“Boom!” hopes to explode into living rooms when it premieres June 25 — but will the imported reality series live up to its name, or simply go bust?
Executive Producer Jeff Apploff is banking on the show’s “stunning” special effects, which all start with hi-tech layered 3D mapping. There is no denying that the impressive set plays as big a role as Apploff, host Tom Papa, the audience or even the contestants do.
“First, you have the plastic box. Next, we project an identical graphic that looks just like the plastic box,” Apploff said as he broke the design down for TheWrap. “Now we can make that projection do anything we want and it appears to be the actual wall.”
“For instance, during ‘gameplay’ the boxes appear to slowly move in and out to the beat of the music which makes the set feel like it has a heartbeat,” he continued. “When a bomb explodes, we made it look like the goo from the bombs were running down the walls.”
In the posted set design featurette, which is exclusive to TheWrap, Apploff calls the stage “extremely spectacular” and unlike anything he’s ever seen on TV.
Drilling down even further into the set piece, the real star of “Boom!” is clearly the bombs, which rise from beneath the stage, loaded with a vast array of gross semi-liquids set to douse a player after wrong trivia answers and poor wire cuts.
We asked Apploff which is the nastiest explosive option.
“They were all great in their own way,” he said. “My personal favorites were the hollandaise sauce bomb, the hot fudge bomb and the guacamole bomb, all because each looked so fun and funny on the contestants. Think about the consistency and it just makes you laugh.”
Watch the set piece video above.
“Boom” is set to detonate on Thursday, June 25 at 8 p.m. on Fox.