How Oppenheimer’s Nuclear Explosion Was Created Using Practical Effects

Oppenheimer special effects supervisor Scott R. Fisher explains how he created a fake nuclear explosion without the use of any CGI. Directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer chronicles the life and career of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was one of the key figures responsible for the creation of the atomic bomb. The historical epic stars Cillian Murphy in the title role and trailers have already highlighted Nolan’s commitment to capturing as much as possible in camera without the use of visual effects.

Ahead of the Oppenheimer release date this summer, Fisher does a deep dive into the film’s practical effects in a new interview with Total Film (via Slash Film). The special effects supervisor goes into detail regarding how he pulled off creating a nuclear bomb blast without CGI, revealing that they relied on some “old-school” filming techniques to make it look real while keeping everything as safe as possible. Check out Fisher’s full comment below:

“It is like an old-school technique. We don’t call them miniatures; we call them big-atures. We do them as big as we possibly can, but we do reduce the scale so it’s manageable. It’s getting it closer to camera, and doing it as big as you can in the environment.

“It’s mostly gasoline, propane, any of that kind of stuff, because you get so much bang for your buck. But then we also bring in stuff like aluminum powder and magnesium to really enhance the brightness, and give it a certain look … We did a bit of that on this, because we really wanted everyone to talk about that flash, that brightness. So we tried to replicate that as much as we could.”

Christopher Nolan Really Loves Practical Effects

It was first revealed last year that Oppenheimer‘s nuclear explosion was created without CGI, the epitome of Nolan’s general attitude toward practical effects. While Nolan’s films do certainly feature CGI, it is almost always to embellish or enhance scenes that have been captured in camera. It’s the filmmaker’s dedication to old-school filmmaking techniques that really make his movies stand out in the modern cinema landscape, with his use of practical effects lending the action a tactile, life-like feeling that CGI just can’t replicate.

Related: Why Christopher Nolan Avoids Using CGI So Much

Some of Nolan’s best work remains his unique take on Batman, with The Dark Knight, in particular, featuring some of his finest practical set pieces. The moment when Batman flips an 18-wheeler, for example, is still a Nolan career highlight. His passion for capturing action in-camera continues in Inception, Interstellar, and Dunkirk, ultimately elevating all of these films.

In his 2020 movie Tenet, Nolan takes his devotion to practical effects to a new extreme, crashing a real Boeing 747 into an airplane hangar for one of the film’s more elaborate action sequences. In addition to using practical methods to create a nuclear blast, the Oppenheimer production also built essentially a whole 1940s-style town from scratch. It remains to be seen how all of this will come together on screen, but audiences now have less than two months to wait before they can experience the practical magic of Oppenheimer for themselves.