The ‘Oppenheimer’ VFX team experimented a lot in order to pull off the famous dentonation in-camera
WHILE CHRISTOPHER Nolan did not detonate a real atomic bomb in “Oppenheimer,” he went to great lengths to ensure there would be no computer-generated imagery for the sequence.
Nolan is famous for doing everything in camera, whether it’s creating explosions in “The Dark Knight” or crashing a Boeing 747 in “Tenet.” His movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, was going to be no different. Nolan, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson and special effects supervisor Scott Fisher banded together on “Oppenheimer” to produce the 10-minute sequence in camera as a practical effect.
Shooting on Imax meant every small detail would be visible. The team created science experiments while van Hoytema tinkered with varying shutter speeds, wide negative color, all while overexposing and underexposing film. “We built aquariums with power in it,” he explains. “We dropped silver particles in it. We had molded metallic balloons which were lit up from the inside. We had things slamming and smashing into one another such as ping-pong balls, or just had objects spinning.”
Jackson and Fisher spoke very early on about what they could do, and how they were going to pull it off. “We were both confident early on that we were going to set off the biggest explosion we could manage,” says Jackson. In total, there were six explosions. “We shot it from multiple cameras and used different lenses.”
By slowing the footage down and adding in multiple layers including shockwaves, the VFX team pieced all the bits together. “We were able to get very close to the look of the archival footage,” Jackson says.
Aside from pulling off the explosion, Jackson and his team were tasked with bringing Oppenheimer’s thoughts and ideas to life as he carries out his research in designing the atomic bomb. “Those weren’t described in the script because they’re thoughts and ideas,” he says, crediting Nolan with giving him a lot of freedom. “We talked early on about the general idea and what he wanted for the images to go with that.”
And as with the bomb, he went off and carried out experiments, shot things and tested by dangling balls among other things in front of cameras to see what would work to show Oppenheimer’s complexity and his inner thoughts — all in camera.