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How to Stage a (Fake) Bloody, Explosive Death Scene

No one was harmed in the making of this video.

Still from The Squibbening. Images courtesy the artist

Comedian Matt Gourley's passion for blowing things up—in the name of art—blossomed at an early age. As a pre-teen, he was already making movies with his friends and experimenting with special effects and pyrotechnics. Eventually, he figured out how to fabricate a squib: a miniature explosive device used in the film and theater industry, which, paired with a bag of fake blood, simulates a bullet hit.

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Gourley is now 43, and while his career as a comedian and podcaster may have cut into his time as a "hobbyist squibbist," he has steadfastly held onto his dream of getting professionally squibbed. That day came in November of this year in the Brooklyn studio of J&M Special Effects, and Gourley made sure to memorialize the experience in both a podcast and a short documentary by filmmaker Jay Cheel.

Gourley's squib diagram from childhood: "I had it all figured out by about 7th grade except for the electronics part. Then my buddy Jeff Stuart tipped me off to model rocket ignitors and that did it."

In the video, we get a peek at those childhood experiments, then flash forward to the present to watch a pyrotechnician from J&M prepare a squib. The recipe includes taping down a pyrotechnic device—a small explosive with wire leads—and a bag of stage blood onto two layers of leather and rubber, which protect the skin. After a successful test round, Gourley is outfitted with four of the miniature explosives across his chest and stomach, and they dramatically detonate and spew blood as he is gunned down by three attackers in white blazers (the co-stars of his Superego podcast). The machine gun fire is yet another industry trick: While real, the gun was modified for stage purposes to make it safe and inoperable for firing live rounds—it fires "half load" blanks in the video, which are half as loud as the real thing.

Making the squib

Squibs are sometimes done digitally, but connoisseurs like Gourley can tell the difference. "The blood always looks darker, and they look different from real squibs the same way that anything that's real and tactile looks different from CG. Westworld is a good example of a show that uses both kinds. I'm not sure why exactly but it seems about 50/50," he tells us. "The game of 'guess the squib type' is real fun for the whole family."

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It's also a lot safer than trying squibs yourself: "One time I decided to make a really big squib," Gourley remembers from childhood. "I call it a squib but it was essentially a bomb that I buried in the ground and set off electronically. It was so loud that when it went off that the whole neighborhood came around, and my sister and mother came rushing to the backyard. My sister was looking at my mom like, 'Are you going to do something about this?!' and my mom was just like 'Oh, he's so creative!' Hilarious and scary."

Gourley hasn't lost his enthusiasm for drama. His response after being warned that the experience will be bloody, gory, and painful? "I'm excited."

For more of The Squibbening, listen to the 50th episode of I Was There Too with Matt Gourley, a podcast that takes you behind the scenes of cinema and television.

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