, a large (in fact very large) feathered pantomime goose, strapped to the roof of a Hillman Imp -if you are old enough to remember how implausibly small they ...more

Filed under: Fire & Smoke,Mechanical SFX,Random — Tags: Chocolate eggs, Granada TV, Jeremy Lion, special effects — Darren Wallis @ 9:52 am

Hollyoaks - 11-Apr-2009

“I’ve never worked as hard in my life as I have this week”. That was the comment made by Jonathan on Thursday evening after his involvement in his first major SFX job. I have to admit, I found it hard work myself, but then again I am used to it. Darren, Andy, Steve, Jonathan and I have been at Hollyoaks all week working on an episode involving lots of fire and collapsing stair ...more

Filed under: Explosion SFX,Fire & Smoke,Random — Wayne Bennett @ 7:51 am

Vidic, Berbatov & the Christie Bear - 2-Apr-2009

Anybody in business will be familiar with receiving requests for help from charities and being involved in Mountain Rescue (www.kmrt.org.uk) I also see the other side – we are currently trying to raise £25,000 to expand our current team headquarters. However the phone call on the morning in question came from one of the local hospitals, The Christie ...more

Filed under: Explosion SFX,fireworks — Tags: Add new tag, explosives, Kinder Mountain Rescue Team, Man United — Darren Wallis @ 2:56 pm

Week ending 3/4/09 - 30-Mar-2009

The Bookies Fire episode for Corrie is being aired this week and we’re all looking forward to seeing the final cut. The scenes involving our effects were filmed over 4 days about a month ago. Some great pictures and footage were available on ITV.com prior to the episode being aired which was good. I was interviewed at one point so that might end up on ITV’s website. ...more

Filed under: Explosion SFX,Fire & Smoke,General,Random — Tags: Coronation Street, Corrie, Man United, special effects, Virgin Trains — Wayne Bennett @ 11:04 am

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