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This is one of the scenes from Scrubs.

JD (or whoever he was) bumps his head into the glass and breaks it. The scene looks pretty realistic. How was it done without hurting his head?

Ravindra S
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3 Answers3

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Very simply - don't use real glass.

Movies have long used sugar glass.
Literally, a substance that looks like glass but is just made from sugar & water, heated until it turns into a kind of hard, clear toffee [that's 'candy' for those of you born the wrong side of the Atlantic :P].

The same thing is used for the clichéd 'bottle over the head' in fight scenes.

Ravindra S
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Tetsujin
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    Or just use a fake body. If you notice he isnt showing his face in the final shot. – David says Reinstate Monica Jun 10 '17 at 19:17
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    I was assuming body double/stunts - would be cheapest for the insurance;-) Even allowing for the potential of a cut masked by the light going out, there's sufficient body movement to assume it's human. – Tetsujin Jun 10 '17 at 19:29
  • That's cool. YouTube even has detailed demos of how to make such glasses at home. :D – Ravindra S Jun 11 '17 at 05:42
  • Re, "...but is just made from sugar & water, heated until it turns into a kind of hard, clear toffee." Cooks have a name for that: It's called "candy." – Solomon Slow Jun 11 '17 at 14:57
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    In America maybe... the rest of us call it toffee, as already mentioned in the answer. – Tetsujin Jun 11 '17 at 14:59
  • @jameslarge As Testujin states, we do indeed call it toffee over here. I recall that during my days at secondary school I would sometimes make cinder toffee with a recipe my mum found in an old book. Also 'candy' (as a noun) is considered distinctly American in pretty much all contexts here (even though it's also used by Canadians). Admitedly you could make the distinction that toffee usually uses butter and sometimes flour, but the base ingredients of water and sugar are the same. – Pharap Jun 12 '17 at 04:42
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    @Tetsujin It's worth noting that nowadays they don't use sugar glass because it tends to soften too quickly. Instead they use synthetic resins e.g. Piccotex™. – Pharap Jun 12 '17 at 04:46
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    As a native British English speaker I'm not sure I'd have called sugar glass a "toffee". Possibly that's just a lack of understanding of what toffee is, but to me a toffee is chewy, whereas a hard sweet would be called a "boiled sweet". – AndyT Jun 12 '17 at 09:35
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    I think we're getting too caught up in what boiled sugar should be called. we'll be debating what flavour next ;) – Tetsujin Jun 12 '17 at 09:38
  • @Tetsujin For big budget movies I’m sure the flavor is negotiated as part of a product placement deal. ;-) – Todd Wilcox Jun 08 '22 at 21:56
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There are also commercial silicone and urathane (plastic) products that can be molded into clear glass-looking sheets.

Add in a sound effect and you're done.

Paulie_D
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I do not have a particular reference or anything, but another means would be to have several pieces of a hard, but not shard clear plastic that are already broken and held in place somehow or just balanced enough to look unbroken. Then, when the head hits it, the pieces simply fall away and the chance of getting cut is quite minimal. I would say that even hard candy can leave a small cut which could be quite painful whereas if the pieces are premade and assembled into a wall or pane, then the the manufacturer can ensure that they have no sharp edges.

user64742
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