Question on Bad Taste...

[Ash]

I hadn't watched this one in awhile so I thought, "what the hell" and popped it in this morning after I got off work.

My question is in reference to the scene where Ozzie fires the RPG at the house near the end.

Since I don't know much about the making of this film (other than what I read of Andrew's interview with Pete O'Herne) I was wondering if they ACTUALLY shot a rocket propelled grenade at that house.

It sure as hell looked real to me.

Do any of you know any "behind the scenes" background on this scene?

Anyone??

[Pete B6K]

They made a scale model of the house and blew that up.   PICTURE . If I remember rightly the real house was a protected building and they weren't allowed to damage it at all. Check out Andrew's interview with Pete O'Herne and the accompanying pictures for more info.

Pete

[Ash]

I rewound it and watched the scene again.
I agree & disagree with you.

Look closely at the shot filmed from behind Ozzie's shoulder.

He fires the RPG and you can clearly see the rocket flying towards and then impacting the top corner of the house.  That was no model.

The following scene showing just the corner of the house exploding is probably the shot of the model.

If the entire scene was done using a model then they did a hell of a good job on it.

It looks real as s**t!!

[Pete B6K]

It's not like it's a little doll house or anything.  It's a fairly large scale model, porbably about 8-10 feet tall.  But it was a model, they didnt blow up the house.
The link I made in the last post didn't work, but it's fixed now so you can see the model for yourself befroe they blew it up.

Pete

[Chris K.]

Yes, a scale model was used to explode the side of the house, but as Pete B6K said it was 8-10 feet tall (a miniature doll-house like model was used in the scenes of the house/spaceship floating in outer space though).

As the history goes, when Peter Jackson was close to the end with the film he took a look at the 16mm negatives, struck some copy prints, and created a workprint rough-cut. He used the rough-cut and showed it to small-time producer Jim Booth (who, I might add, was later responsible as producer for Jackson's MEET THE FEEBLES and BRAINDEAD). Booth felt that the film could go commercial, so he and Jackson went to the New Zealand Film Commision and screened the film there. Now, originally the commision was against funding the film, but after a few days of consideration the commision gave in and produced $250,000 for Jackson so he could shoot some more sequences and film the ending (sorry if this is familiar info, but this does lead up to the answer of how the explosion scene was done).

With some of the money, he used it to build that 8-10 feet tall model. And the scene of the explosion? In the documentary GOOD TASTE MEETS BAD TASTE, it shows that Jackson had a wires connected to the bazooka shell and when it was shown to fire off, the shell would emit a smoke that caused it to glide over to it's target. And when the shell hit the side, an explosion charge was set off inside the scale model. Nicely done for a movie that didn't cost $300 million to make.