Photo of the Day: Tele Smash

Now this was fun.  I brought two of my buddies over with the idea of creating an ad for a flatscreen TV.  Composited of multiple images, I slowly pieced through from right to left until the final shot with the action.  And we were nervous.  I heard of dangerous fumes inside old tube televisions, but this wasn’t that old.  So with a couple of deep breaths, some practice swings and snaps, and a wooden baseball bat, we counted down.  One.  Two.  Three.

It was the loudest sound.  Bat bouncing off the screen, cracking the wood but not the glass.  We were amazed.  Maybe he just swung wrong.  Second time.  One.  Two.  Three.

Again, this time the bat shattered and our ear drums rang.  Okay.  Something heavier.  With a neighbor’s sledge hammer we felt more confident, more practiced with the swing and the shutter release.  One.  Two.  Three.

Glass everywhere and the beautifully astounding sound of exploding glass.  And then the poof of powder, fumes.  We dropped our gear and ran out of the house.

All and all, once the dust had settled, the ventilation flowing, a mere two hours with a Shop-Vac and thick gloves cleaned the disastrous mess, revealing a 2-inch thick screen of glass now in a million pieces.  The bat never had a chance.  A few hours of PS6 later.  Success.