Kill Bill’s Sword Choreographer Critiques 5 Iconic Star Wars Lightsaber Battles
Playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton believed that “The pen is mighter than the sword.” back in 1839, but if he’d stuck around to pick a fight with Tetsuro Shimaguchi, he might’ve have reconsidered that stance. As the drumbeat of anticipation grows for the Dec. 18th release of J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens with ...
Spy’s Stunt Coordinator on Melissa McCarthy’s Butt Kicking
A chance introduction to Jean-Claude Van Damme in the late ‘80s led to Spy’s stunt coordinator J.J. Perry’s long career in the movies. Perry, who was on the Atlanta set of Ang Lee’s latest film Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk when we spoke, has worked on countless films, including Divergent, Transformers: Age of Extinction and ...
How’d They Film That? Inside the Fault Lines on San Andreas
When your film is about the San Andreas fault giving way and a magnitude 9-plus earthquake turning California into so many dominoes and sinkholes, decimating cities and their historic landmarks, you’re going to need some serious CGI. Yet you’d be surprised how much of San Andreas was shot in camera, using practical stunts and a ...
A Q&A with James Dever, Military Advisor on American Sniper
James Dever was just following orders. In 1986, Clint Eastwood arrived at Camp Pendleton, the Southern California Marine Corps base, to direct, and star in, Heartbreak Ridge. Dever, a gunnery sergeant with more than 13 years in the Corps under his belt at the time, was assigned by his Colonel to work with Eastwood — ...
Top Flight Stunt & Effects Team Jacks Up Horrible Bosses 2
Horrible Bosses 2 is both a comedy and an action movie; its' protagonists spectacularly idiotic schemes lead to all manner of mayhem. The first Horrible Bosses, bowing in 2011, was a hit, follwing a rich cinematic tradition of pitting hopelessly maligned employees against their superiors. Some of the more memorable horrible bosses in film history include Meryl Streep's humiliator-in-chief Miranda Priestly ...
Hercules Stunt Coordinator Greg Powell Talks Epic Battles
Greg Powell was born to do stunts. “I’ve been doing stunts since I was fourteen, so that’s forty-five years now,” he says. “I wake up a little bit stiff in the morning, but that’s the name of the game, and I still enjoy it." His father, Frederick “Nosher” Powell, was a stuntman, actor and boxer—he ...
Evolving Man into Ape: Simian Choreographer & Actor Terry Notary
This summer’s most highly anticipated sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, packs a serious blockbuster punch: it has state-of-the-art digital effects, sweeping apocalyptic scenes, and a cast and crew of thousands. But one man alone is responsible for the most crucial element of the film—teaching actors to convincingly portray apes. Actor and movement ...
The Sports Coordinators on Upcoming Draft Day & Million Dollar Arm
Spittin’ and cussin’ and scratchin’ like a Major Leaguer doesn’t take a whole lot of skill for an actor. But hitting a home run when the director calls “action!” and making it look easy? That’s a whole other story. Enter the sports coordinator. These former top jocks train onscreen talent how to swing for the ...
How to Shoot Stunts & Action on a Budget
The stunts in the recent Liam Neeson action flick Non-Stop were breathtaking, thanks to the work of stunt coordinator (and Neeson body double) Mark Vanselow. In the upcoming Divergent, fight coordinator J.J. Perry helped turned Shailene Woodley into a credible action heroine. There will be more wild sequences on display in Noah, Darren Aronofsky's very singular take on the Biblical story in ...
SXSW 2014: Catherine Gund’s Born to Fly Tracks Elizabeth Streb’s Genius
Dancers strut, cling, and leap from a giant swinging metal contraption. It looks like a massive mouse wheel, something you might see in a Cirque du Soleil performance or perhaps the circus. Despite the padding on the floor, the thing looks medieval and very, very dangerous, but the dancers atop, inside and below appear calm ...
Flying the Unfriendly Skies with Non-Stop Stunt Coordinator Mark Vanselow
Using an airport bathroom can have the degree of difficulty of a gymnastics floor routine. But when your job is United States air marshal and there’s a mystery man on your plane threatening to kill one passenger every 20 minutes, taking care of business means means squeezing into the stall to swap punches with a ...
Stunt Coordinator Kevin Scott on Lone Survivor’s Commitment to Realism
During the making of Lone Survivor, second unit director and stunt coordinator Kevin Scott was presented with an unusual challenge. He had to show soldiers tumbling down rugged terrain with sixty-degree inclines, but he also had to make it look real. “As a stunt person, we’re used to going big and doing gags. We usually ...
Looking Back on Some of our Favorite Stories of 2013
When we launched The Credits a little more than a year ago, we aimed to shed a light on the many talented filmmakers who often don’t get much press for their work. While we’ve occasionally spoken to folks who need no introduction (John Waters, for example), most of the filmmakers we’ve focused on have a ...
Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My! Sled Reynolds on Filming Ferocious Animals
Credited with more than 70 movies, according to IMDB—including six Best Picture winners—Sled Reynolds has much to “crow” about. The veteran animal wrangler/trainer/coordinator has worked around the globe on such esteemed films as Dances with Wolves, Gladiator, Water for Elephants and Life of Pi, and owns and operates Gentle Jungle, a highly successful California-based animal ...
Daredevil King Johnny Knoxville & Six Other Fearless Actors
Blunt force trauma—this is both a medical term and a description of Johnny Knoxville’s Jackass-related career. He’s been concussed multiple times (once via a bull), torn his urethra (attempting to backflip a motorcycle, the less you read about the particulars the better), had bone chips removed from his elbow (and probably needs further surgery on ...
Tracking the Action: Fast & Furious 6 Camera Car Driver Allan Padelford
If a stunt driver pulls off the craziest maneuver in movie history and there wasn’t a camera to catch it, did it actually happen? No offense to the bulging biceps of Vin Diesel or Dwayne Johnson, but all that adrenaline-soaked action is the real star of The Fast & Furious 6—and it would never make ...
The Human Insurance Policies: Sit in for a Master Class With Veteran Stunt Professional Hugh O’Brien
Imagine getting punched, stabbed, crushed, drowned, set on fire, thrown out of buildings, run over, blown up, and electrocuted—and imagine getting paid for it. Meet Hugh O’Brien, a man who makes his living dying (while making sure no one on set actually does). “We’re human insurance policies,” O'Brien says. O'Brien is our second professional stuntman ...
The Many Lives Of a Hollywood Stunt Performer: A Conversation With Oliver Keller
Oliver Keller grew up in a small town in Switzerland dreaming of becoming a stuntman in Hollywood. His appetite for excitement led him to Super G Downhill skiing and an eventual apprenticeship with a German stunt professional, but he had his sights set on bigger things. Today, Oliver is a rising star in Hollywood’s stunt community, ...
50 Reasons to Love James Bond
Last week marked the highly anticipated arrival of BOND 50 – the complete James Bond film collection showcasing all 22 classic titles on Blu-ray together for the first time ever, in one sleek collectable box-set. This Limited Edition set marks the debut of nine James Bond films previously unavailable in high definition Blu-ray and comes ...
