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