Contents.Premise The film opens on an unseen figure tampering with a helicopter harness. The next morning, stuntman Greg Wilson wakes up in bed next to a blonde woman. He rides his motorcycle to the set, late for a shoot. In the stunt, he is the passenger in a.
He climbs out the window and grabs onto the skid of a helicopter, which climbs to a great height. During the ascent, Greg tries to attach his harness, but finds that the hook will not close. He loses his grip and falls to his death.His brother Glen arrives on the set with reporter B.J. Parswell in tow. She is there to write about the dangers of stunt work.
Founded in 1976, StuntSA & SFX provides Stunts, Special Effects, Pyrotechnics, Rigging and Manufacturing services to Commercial, T.V. And Feature Film productions in Southern Africa and abroad. A combined experience of over 50 years and a desire to excel in the field has established StuntSA & SFX. This week, the British stunt performer Joe Watts suffered a serious head injury on the set of the film Fast & Furious 9, at Warner Bros Studios in.
The producer of the film, Alvin Blake, introduces Glen to his wife Judy and asks him to join the production. He reluctantly agrees.
Judy later comes onto Glen, revealing that she was sleeping with Greg and wants to see if his brother is as much fun in bed. Glen turns her down.Meanwhile Glen joins the film's stunt team.
They are a close-knit group that promise each other they would pull the plug on each other if they are ever left in a vegetative state.Patti & Chuck Johnson are married members of the team, and they are beginning to think about having a baby. After Patti tells Chuck that she has stopped taking birth control, he loses his nerve on a 6-story fall he is supposed to take off a roof. Chuck asks Glen to switch places with him, and he takes Greg's place on the stunt team that is climbing up the building during the scene.
As Glen is on the roof, shooting at the climbers during the scene, Chuck's harness fails, and he plummets to the ground. Hospitalized in a vegetative state, a tearful Glen pulls the plug on Chuck.Realizing the tampered harness was meant for him, Glen promises B.J.
That he will get revenge. In a stunt where he is supposed to emerge from a burning building while completely on fire, stuntman Paul is inside the building lighting it on fire for the shot. As he tries to exit, an unseen figure traps him inside, leading to his death.On the day that Glen is to recreate the helicopter stunt that killed Greg, B.J.
Discovers that Blake is responsible for the murders. He is jealous of his wife's infidelity. She rushes to the set to stop the stunt, but it is already in progress. Blake flees in his convertible.
He has loosened the skid on the helicopter, and it is starting to fall off as Greg hangs from it. Tells him over the radio that Blake is the murderer. Glen directs the helicopter to hover over Blake's car. He jumps into it, just as the helicopter skid finally breaks free. Glen wrestles with Blake and jumps free of the car, just before it crashes and bursts into flames, killing Blake.Cast.
as Glen Wilson. as B.J. Parswell.
as Paul Salerno. as Patti Johnson. as Chuck Johnson.
as Pete LustigProduction It was 's first full-length production for; it was also the company's first full-length feature film they produced after spending their first 10 years in existence as a pure distribution company. 'They were distributing to college campuses and they already had a script, so I was hired to direct it,' said the director Mark Lester. 'We hired Robert Forster because he had done. Don Stroud was supposed to star in it but he got into a motorcycle accident the night before shooting.'
Stunts was filmed in San Luis Obispo, California. makes one of her final appearances. References.
(Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics a question pertaining to the contemporary movie landscape.)July 27th will see the release of “Mission: Impossible — Fallout,” a movie that has improbably survived to promote. Of course, this is hardly the first time that a performer has put their life on the line for our amusement.This week’s question: What is the best stunt you’ve ever seen in a film? Luke Hicks (@loukicks), Film School Rejects, Birth.Movies.Death., Chicago ReaderIt’s difficult to award the most incredible stunt to anyone but the master of all: Jackie Chan. And when it comes to narrowing down the best of his best, why wouldn’t we listen to Chan himself? He is the expert after all. In his 1998 memoir “I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action,” he cites what he believes to be his best/most impressive stunt.
In “Armour of God II: Operation Condor,” he manages to escape a gaggle of bad guys on a dirt bike by driving it off the ramp of a pier while simultaneously leaping from his seat to snatch hold of a large net carrying an industrial-sized package held up by a crane over the water. Chris Feil (@chrisvfeil), Freelance, The Film Experience, This Had Oscar Buzz podcastCharlize Theron is one of our most dependable action stars for hard-hitting acts of daring, none more convincingly real than “Atomic Blonde”. In a one-take fake-out sequence, her Lorraine Broughton dispatches of several men in a Berlin apartment building for a wild feat of hyper-violent fight choreography matched with Theron’s visceral physical performance.
This set piece looks a hell of a lot like actual combat and is paced for maximum impact, allowing space for us to catch our breath before it knocks the wind out of us again. Convince me we didn’t actually watch Theron kill a man. Courtney Howard (@Lulamaybelle), Freelance for FreshFiction, SassyMamaInLAThough there are many examples I could cite, the one that combines everything I love about cinema, female empowerment and killer stunt choreography is the stairwell fight in “Atomic Blonde.” The seven-minute-long sequence is a love letter to the kickass women and men in the stunt industry and the filmmakers who showcase their feats. A former stunt player himself, director David Leitch put Charlize Theron through the wringer training for this unrelenting, show-stopping all-timer.
He keeps the action character-driven, and utilizes every inch of the challenging physical location to its full potential. Siddhant Adlakha (@SidizenKane), Freelance for The Village Voice and /FilmIt’s hard to pick just one stunt that fits this criteria — just one from the “Jackass” trilogy, that is. The Jackass crew are the modern successors to greats like Buster Keaton (sans the air of melancholy), putting their bodies on the line for our entertainment. Though in their MTV series and first two films they made it clear that we, the audience, could and should bear witness to the process. In their third film in 2010, “Jackass 3D,” they went a step further and used evolving film technology to deliver a visual experience that zeroes in on the fundamental way we perceive images in the modern world, something only Jean-Luc Godard has managed to rival with “Goodbye to Language,” which won the Jury Prize at Cannes. Anyway, my pick is the Poo Cocktail Supreme.“Oh shit,” begins Steve-O, as the film proceeds to makes literal the effect of studios adopting 3D as the new norm: shit flying at you. The man with a tattoo of himself is strapped in to a portable toilet filled with human waste and catapulted repeatedly until the feces surrounding him hits Zero G, floating untethered just long enough for our eyes to focus on it from behind our 3D glasses, making the extra cost of admission seem worth it. It’s a stunt so stomach-churning that not only Steve-O, but fellow cast member Bam Margera begins vomiting profusely, despite having only witnessed it from the sidelines.
Hannah Woodhead (@goodjobliz), Little White LiesIt was Leonardo da Vinci who said ‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.’ I could plump for the lot fight with swarms of Hugo Weavings in The Matrix: Reloaded, oranything from John Wick, but instead, I’ll go with the stunt that never fails to make me laugh: the ‘High Five’ from Jackass 3D. Such a simple premise: set up a giant spring-loaded hand, wait for an unsuspecting victim, profit. Is it juvenile?
Is it a brilliant feat of physical comedy? Also yes.Knoxville’s child-like glee as he lies in wait, production staff wandering through who don’t even bat an eyelid, Bam Margera lying defeated on the floor covered in flourthere’s so much going on in this small segment, which is easily lost among the most gross-out skits in the film. Jackass has always been one of those things that divide audiences, but there’s such a sense of camaraderie amid all the pranks, and that’s what comes through most here. These guys love each other. Pushing the limits of good taste and human decency have always come secondary to making each other laugh. Sarah Welch (@dodgyboffin), Bright Wall/Dark Room, Think ChristianOf all the stunts in “Mad Max: Fury Road,” I’d have to say that the very first “Witness me!” scene is the one that stands out the most. We’ve gotten a decent amount of action in the movie already at this point, but this is the scene where the movie really starts to let its freak flag fly.
Seeing “Fury Road” for the first time was one of the most memorable theater experiences I’ve ever had—I hadn’t seen any of the other Mad Max movies in their entirety, and I was a little nervous going into the theater because I knew it was going to be frenetic and grotesque—but this scene really won me over. It lays out the ethos of the War Boys with half a dozen words, silver paint, and primarily physical performances, not to mention Margaret Sixel’s stunning editing. There are at least four vehicles involved in the shot, all moving (the speed doesn’t matter too much because just adding an element of movement adds another dimension of danger to the stunt—but they do look like they’re going at a pretty respectable clip). There’s a crane rigged up with lines for the stuntman to drop from.
And there’s no net and no cushioning. The stuntman is hurling himself from a moving vehicle towards another moving vehicle, the latter of which is covered in metal spikes. He doesn’t even have the use of his hands: each one is holding a long lance. Every piece of this scene pulls together like clockwork.
If even one of the pieces didn’t work—the stuntman’s lines stop him too high from the car, the speed is off, the timing comes undone—it wouldn’t be nearly as effective a stunt. It’s over in just a few seconds, but what a rush. Witness me, indeed. Aaron Neuwirth (@AaronsPS4), We Live Entertainment, Why So BluThere are so many examples from the silent film era that make regular folks look like insane people that happened to find a camera, and yet I’m still going with a modern example.
“Mad Max: Fury Road” is perhaps the best action film of the past twenty years, at least, and a lot of that had to do with the hundreds of hours filmed by director George Miller and his team and whittled down to a 2-hour stunt spectacular.One scene that truly stands out, however, is the point at which War Boys are swinging back and forth on long poles during the final car chase. It’s as if Miller calculated just how much amazing action he knew audiences could hand and then decided, “What if I got a bunch of circus performers to dress up as maniacs and hang off poles in the desert while moving at high speeds?” The result is an added level of amazement, as we watch Max, Furiosa and the rest of the group on the War Rig deal with their latest adversaries. Having this all correspond with a high-speed car chase, full of a variety of other actions taking place, and keeping it all clear and understandable makes it as impressive as anything I’ve seen from the early days of film or other, more recent innovative ideas for action. Hoai-Tran Bui (@htranbui), /FilmWhen I think of the best cinematic stunt I’ve seen in recent memory, it has to be the Polecats sequence in “Mad Max: Fury Road.” When I look further back — yeah, no it’s still the Polecats. A stunt that sprung out of the wild imaginings of director George Miller’s mind and a chance visit to a Cirque du Soleil show, the swinging Polecats is one of the greatest stunts to come out of this century. Consisting of several stunt actors perched atop long, flexible metal poles, the Polecats stunt was unbelievably performed while the actors swung between moving cars. And in a classic case of “Mad Max”-style escalation, the stunt was originally intended to be done on still cars set to a green screen before Miller’s stunt coordinator Glenn Suter boldly proposed that they do the potentially deadly sequence on moving cars.
It’s thanks to Suter and Miller’s no-holds-barred approach to this and all the “Fury Road” stunts that we got that indelible image of desert warriors swinging wildly across terrifying tanks that raced across an arid desert. It only lasts about 5 seconds, but oh man were those the most breathtaking 5 seconds of my life. Ethan Warren (@ethanrawarren), Bright Wall/Dark RoomI have to vote for the pole cats in “Mad Max: Fury Road,” those masked figures swaying on enormous poles atop speeding vehicles, using their momentum to dip onto and attack our fleeing heroes. In addition to being a stunning physical and technical achievement (according to stunt coordinator Glenn Suter, the sequence was conceived and executed with the help of Cirque du Soleil veterans, and involved months of core strength training by the performers) the imagery is violently ecstatic visual poetry that’s unmatched even within this hyperactive bonanza of a movie.
Joey Keogh (@JoeyLDG), Contributing Editor for Wicked Horror, freelance for Birth.Movies.Death, Vague Visages.“Mad Max: Fury Road” is pretty much just one, big extended stunt for two hours straight so the whole movie is the most impressive stunt I’ve ever seen. Picking just one moment is difficult, because once they hit that dirt road it’s non-stop action and can’t-believe-your-own-eyes stuff. The pole jumpers are death-defyingly brilliant — any time somebody is hanging off a vehicle, it’s heart stopping — and the War Rig flipping over is great, because it’s such a massive vehicle. In terms of scale, though, the tanker explosion is just unbelievable.Miller’s insistence on doing everything for real seriously pays off here.
The love, the attention to detail, the story-boarding, all of it combines to create this once in a lifetime moment that’s also really cool to look at (so much so that a character actually stops to have a good look as it happens). The explosion just keeps on going. In a movie full of awesome (in the true sense of the word) moments, this particular move is so seamless, so tactile, that it makes you stop breathing for a second.
No computer effect could create that gut feeling. Oralia Torres (@oraleia), Cinescopia, MalvestidaHonestly, all of “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The movie is a carefully constructed adrenaline shot, with a particular post-apocalyptic world building that hints at very plausible causes. The brilliant performances, insane costume design combined with a very colorful palette, the excellent edition and practical action sequences make it impossible to forget and, honestly, sets a very high standard of what to expect from new action movies.
Out of the whole movie, filled with practical effects that look fantastic, the best stunts of the movie are in the scene where Furiosa (Charlize Theron) figths Max (Tom Hardy), right after they’ve crossed a sand storm while fleeing Immortan Joe’s army. Theron’s impressive during this scene: All of Furiosa’s rage bottled up explodes with careful and determined calculation, while battling an anxious-ridden man who’s only instinct is to survive. The battle raises the expectations of what to expect for the rest of the movie. Monique Jones (@moniqueblognet), Freelance for SlashFilm, Mediaversity Reviews, Shadow and Act,It might be cheating to use another “Mission: Impossible” movie, but I’d have to say “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” has that unbelievable plane stunt. Even though every safety precaution was taken, it still looks like the most dangerous stunt ever.
Aside from Tom Cruise literally hanging off the side of a plane, the second-scariest part to me is that his eyes had to be covered in a “” to keep them safe from debris, and foreign objects in my eyes is one of my biggest fears. Joel Mayward (@joelmayward), Freelance forLong before Tom Cruise was breaking his ankles, Buster Keaton was leaping from trains and buildings with his iconic stoic visage. One could list nearly any of his stunts from his oeuvre, but the one I love most is the waterfall rescue at the climax of his 1923 masterpiece, “Our Hospitality.” In the sequence Keaton saves his beau, played by his then-wife Natalie Talmudge, from plummeting over a waterfall by swinging from a rope tied to a jammed log hanging over the precipice.
The suspense is heightened by the montage; previous scenes were clearly were shot on location in a rushing river and add to the sense of authentic danger, making the unbroken shot of the rescue absolutely thrilling.Keaton’s physicality is simply astounding here, his commitment to the stunt exemplary as his body is contorted and twisted between rope, waterfall, and gravity. Even when you learn how he accomplished the feat on a Hollywood backlot using an enormous T-shaped pool and miniature set, that is still Keaton himself swinging like a pendulum into the rushing onslaught of water in a perfectly-timed catch. He nearly drowned. That’s commitment to the stunt, and Keaton deserves his place as one of the best action film stars in cinema history. Anne McCarthy (@annemitchmcc), Bonjour Paris, Teen Vogue, Ms. MagazineDid you know that one of Jackie Chan’s? Neither did I, until recently. Chan once told The New York Times: “I wanted to be like Chaplin” Most people don’t think of Charlie Chaplin when they think of stunt work and exciting stunt scenes in movies (instead, they often think of people like Jackie Chan), but in many ways, he was one of the early originators of stunts in film. Take for instance the roller skating scene in Chaplin’s 1936 film,”Modern Times,” during which he comes terrifyingly close to plummeting to his death while skating around the fourth floor of a toy department with a blindfold over his eyes.
Sure, in today’s CGI-saturated age with Herculean stuntwomen and stuntmen who are mindbogglingly brave and strong, it may not seem like much to skate around with a blindfold on. But in that scene, Chaplin was taking a risk. By today’s standards, it was a small stunt, but a stunt all the same. Chaplin was a trailblazer in so many regards, and this scene was one of countless ways in which he pushed the boundaries.
What made that “Modern Times” scene extra special was its subsequent ripple effect. Among the ripple: One day in Hong Kong, a little boy, who would grow up to become Jackie Chan, saw that stunt scene and felt inspired. THIS ARTICLE CONTINUES ON THE NEXT PAGE.Sign Up.