Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Back to the Stuff you Should Know Summer
Speaker 1: Movie playlist, and this one is from January twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: It's our House Stuntmen and Women Work episode. I think
Speaker 1: your socks are gonna be knocked off by how hard
Speaker 1: these people work for our movie viewing Enjoyment. You enjoy too.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know Fromhoustuffworks dot com.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 3: Old Jerry had an itchy trigger finger today. Age you
Speaker 3: here in there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's ready to go home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's like, come on, three, do you want to go?
Speaker 1: You guys aren't my entire life.
Speaker 3: I know we like to think we are, but that is,
Speaker 3: we're like zero point one percent of Jerry's life. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she's giggling in there. She's quite the adventurer. How you doing, man,
Speaker 3: I'm great, man. I'm ready to jump from a tall
Speaker 3: building or roll a brand new car.
Speaker 1: Man. Sorry, that's what I was gonna ask you. So,
Speaker 1: I guess you did the intro for us.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, let's pretend like that didn't happen. No, it's
Speaker 3: fine Okay, you were just.
Speaker 1: Doing what the theme from The Fall Guy starring Lee
Speaker 1: Majors nineteen eighties, awesome TV show with probably the best
Speaker 1: truck ever featured in a TV show.
Speaker 3: That gmc man. That thing is sweet. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: dudes recreate that truck if you google it. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of guys that have like made that truck for themselves.
Speaker 1: For good reason too. It's a cool truck.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's interesting that The Fall Guy points out
Speaker 3: a couple of the show itself points out a very
Speaker 3: important things as far as stuntman go. One is that
Speaker 3: he had to moonlight as a bounty hunter, and that's
Speaker 3: kind of one of the things we'll learn is that
Speaker 3: there's not a lot of work out there and to
Speaker 3: go around, you know, like, it's tough to make it
Speaker 3: as a stunt man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get punched.
Speaker 3: And b he's if you look at the lyrics to
Speaker 3: that theme song man, he is really salty about not
Speaker 3: getting the glo, glory and the.
Speaker 1: Girls, mainly the girls and the glory. He uh well,
Speaker 1: when he winds up in the hey, it's only hey,
Speaker 1: hey hey.
Speaker 3: Uh So the song complains about not getting glory or women,
Speaker 3: and that is One of the hallmarks, though, of the
Speaker 3: stunt person is to remain anonymous.
Speaker 1: And to be bitter about it.
Speaker 3: I guess so very few stunt people you've ever heard of?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, they're the Academy of Arts and Sciences. They
Speaker 1: give out the Academy Awards.
Speaker 3: Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't have a category for stunt people. Nope,
Speaker 1: never have. And the reason some people give is because
Speaker 1: they like to maintain the anonymity and the illusion. Sure
Speaker 1: that's provided by stunt people filling in his doubles for stars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you can win a What Will See Award.
Speaker 1: You can win an Emmy for Best Stunt Coordinator.
Speaker 3: True, or the Stunt Award. They had their own Stunt Awards.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the Taurus World Stunt Awards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can win a Tory.
Speaker 1: They took a hiatus. I saw that there was twenty
Speaker 1: ten and then they're having stuff for twenty twelve. Couldn't
Speaker 1: find anything about twenty eleven. Really, Yeah, so if you
Speaker 1: know what happened to the Tourist World Stunt Awards for
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, we are curious.
Speaker 3: Interesting, let us know, So thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: So anyway, well, let's talk about the history of stunt people.
Speaker 1: They pretty much have only been around as long as
Speaker 1: you've had motion pictures. Right, Yeah, there wasn't much of
Speaker 1: a need for him before then. No, I mean maybe
Speaker 1: for like a show or something like that, like a
Speaker 1: wild Bill Hickcock show. Oh, I guess you call them
Speaker 1: stunt men, but really you kind of want to differentiate
Speaker 1: because you can also say, all right, so people who
Speaker 1: ride horses on standing up on a horse's back, that's
Speaker 1: a stunt person. Yeah, right, A guy who likes in
Speaker 1: the X Games, those extreme sports kids, sure that all
Speaker 1: the kids are into these days, that's a stunt. These
Speaker 1: are by, you know, technically stunt people. What we're talking
Speaker 1: about are movie stunt people, sure. And the whole point
Speaker 1: to their craft isn't to, like, you know, do a
Speaker 1: five to eighty on a bike unless somebody asks them to.
Speaker 1: What they want to do is create what you would
Speaker 1: just take for granted, like, oh, that guy just got clocked, right, No,
Speaker 1: he didn't actually get clocked. That was a stunt man
Speaker 1: who knows what he's doing, and that was a carefully
Speaker 1: choreographed scene that just flew right past you. But it's
Speaker 1: still your brain still just absorbed it as that man
Speaker 1: just got punched even though they didn't really happen.
Speaker 3: That's right, And we will probably slip into the word
Speaker 3: stuntman here and there instead of stunt people. Of course,
Speaker 3: there were tons and tons of stunt women, but we'll
Speaker 3: say stunt persons are stunt man and like luckily there
Speaker 3: are women now. In the back in the day, they
Speaker 3: would dress men as women to do stunts many times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of cross dressing back in the day, there.
Speaker 3: Was until they decided, hey, women are people too, can
Speaker 3: act and do stunts right, just like guys can.
Speaker 1: We could put them in danger just as much as well. Exactly, so,
Speaker 1: so there wasn't much call for stunt people for movies
Speaker 1: before movies just by definition. Sure, don't be ridiculous, but
Speaker 1: right out of the gate when we started making movies,
Speaker 1: we started needing people to do stunts. And the earliest
Speaker 1: people who were doing stunts were actually comedians, slapstick comedians
Speaker 1: like Buster Keaton had a very famous early.
Speaker 3: Stunt steamboat Bill Junior.
Speaker 1: Is that what it was in?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the very famous you've probably seen it in like
Speaker 3: you know, Hollywood legends of screen clips and things like that.
Speaker 3: On AMC. Yeah, it is the famous shot where the
Speaker 3: front facade of a house falls down and on well
Speaker 3: would have been on Buster Keaton, but he is saved
Speaker 3: because the attic window or attic door was open, so
Speaker 3: it just falls all around him. And there was some
Speaker 3: careful measuring in place, because if he would have been
Speaker 3: off by a few inches, he would have been dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was a real thing, Like the earliest
Speaker 1: dunts were nothing, but the real thing. Like apparently if
Speaker 1: you had I don't know, somebody hanging from like the
Speaker 1: construction the skeleton of a steel skyscraper, yeah, you needed
Speaker 1: that shot. That's what the guy did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they ed the grabster wrote this one, of course,
Speaker 3: and Ed points out that back in the day before
Speaker 3: they were like, you know, before they called them stuntmen,
Speaker 3: they were just like, let me go find someone crazy
Speaker 3: enough to go do this exactly, and that guy, that
Speaker 3: guy craft Service, looks crazy enough to do it, and
Speaker 3: let's go see if he wants an extra twenty bucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he does. Yeah, because Beck, you know, in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh two, twenty bucks was a lot.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 1: So as the film industry grew and grew early in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, we went from just nothing but slapstick
Speaker 1: comedies to things like westerns and action flicks, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, those people who really can ride on
Speaker 1: the back of a horse standing out became stunt people
Speaker 1: as well. And as stunts became more and more complex,
Speaker 1: the idea of having somebody whose job and specialty was
Speaker 1: to just do the stunt and make it look like
Speaker 1: the actor the star sure was doing it started to
Speaker 1: really develop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then flash forward even more the sixties and
Speaker 3: seventies is when things really came to their own as
Speaker 3: far as stunt technology developing. Things like squibs, which we
Speaker 3: will talk about for gunshots and air rams. Is that
Speaker 3: what they're called.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a like a hydratic lift. Yeah, it's pneumatic,
Speaker 1: just shoots you up into the air like with a
Speaker 1: human cannonball.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: But like so if somebody, if a grenade blows up
Speaker 1: by somebody and you see the dude fly through the air,
Speaker 1: he was on a ram, that's right.
Speaker 3: And then other things like airbags and and you know,
Speaker 3: more technology with cars with the cages, like it just
Speaker 3: got more and more complex, right, And now of course
Speaker 3: we have CGI which replaces a lot of stunts in
Speaker 3: many cases.
Speaker 1: Not necessarily to a better effect. Like all I have
Speaker 1: to say is Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Yeah, where
Speaker 1: it was like they suddenly cut to drawings of Harrison
Speaker 1: Ford swinging on a lasso.
Speaker 3: He's famous for doing his own stunts, though.
Speaker 1: He didn't do him And Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Speaker 3: Well, this's because he's eighty nine years old. Then he
Speaker 3: would die.
Speaker 1: He was awesome in Bruno.
Speaker 3: I didn't see that. Was he Harrison Borders in that?
Speaker 1: Yeah for about two seconds.
Speaker 3: Did they do like gay jokes to him or something?
Speaker 1: They didn't even get that far?
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, did he just shut it down?
Speaker 1: Yeah? All it's hilarious. But anyway, so stunts like the
Speaker 1: I guess throughout this progression of the field of stunt people,
Speaker 1: safety has gotten better and better, is what I think
Speaker 1: we were just trying to say. To the point now
Speaker 1: where they're not even used it's gi Yeah, but there's
Speaker 1: there's always going to be room for stunt people.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh. And the fact that it's gotten safer is much better.
Speaker 1: But there's still there's an element of risk to it
Speaker 1: no matter what it's grabs or points out. If a
Speaker 1: stunt didn't present some sort of risk, there'd be no
Speaker 1: need for stunt people at all, as tractors would do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the actors can't always do it.
Speaker 3: That's right. Uh. And when you want to call in
Speaker 3: a stunt person is when they either have a specific
Speaker 3: skill that they're really good at, like fake martial arts
Speaker 3: or I mean real martial arts, but fake hitting and kicking, or.
Speaker 1: Fake marshals like chew kwong like stuff you just made up.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of like just front kits in the air.
Speaker 3: That's what you practice.
Speaker 1: That's a quong.
Speaker 3: Sword fighting, stage combat, like we've talked about stuff like that.
Speaker 3: They are trained to fall, they are trained to you know,
Speaker 3: safely fall. I guess I should point out. And it
Speaker 3: just basically it's a safety factor on one and it's
Speaker 3: a financial factor on the other, because you can't have
Speaker 3: your main actor actress going down with a broken leg,
Speaker 3: yeah for four weeks, So you put your stunt person
Speaker 3: in there and keep your actor all license safe in
Speaker 3: their trailer.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Or you want to be shooting two things at once,
Speaker 3: so you have your second unit out there shooting the
Speaker 3: fast cars whizzing by in the car chase. Then you
Speaker 3: have your first unit shooting the actor inside the car
Speaker 3: driving a lot slower and acting like it's really.
Speaker 1: Fast but shouting and like moving the steering wheel back
Speaker 1: and forth a lot. Yeah, maybe there's somebody rocking the car.
Speaker 1: What's that called.
Speaker 3: Poor men's process?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Is yeah, so when you, I guess we should say this,
Speaker 3: when you're in a car, you either have a camera
Speaker 3: rig on your car where it's the real car with
Speaker 3: cameras attached to it. We've done that, or the cars
Speaker 3: on a process trailer, which means a lot of these
Speaker 3: shots you see with someone driving and you're like, they're
Speaker 3: not even paying attention to the road. Yeah, it's because
Speaker 3: the car sitting on a trailer being pulled by a.
Speaker 1: Truck, right, Or it's got a little rock to it.
Speaker 3: A little rock to it, or you do the poor
Speaker 3: man's process was when the car is not going anywhere and.
Speaker 1: You have PA's pushing on the outside.
Speaker 3: Pushing on the outside, little tricks with lighting to make
Speaker 3: it look like headlights going by.
Speaker 1: We've done that.
Speaker 3: It's really neat in the end to look at a
Speaker 3: scene that's poor man's process and think, wow, they're really
Speaker 3: not even moving and it looks so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, see if you can pick it out and
Speaker 1: the stuff you should know TV series, they can probably
Speaker 1: pick it up. So yeah, it's financial. It makes sense. Also,
Speaker 1: one of the other reasons people use stunt people is
Speaker 1: they come with a set of skills that the average
Speaker 1: actor doesn't have a particular set of skills exactly. That
Speaker 1: makes them very dangerous to you. And so you can
Speaker 1: either hire a stuntman who looks like your star to
Speaker 1: carry out like a combat scene or sort of look
Speaker 1: like your star, or you can teach your star, you know,
Speaker 1: spend all this extra money and time to training the
Speaker 1: star to the skill in a crash course. So it
Speaker 1: just most of the time it makes sense to just
Speaker 1: hire a stunt person. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And you know, chances are these days you're going to
Speaker 3: get a mix in a big action movie, you're gonna
Speaker 3: get a mix of all three. You're gonna get some CGI,
Speaker 3: you're gonna get some stunt people, and these days you're
Speaker 3: gonna get real actors doing some of the real fake fighting.
Speaker 1: Doesn't Tom Cruise do a lot of his own stunts?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got a list of actors who prefer to
Speaker 3: do us. I don't mean to jump the gun No,
Speaker 3: the Cruse is famous for that.
Speaker 1: I was reading this and I was like, I wonder
Speaker 1: if I would do my own stunts. I would do some.
Speaker 1: I would say, sure, I want to learn how to
Speaker 1: sword fight. Teach me that's something I want to know,
Speaker 1: and I'm certainly not going to shell out for it myself, ever,
Speaker 1: so let's go ahead and learn.
Speaker 3: Now, that's a good point. I would do my own stunts.
Speaker 1: It depends the heights.
Speaker 3: No way I would do that. I would jump off
Speaker 3: so California state law. And of course they shoot movies
Speaker 3: all over the place now and the union rules in
Speaker 3: Hollywood have really made it pretty safe these days. But
Speaker 3: you're still going to find injuries in your occasional death
Speaker 3: on set, which is really awful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, there always have been, pretty much from the beginning,
Speaker 1: deaths and injuries.
Speaker 3: Howard Hughes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the movie Hell's Angels, which we must have talked
Speaker 1: about in the Hell's Angels podcast. I'm sure we did,
Speaker 1: because I think we talked about the origin.
Speaker 3: Of the name, which was from the air combat.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, that's what they think the fighting.
Speaker 1: I think that was one of the theories. But there
Speaker 1: were three, maybe four fatalities yeah, because they were doing
Speaker 1: like real dog fights with airplanes and there were a
Speaker 1: lot of crashes. Yeah, so that was a movie where
Speaker 1: people died.
Speaker 3: Yes, very famously the Twilight Zone, the movie Jennifer Jason
Speaker 3: Lee's father, Vic Morrow, and two little Vietnamese kids died
Speaker 3: when a helicopter crashed into the water where they were
Speaker 3: crossing a river. That's on YouTube, by the way.
Speaker 1: I know, it's pretty awful.
Speaker 3: It is, and I saw it recently because I was
Speaker 3: just curious. I'd always wondered how it went down in
Speaker 3: my head because I've heard the story since the movie
Speaker 3: came out, since I was a kid, and I was wondering, like,
Speaker 3: exactly what was the logistics and how did that go down.
Speaker 1: It's pretty bad to watch, it is, because it just
Speaker 1: goes totally out of control.
Speaker 3: It does, so I would not recommend that, but you
Speaker 3: do have to enter your age, by the way to
Speaker 3: watch that video I saw. Yeah, And on set, the
Speaker 3: ad is ultimately responsible the assistant director for everyone's safety,
Speaker 3: and in fact, on our own little TV show, when
Speaker 3: we had fake guns on set just as props. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like we didn't even use them in the scene, but
Speaker 3: just to have a fake gun on set, the ad
Speaker 3: has to announce to the whole crew and show them
Speaker 3: the gun. Say it's fake, it's not real. Look at
Speaker 3: the barrel. There's no bullets, there's no nothing. It will
Speaker 3: not be fired. We will not be shooting blanks or
Speaker 3: dummy cartridges. And it's just you know, even on a stupid,
Speaker 3: little silly show like ours, you gotta be really careful
Speaker 3: with that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so chuck. Because of this incredibly high risk profession work,
Speaker 1: some people to be paid out the yin yang true
Speaker 1: or false.
Speaker 3: Well, they make a good rate, but like we said earlier,
Speaker 3: there's not a ton of work for the amount of
Speaker 3: stunt people trying to get work. Oh okay, And that
Speaker 3: was when I used to work out in la as
Speaker 3: a Pa. I would always try and talk to the
Speaker 3: stunt people when I worked on jobs where they had
Speaker 3: stunt people, because they're just really interesting. Yeah, and to
Speaker 3: say the least, and they would usually bemoan the fact
Speaker 3: that there's not a ton of work, and you know,
Speaker 3: they're all kind of scrapping for the same piece of cheese.
Speaker 3: But that's like everyone in the film business, sure, from
Speaker 3: crew to the lead actor. You're all after that same
Speaker 3: piece of cheese.
Speaker 1: Yep. We've worked with some stunt people too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you'd be surprised when you need to call in
Speaker 3: a stunt person. I worked on this one commercial where
Speaker 3: the was just like bad traffic on the highway that
Speaker 3: the shot was and cars had to just sort of
Speaker 3: pull over to the side while another car came through.
Speaker 3: All the cars that pulled over to the side of
Speaker 3: the road had to have stunt drivers.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was like, I could do that, but then I'd
Speaker 3: be taking bread off the table at a stunt person.
Speaker 1: Right, and then the whole production was shut down.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the most stunt people, you say, because there's
Speaker 1: just so little work for so many people. It's not
Speaker 1: a high paying job. A lot of people do it
Speaker 1: for the love of it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean you can make money if you're experienced and
Speaker 3: get tons of work, obviously, but right I'd say those
Speaker 3: are the few and far between.
Speaker 1: But you'd have to love it because the hours are
Speaker 1: usually very very long. Yeah, to do a stunt is
Speaker 1: not You don't just walk up and get in the
Speaker 1: car and drive it and all of a sudden it
Speaker 1: flips and there's an explosion and you're hoping for the best.
Speaker 1: Like when you see a stunt, these things are rehearsed
Speaker 1: over and over again. Say for a car chase, they'll
Speaker 1: go through the entire car chase, but they'll do it
Speaker 1: at a low speed so that it's choreographed, rehearsed, and
Speaker 1: everybody knows what's going to happen when. Yeah, that takes
Speaker 1: a very long time. If you need to flip a car,
Speaker 1: you need to do measurements. The pyrotechnics guys are probably involved. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of standing around, there's a lot of practicing,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of measuring, there's a lot of talking.
Speaker 1: And then if, for say you're doing something like in water,
Speaker 1: you're probably standing in water the whole time, So you're
Speaker 1: doing that for fourteen hours. Yeah, it sounds like some
Speaker 1: you would have to love your work to do this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely not a glory job, especially factoring in
Speaker 3: the anonymity factor.
Speaker 1: Right when you do all this and you do it
Speaker 1: absolutely perfectly, no one notices.
Speaker 3: That's the goal.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: In fact, one of my biggest pet peeves is when
Speaker 3: you do notice and you see that one shot of
Speaker 3: the dude with a wig on, it's supposed to be
Speaker 3: Clint Eastwood. Right, Yeah, just disappointing.
Speaker 1: So you were saying the second unit director handles this.
Speaker 1: The second unit director is in charge of shooting stunts,
Speaker 1: but the person who's in charge in like of the
Speaker 1: stunts themselves, is the stunt coordinator. Yeah, and that person
Speaker 1: high hires the stunt people, plans the stunts, oversees the stunts, execution,
Speaker 1: does everything, but actually sets up the camera and all that,
Speaker 1: or handles the camera shooting it. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's basically it's like a film crew is broken
Speaker 3: up into many departments, and that's just sort of its
Speaker 3: own little department headed by the coordinator.
Speaker 1: Gotcha.
Speaker 3: Like they'll have a budget to work with and all
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff, just like any other department.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about how they do some stunts.
Speaker 3: Okay, and actually the second unit director a lot of
Speaker 3: times is a former stunt person or stunt coordinator. Right,
Speaker 3: it makes sense, comes in handy. Sure, let's talk about
Speaker 3: stunts without fire.
Speaker 1: How about punches?
Speaker 3: How about them? Stage fighting man something we have not
Speaker 3: learned yet.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much a must if you want to become
Speaker 1: a stunt man. That's less than one is go take
Speaker 1: stage fighting courses.
Speaker 3: Yep, learn how to sell a punch as the giver
Speaker 3: and as the receiver mm hmm, without looking corny and
Speaker 3: hoky and fake like pro wrestling.
Speaker 1: Right, But it's very much similar to pro wrestling, especially
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen somebody throw a punch in pro
Speaker 1: wrestling and you can hear the skin slap, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: because that person was actually just punched.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The key is they weren't punched very hard, certainly not
Speaker 1: as hard as there the jerk of their head would
Speaker 1: would say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got camera angles and you've got sound effects,
Speaker 3: and through the art of movie magic, it looks like
Speaker 3: a good knockdown, drag out brawl.
Speaker 1: Right, And if you've got it like a really good
Speaker 1: stunt coordinator, they'll be like a punch that's sold and
Speaker 1: the person who's being punched is on a ramp so
Speaker 1: they fly through the air.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome, all right. Gunshots, we talked about squibs.
Speaker 3: A squib is basically you're gonna have a chest metal
Speaker 3: chest plate with a squib on the front of it,
Speaker 3: right to protect your body. And it's it's basically a
Speaker 3: little blood packet that's rigged electronically to explode when it's
Speaker 3: supposed to.
Speaker 1: And so the plate in between this gribbing and chest
Speaker 1: protects you. Sure, and maybe you are in charge of you,
Speaker 1: the stuntman are in charge that you have a little button.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe to explode.
Speaker 1: The charge or there's somebody else doing it remotely. And
Speaker 1: it's pretty awesome. Releases theater blood opens a hole in
Speaker 1: the shirt. Yeah, pretty awesome.
Speaker 3: It is very awesome.
Speaker 1: This I didn't realize though, how they make bullet holes
Speaker 1: in like a wall, like a stuck a wall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought this was pretty ingenious. They drill the hole
Speaker 1: ahead of time and then they cover it up with
Speaker 1: like putty or paper or something and paint with a
Speaker 1: squib in there. Yeah, and they blow that squib out
Speaker 1: and it makes a bullet hole.
Speaker 3: It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's ingenious. It's simple, it seems like, but it's very ingenious.
Speaker 3: Well, especially when you watch a movie. Ideally you're getting
Speaker 3: lost in the movie not paying attention, but if you
Speaker 3: watch like a John woufilm or something, and you see
Speaker 3: just like a wall get riddled with bullets, just think
Speaker 3: about all the time. Yeah, it took to set up
Speaker 3: all those squibs.
Speaker 1: And like what if the act trips. In the middle
Speaker 1: of it, you're just like, ah, we have to do
Speaker 1: it again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is no good. And in fact, big stunts
Speaker 3: they go with many mini cameras on stunts that you
Speaker 3: don't or can't recreate because of either danger or money. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and like some of these shots have like you know,
Speaker 3: a dozen more camera shooting.
Speaker 1: Right time, which makes a lot of sense, of course,
Speaker 1: and Grabster points out that another reason why you don't
Speaker 1: want to do a big take like that more than
Speaker 1: once is because every time you do, the danger for
Speaker 1: the stunt person multiplies. Yeah, And I was like, how,
Speaker 1: and then I thought, oh, well doing it more right,
Speaker 1: your your chances of injury are increased the more you
Speaker 1: carry out the more times you carry out a dangerous act.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's how it multiplies.
Speaker 3: Getting back to squibs, these days, a lot of directors
Speaker 3: are opting for CGI blood and bullet wounds. But supposedly
Speaker 3: Quentin Tarantino and this is out. By the time this comes.
Speaker 1: Out, Jango and chain Man, I can't wait to see it.
Speaker 3: Supposedly he had one percent real squibs and the blood
Speaker 3: like they're supposed to be the bloodiest, nastiest quibs that
Speaker 3: hollywould have seen in years.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's supposed to be pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: Huh. Yeah, have you seen a machete? Yeah that was
Speaker 1: pretty bloody. Yeah that was bad though I didn't like
Speaker 1: I agree it was, but it was still pretty bloody.
Speaker 3: They also blanks. If you were firing a gun on set,
Speaker 3: it is probably a blank, you would hope. So it's
Speaker 3: not the same as a dummy cartridge. No, a blank
Speaker 3: actually fires gunpowder, has gunpowder and fires what's called a wad.
Speaker 3: It's like paper or wood or plastic. But it does
Speaker 3: not obviously have shot or a bullet.
Speaker 1: No, but there's sometimes when the bullet explodes, bits of
Speaker 1: metal can end up being shot out as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's how Brandon Lee died when they were filming The Crow.
Speaker 3: Yeah. His was actually an accident. There was a bullet
Speaker 3: lodged in the barrel that they didn't know about what
Speaker 3: I thought.
Speaker 1: Okay, well then I'm thinking of somebody else who like
Speaker 1: was messing around with a gun.
Speaker 3: That was oh man, I can't remember his name, put
Speaker 3: it to his Yeah.
Speaker 1: Pulled the trigger and like the water like the gases
Speaker 1: or something killed them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was h I can't remember his name, but
Speaker 3: it was on a TV show set and he like
Speaker 3: goofing around, put it to his head as a joke.
Speaker 3: So you should never mess around with blanks. No, it's
Speaker 3: very dangerous. Still No, but there was a bullet in
Speaker 3: the Yeah, there was a bullet. They got the guns
Speaker 3: mixed up and there was a real bullet slug lodged
Speaker 3: in the barrel that they didn't know about. So it
Speaker 3: fired a blank, but it ejected that other thing and
Speaker 3: Brandon Lee died.
Speaker 1: Wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, it was one of the biggest oops is
Speaker 3: probably in Hollywood history.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I guess you could call it that.
Speaker 3: And I think he they thought he was still acting
Speaker 3: and continued to roll cameras for a bit afterwards.
Speaker 1: Oh geez.
Speaker 3: Even Yeah, very sad, tragic. Are we to falling?
Speaker 1: Yeah, which you'll do I won't do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll jump off of stuff. I've always done that.
Speaker 1: Well, they use these huge, huge air bags right.
Speaker 3: Well, back in the day they did, and if you
Speaker 3: and if you're doing a fall today, they still will sometimes,
Speaker 3: but generally these days they have like a bungee type contraption.
Speaker 1: I would still demand an air bag. Yeah, they apparently
Speaker 1: also for shorter falls, they'll take some cardboard boxes and
Speaker 1: they'll cut the sharp corners off. Yeah, and then you
Speaker 1: jump onto that. Did you do that when you were
Speaker 1: a kid? No?
Speaker 3: No, no, I always would jump into water.
Speaker 1: I would jump like onto the ground off like the
Speaker 1: credenza or whatever. And now I'm like, I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: do that. It's dangerous.
Speaker 3: Falls used to be the thing. Like I'm sure you
Speaker 3: remember as a kid, falls were a really big deal
Speaker 3: for stuntmen and Dar Robinson. Remember that guy. No, he
Speaker 3: did the Sharkis Machine fall okay in Atlanta and the
Speaker 3: Burt Reynolds movie. Nope, it's very famous fall out of
Speaker 3: the Peachtree Plaza Hotel.
Speaker 1: I was up in Toledo at a time.
Speaker 3: It was still it was released in Toledo in Toledo,
Speaker 3: Sharky's Machine one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh off the off the Witch Hotel.
Speaker 3: He went through a window of the Peachtree Plaza and
Speaker 3: uh into onto an airbag. And it's just it was
Speaker 3: one of the famous early and or not early falls,
Speaker 3: but one of the famous falls.
Speaker 1: What Florida did he jump out of?
Speaker 3: Oh man, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Was it pretty high?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean it was over over like one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty feet I know.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Yeah that's nuts.
Speaker 3: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: But see, so imagine planning that stunt. How many times
Speaker 1: they measured, yeah, everything to figure out where the air
Speaker 1: bags needed to go, and then they probably supplemented it
Speaker 1: with additional airbags. And if they loved the guy at all,
Speaker 1: they did all this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, stuntman, When you go to talk to one, if
Speaker 3: you're on set, you'll be disappointed by the fact that
Speaker 3: they aren't these crazy dudes like you want them to be.
Speaker 3: They're actually really sensible because they want to work and
Speaker 3: earn money, so they want to be really, really sure
Speaker 3: that no one gets hurt. It's a little more boring
Speaker 3: than you would think talking to them. Sure, but there
Speaker 3: are little nuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you'd have to be at what else, chuck fire?
Speaker 1: How about fire?
Speaker 3: I just saw Anchorman the other night, Remember when they
Speaker 3: had the street brawl and got on fire just walks by.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a pretty serious stunt, like when you are
Speaker 1: when you set yourself on fire. Yeah, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of safety precautions, but even still, it's you're on fire,
Speaker 1: whether you like it or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're wearing all kinds of fire protective clothing and
Speaker 3: fire retardant, and then you're smeared with the flammable gel.
Speaker 1: Yep, you have a hood on that protects you as well,
Speaker 1: and there's an oxygen tank in there, so you're basically
Speaker 1: just completely wrapped in this outfit. Yeah, but yeah, the
Speaker 1: flammable gels on. And they liked you and then film
Speaker 1: you and you're going, oh, it's always.
Speaker 3: The wavy and this kind of looks the same.
Speaker 1: And then the people run over and put you out
Speaker 1: with fire extinguisher.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: But they time it very closely as well. Oh, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: because I think it's kind of like, well, if we
Speaker 1: go twelve seconds, he actually will catch on fire, so
Speaker 1: we can shoot.
Speaker 3: For eleven eleven point five. Explosions are a big deal,
Speaker 3: obviously these days. There are so many explosions in movies.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they cheat a little bit what's called a technique
Speaker 3: called force perspective to make it look like the actor
Speaker 3: is closer to the explosion, and if there's an explosion,
Speaker 3: you're probably also going to be propelled with the air
Speaker 3: ram that we were talking about. It's very it's almost
Speaker 3: I would call it a Hollywood trope. At this point
Speaker 3: the explosion and the dudes flying like twenty feet in
Speaker 3: the ear.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that was big in a commando.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, I went there a lot of air rams using.
Speaker 3: Commanda, many more than I can count.
Speaker 1: That such a good movie. Car chases and crashes, yeah,
Speaker 1: they use rams as well. They may be attached to
Speaker 1: the car. So if a car needs to flip, you
Speaker 1: see people like going up on a ramp or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I they'd probably use that if you're just trying
Speaker 1: to stay on two wheels. But if you're trying to flip,
Speaker 1: there's usually a ram that pushes the car, pushes it
Speaker 1: off to the ground and it flips, or if you
Speaker 1: haven't coming out of the rear, it'll make it jump
Speaker 1: really high.
Speaker 3: Oh true. Like in Hooper.
Speaker 1: I don't know all these movies you're talking about.
Speaker 3: Oh dude. Hooper was the stuff man movie with Burt Reynolds.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Hal neaedam very famous stuntman turned director directed.
Speaker 1: Founder of The Cannonball Run well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and director of the movie The Cannonball Run and
Speaker 3: Smoking the Bandit and Hooper. Hooper was about an aging
Speaker 3: stuntman Burt Reynolds who was challenged by the up and
Speaker 3: comer Jan Michael Vincent. And of course there's the love
Speaker 3: relationship with Sally Field choosing that too. And it was good.
Speaker 3: It was like the best. It's sort of the best
Speaker 3: stunt movie ever because it was about stunts, huh. And
Speaker 3: he had a rocket car and that one that was
Speaker 3: a big rocket car jump. It was the big climax.
Speaker 1: I did not see Hooper.
Speaker 3: D you need to see Hooper?
Speaker 1: What was I watching back then?
Speaker 3: What were you? You're probably watching TV and stuff.
Speaker 1: I guess, Yeah, it.
Speaker 3: Was a little before your time. Secret of nim And
Speaker 3: like I said earlier, stunt drivers, it's not all like
Speaker 3: a lot of this stuff you're going to see on
Speaker 3: TV is stunt driving, even though you might not think
Speaker 3: it's necessary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently does this pull off of the.
Speaker 3: Sometimeway sometimes not. How do you become a stuntman.
Speaker 1: Josh, Well, apparently, as far as Grabanowski says, you basically
Speaker 1: have to start off as an extra on the set.
Speaker 3: That's not necessarily true.
Speaker 1: Okay, if you want to, if you want to go
Speaker 1: from the absolutely from from zero to stuntman in the
Speaker 1: slowest way possible, then you would start out as an
Speaker 1: extra on the set. You have to be a screen
Speaker 1: act You have to be a member of the Screen
Speaker 1: Actors Guild in most cases. Yeah, and when you're hanging
Speaker 1: around the set, you identify who the second unit director
Speaker 1: or stunt coordinator is and you hand them your headshot.
Speaker 3: This ad painted a path to becoming a stunt person
Speaker 3: that we've kind of laughed at. It is not the
Speaker 3: only path, but one thing is for sure. To become
Speaker 3: a stunt person, you need to get to know someone
Speaker 3: else in that department. And that's really with every film department.
Speaker 3: If you want to be in a wardrobe you should
Speaker 3: get a job as a BA and start hanging out
Speaker 3: with the wardrobe people. If you want to be in makeup,
Speaker 3: start hanging out with the makeup people. And that's just
Speaker 3: how it works in Hollywood. There is no degree. You
Speaker 3: can get a film degree, but come on, let's wasted money.
Speaker 3: Just go to work on a set. You get to
Speaker 3: know the people in the department and then start bugging
Speaker 3: them a little bit when they're not busy. Stunt coordinators
Speaker 3: are a little testy because there's a lot on the line,
Speaker 3: you know, sure, so you know if you're a new
Speaker 3: pa on set. Don't run over the stunt coordinator, start
Speaker 3: bugging them right away. Pick and choose right your time,
Speaker 3: and then give them your headshot and then give him
Speaker 3: your head shot.
Speaker 1: But yeah, what you're saying is that it's apprentice based.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: Basically.
Speaker 3: There are schools. One recommended driving school, the Rick Seaman
Speaker 3: Stunt Driving School. There's also the International Stunt School that
Speaker 3: sounds pretty serious, and this is where you can learn
Speaker 3: to do some of the stuff. But it's not like
Speaker 3: you exit with a degree and then show up and
Speaker 3: say now I'd like to do stunt work.
Speaker 1: Right, all the rest of you are fired. I have
Speaker 1: a degree from the International Stunt School.
Speaker 3: And Grabster points out that you should have a large
Speaker 3: area of specialty rather than one thing.
Speaker 1: I thought it's a very good point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that this is not necessarily true. I've talked
Speaker 3: to some stunt dudes that say, eventually you would like
Speaker 3: to have a wide range of skills, but a good
Speaker 3: way to get in is to have one really specific
Speaker 3: skill that you're great at. And you might get that
Speaker 3: call like this guy's good with wirework or water work,
Speaker 3: and or he's a hell of a driver or a
Speaker 3: really good motorcycle guy, yeah, or a great skier if
Speaker 3: you're doing like, what was that for your eyes only?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Is that the one that over had ski chase?
Speaker 1: Never say never again?
Speaker 3: I know it's definitely Roger Moore.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think it's for your eyes only, all right.
Speaker 3: But it helps to have these skills, Like a lot
Speaker 3: of stunt people are former motorcycle motocross racers or car
Speaker 3: enthusiasts or you know, how to stupid stand the forest
Speaker 3: back riding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so a lot of.
Speaker 3: Them had these skills just anyway, and they're like, hey,
Speaker 3: I can I've been driving dirt track for twenty years
Speaker 3: as well make some money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, film me.
Speaker 3: There's books out there, are there? So you want to
Speaker 3: be a stunt Man? By Mark Aspitt?
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a great name for a book like.
Speaker 3: That, The Full Burn by Kevin Conley, Fight Choreography The
Speaker 3: Art of Nonverbal Dialogue by John Kring, and then Hall
Speaker 3: Needham's biography Stuntman with a exclamation.
Speaker 1: Had to be had to be you got You said
Speaker 1: you have a list of actors that do their own stunts.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think most people know this. People like Jason Statham,
Speaker 3: famous for doing his own stunts, Huh.
Speaker 1: I see Zoe Bells on there. I thought she was
Speaker 1: a stunt person.
Speaker 3: Well she is, and she was in Death Proof though
Speaker 3: as an actor, right, And they were like, I guess
Speaker 3: they include her now because she did that awesome hanging
Speaker 3: onto the hood scene.
Speaker 1: I was watching that earlier and it is just nut.
Speaker 3: It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's like she's when she's hanging on it looks like
Speaker 1: by belts or whatever. Yeah, and then she's she's kind
Speaker 1: of sliding still across the hood.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: All it would take is like half an inch, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden she's gone too far and
Speaker 1: she's off the side of the car. Yeah, that was it.
Speaker 3: She's one of the best in the business apparently.
Speaker 1: Man, that's scary.
Speaker 3: Burt Reynolds used to do a lot of his stunts.
Speaker 3: In fact, he got injured pretty bad. That led to
Speaker 3: some bad health problems on set. Oh yeah, a city Heat,
Speaker 3: the Clint Easwood movie. Burt Lancaster, he used to do
Speaker 3: his on stunts.
Speaker 1: He's a tough guy. Yeah, remember the movie Tough Guys.
Speaker 3: Yes, in that Yeah. Yeah, I don't think we mentioned
Speaker 3: Ben hur either. That's one of the famous stunts ever.
Speaker 3: The Chariot race.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to tell him about it?
Speaker 3: Go ahead, what do you got.
Speaker 1: Oh, well, there's a stuntman named Joe Canutt and he
Speaker 1: was doubling for Charlton Heston and during the chariot race,
Speaker 1: this big, long, intense race. Yeah, he falls off the
Speaker 1: chariot and it's about to be run over, but in
Speaker 1: true stuntman fashion, grabs it is being dragged, Yeah, pulls
Speaker 1: himself back up and continues on.
Speaker 3: And I think that made it on screen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's in the movie. But that was a real thing,
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't a planned stunt. Like the guy saved
Speaker 1: his own life.
Speaker 3: That's awesome, Dad, Harrison Ford. We mentioned as far as
Speaker 3: the ladies go, Angelina Jolee and Cameron Diaz are known
Speaker 3: for doing stunts. Arnie Schwartz and Niagata and Jackie Chan
Speaker 3: of course very famous for doing his own stunts.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 3: And it makes a difference, man, when you can tell
Speaker 3: it's Tom Cruise on the side of that mountain.
Speaker 1: Man that was scary. Is that really him?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Emily worked on that shoot on there, just that
Speaker 3: segment in mo Ab, the rock climbing segment, and that's
Speaker 3: when famously Tom Cruise was like four hours late and
Speaker 3: flies in on a helicopter and like the whole crew
Speaker 3: was waiting around all day for him.
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard that.
Speaker 3: And then oh, yeah, I mean famous in my family. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and now I guess famous to the podcast community.
Speaker 1: Yea Cruiz is not punctual.
Speaker 3: Well he wasn't that day.
Speaker 1: Wow, stunts.
Speaker 3: Have you seen Haywire, the Soderberg movie? Huh huh, it's
Speaker 3: about h assassinate assassins. Basically, it's an action movie, Soderberg's
Speaker 3: take on an action movie. But Gina Karana was a
Speaker 3: former mixed martial artist and she she's awesome and does
Speaker 3: her own stunts. What's her name, Gina Carano.
Speaker 1: I don't believe I know her.
Speaker 3: She plays the lead. I she I think that was
Speaker 3: her first, like legit movie known for mixed martial arts.
Speaker 3: But yeah, she does her own stunts.
Speaker 1: She's b a hey wy hey, I'll check it out.
Speaker 3: I got nothing else.
Speaker 1: I don't either.
Speaker 3: Pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about stunts, you can
Speaker 1: type stunts into the house stuff works search bar. And
Speaker 1: I said search bar, which means it's time for listener.
Speaker 3: May Josh, I'm gonna call this, uh things we I
Speaker 3: guess say a lot. Oh no, yeah, like no, no, no,
Speaker 3: that's not in there. Okay, everyone says like.
Speaker 1: Though, I know, but I've people have pointed out here
Speaker 1: They're like, you guys say like a lot. And I've
Speaker 1: started to notice. And when I say it when I
Speaker 1: hear the podcast, I don't hear it when I'm saying it,
Speaker 1: only later on when I can't do anything about it.
Speaker 3: Don't beat yourself up. Everybody says that, like, there are
Speaker 3: articles written in the New Yorker about the use of
Speaker 3: the word like in the twenty first century.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're part of that crowd.
Speaker 3: I know you're no millennial.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm an aged person. Sorry, what's wrong with
Speaker 1: me today?
Speaker 3: Guys? Before I start, I feel like I should get
Speaker 3: out my adoration of the podcast. Always listen as I'm
Speaker 3: walking my dog, Chloe keeps me entertained for hours. I
Speaker 3: love that you guys are still going strong, and I'm
Speaker 3: very thankful. I've comprised a list, however, of words and
Speaker 3: phrases used most often in the show. Besides obvious ones
Speaker 3: like Chuck or Josh or search bark, let's hear them
Speaker 3: in no particular order. About it being a bout a boom.
Speaker 1: Sure he left off the bon Jovi she oh.
Speaker 3: She, we'll talk about this later or we'll get to.
Speaker 1: That, and then a lot of times we don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like I say that a lot.
Speaker 1: I think it's hilarious when we say that we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about something later and then we just forget too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or I say all the time, I think we
Speaker 3: should point out and she didn't put that in here,
Speaker 3: but I'll go ahead and throw my own on there.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm making air quotes. Yeah, I E E G. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's one of yours. That's a good band name, and
Speaker 3: that's usually me. Sure, because that's not just sweat. You
Speaker 3: just talk about sweat a lot because of me. That's
Speaker 3: a stand up guy. I don't remember her saying that
Speaker 3: a lot. Do you say that a lot? All right,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take at you with that one, Katherine on
Speaker 3: the up and up. I don't know' CoA. Of course
Speaker 3: you say that a lot.
Speaker 1: Definitely.
Speaker 3: People always ask it what it means.
Speaker 1: We never tell.
Speaker 3: They never tell, And then have you seen the movie? Ironically?
Speaker 1: That's about right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And those are ten things that we say a lot,
Speaker 3: and that is she says she thinks these are great
Speaker 3: comforts her and she smiles, and that is Catherine Phillips.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Katherine. That's pretty cool. Somebody's out there
Speaker 1: like writing lists of things we say.
Speaker 3: It's nicer to hear people say like, I take comfort that.
Speaker 3: And except for the emails when we get like you
Speaker 3: guys always.
Speaker 1: Say this and you usually like too much. That's John
Speaker 1: Travolta taking against the task. Or if you want to
Speaker 1: take us the task, whether John Travolta or anybody else,
Speaker 1: or you just want to say, hey, here's the list
Speaker 1: of things I noticed because the podcast or whatever, you
Speaker 1: can join us on Twitter. Actually, first, before we sign off,
Speaker 1: let's remind everybody that we're going to be on the
Speaker 1: TV again the TV. Yeah, Saturday night on Science Channel
Speaker 1: at ten pm would be the premiere of another Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know episode.
Speaker 3: You can watch us each and every week, Yeah.
Speaker 1: TV show Stuff you Don't Should Know TV show ten pm, or.
Speaker 3: Get it on iTunes the following day on Sunday. That's right, Chuck,
Speaker 3: Just go to iTunes and type in stuff you Should
Speaker 3: Know and.
Speaker 1: Two it comes off all right, So now we'll sign off, right, Yep,
Speaker 1: you can get in touch with us on Twitter at
Speaker 1: s y s K podcast. You can join us on
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash w should Know, and you can
Speaker 1: send us a good old fashioned email too. Stuff Podcast
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com.
Speaker 2: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 2: HowStuffWorks dot com