We’ve always wondered how they do it in action movies…how do they make everything look so real? Well, now we know – and we had one hell of a shock finding out. Turns out they do actually just blow things up…and don’t give the public much of a heads up in terms of what the hell is going on. So, being in London and all, people naturally jumped to the fairly logical conclusion that we were being attacked. In an act of terror. Making for a very, um, interesting(?) Sunday for the shocked onlookers.
[BBC]Children in a nearby park ‘freaked’, according to author Sophie Kinsella who saw the top deck of the bus blow up as it travelled towards Westminster on Sunday morning. It was the ‘scale and realism‘ of the explosion that would have worried a lot of people, and one Twitter user who saw footage of the blast said it reminded him of the 7/7 attacks. He said: “If you’re filming a London bus blowing up and tweeting it out, say it’s fake. Some of us lived through 7/7 waiting to see who’d died.”
[Daily Mail]Emergency services did apparently take to social media to reassure Londoners and tourists that the explosion was set up for filming and was not a threat to the capital. The Metropolitan Police Service’s Marine Policing Unit (@MPSonthewater) posted: “Don’t be concerned if you hear or see explosions on Lambeth Bridge today, filming is taking place including loud special effects”.
The blast created a huge fireball that ripped off the top of the bus as it crossed the bridge. Chris Cheeseman described what was left as ‘a grim aftermath‘, with dummy bodies visible on the top deck.
[Mirror]The explosion was filmed for part of The Foreigner, starring Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan, which is set to be released later this year. Welllll, now that we’ve recovered from the initial shock, we can finally appreciate how pretty damn awesome it looks!