June 27, 2025 • 39 mins
They get blown up, shot, drowned and thrown out of windows on the silver screen - and we don't even know their names. Stuntpeople are the unsung heroes of the movie industry. Learn the ins and outs of the stunt world and how one becomes a stunt person.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody. Back to the Stuff you Should Know Summer
Movie playlist, and this one is from January twenty thirteen.
It's our House Stuntmen and Women Work episode. I think
your socks are gonna be knocked off by how hard
these people work for our movie viewing Enjoyment. You enjoy too.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know Fromhoustuffworks dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Old Jerry had an itchy trigger finger today. Age you
here in there?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, she's ready to go home.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah, she's like, come on, three, do you want to go?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You guys aren't my entire life.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I know we like to think we are, but that is,
we're like zero point one percent of Jerry's life. Yeah,
she's giggling in there. She's quite the adventurer. How you doing, man,
I'm great, man. I'm ready to jump from a tall
building or roll a brand new car.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Man. Sorry, that's what I was gonna ask you. So,
I guess you did the intro for us.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Go ahead, let's pretend like that didn't happen. No, it's
fine Okay, you were just.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Doing what the theme from The Fall Guy starring Lee
Majors nineteen eighties, awesome TV show with probably the best
truck ever featured in a TV show.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
That gmc man. That thing is sweet. Yeah, you know,
dudes recreate that truck if you google it. There's a
lot of guys that have like made that truck for themselves.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
For good reason too. It's a cool truck.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, And it's interesting that The Fall Guy points out
a couple of the show itself points out a very
important things as far as stuntman go. One is that
he had to moonlight as a bounty hunter, and that's
kind of one of the things we'll learn is that
there's not a lot of work out there and to
go around, you know, like, it's tough to make it
as a stunt man.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, you get punched.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
And b he's if you look at the lyrics to
that theme song man, he is really salty about not
getting the glo, glory and the.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Girls, mainly the girls and the glory. He uh well,
when he winds up in the hey, it's only hey,
hey hey.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Uh So the song complains about not getting glory or women,
and that is One of the hallmarks, though, of the
stunt person is to remain anonymous.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And to be bitter about it.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I guess so very few stunt people you've ever heard of?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Well, yeah, they're the Academy of Arts and Sciences. They
give out the Academy Awards.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, they don't have a category for stunt people. Nope,
never have. And the reason some people give is because
they like to maintain the anonymity and the illusion. Sure
that's provided by stunt people filling in his doubles for stars.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, but you can win a What Will See Award.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
You can win an Emmy for Best Stunt Coordinator.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
True, or the Stunt Award. They had their own Stunt Awards.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Oh yeah, the Taurus World Stunt Awards.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, you can win a Tory.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
They took a hiatus. I saw that there was twenty
ten and then they're having stuff for twenty twelve. Couldn't
find anything about twenty eleven. Really, Yeah, so if you
know what happened to the Tourist World Stunt Awards for
twenty eleven, we are curious.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Interesting, let us know, So thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So anyway, well, let's talk about the history of stunt people.
They pretty much have only been around as long as
you've had motion pictures. Right, Yeah, there wasn't much of
a need for him before then. No, I mean maybe
for like a show or something like that, like a
wild Bill Hickcock show. Oh, I guess you call them
(03:41):
stunt men, but really you kind of want to differentiate
because you can also say, all right, so people who
ride horses on standing up on a horse's back, that's
a stunt person. Yeah, right, A guy who likes in
the X Games, those extreme sports kids, sure that all
the kids are into these days, that's a stunt. These
are by, you know, technically stunt people. What we're talking
(04:04):
about are movie stunt people, sure. And the whole point
to their craft isn't to, like, you know, do a
five to eighty on a bike unless somebody asks them to.
What they want to do is create what you would
just take for granted, like, oh, that guy just got clocked, right, No,
he didn't actually get clocked. That was a stunt man
who knows what he's doing, and that was a carefully
(04:26):
choreographed scene that just flew right past you. But it's
still your brain still just absorbed it as that man
just got punched even though they didn't really happen.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
That's right, And we will probably slip into the word
stuntman here and there instead of stunt people. Of course,
there were tons and tons of stunt women, but we'll
say stunt persons are stunt man and like luckily there
are women now. In the back in the day, they
would dress men as women to do stunts many times.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, there's a lot of cross dressing back in the day, there.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Was until they decided, hey, women are people too, can
act and do stunts right, just like guys can.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
We could put them in danger just as much as well. Exactly, so,
so there wasn't much call for stunt people for movies
before movies just by definition. Sure, don't be ridiculous, but
right out of the gate when we started making movies,
we started needing people to do stunts. And the earliest
people who were doing stunts were actually comedians, slapstick comedians
(05:23):
like Buster Keaton had a very famous early.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Stunt steamboat Bill Junior.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Is that what it was in?
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, the very famous you've probably seen it in like
you know, Hollywood legends of screen clips and things like that.
On AMC. Yeah, it is the famous shot where the
front facade of a house falls down and on well
would have been on Buster Keaton, but he is saved
because the attic window or attic door was open, so
(05:49):
it just falls all around him. And there was some
careful measuring in place, because if he would have been
off by a few inches, he would have been dead.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yeah, and that was a real thing, Like the earliest
dunts were nothing, but the real thing. Like apparently if
you had I don't know, somebody hanging from like the
construction the skeleton of a steel skyscraper, yeah, you needed
that shot. That's what the guy did.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Yeah, and they ed the grabster wrote this one, of course,
and Ed points out that back in the day before
they were like, you know, before they called them stuntmen,
they were just like, let me go find someone crazy
enough to go do this exactly, and that guy, that
guy craft Service, looks crazy enough to do it, and
let's go see if he wants an extra twenty bucks.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, and he does. Yeah, because Beck, you know, in
nineteen oh two, twenty bucks was a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
So as the film industry grew and grew early in
the twentieth century, we went from just nothing but slapstick
comedies to things like westerns and action flicks, and all
of a sudden, those people who really can ride on
the back of a horse standing out became stunt people
as well. And as stunts became more and more complex,
(07:05):
the idea of having somebody whose job and specialty was
to just do the stunt and make it look like
the actor the star sure was doing it started to
really develop.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Yeah, and then flash forward even more the sixties and
seventies is when things really came to their own as
far as stunt technology developing. Things like squibs, which we
will talk about for gunshots and air rams. Is that
what they're called.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, it's like a like a hydratic lift. Yeah, it's pneumatic,
just shoots you up into the air like with a
human cannonball.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
But like so if somebody, if a grenade blows up
by somebody and you see the dude fly through the air,
he was on a ram, that's right.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
And then other things like airbags and and you know,
more technology with cars with the cages, like it just
got more and more complex, right, And now of course
we have CGI which replaces a lot of stunts in
many cases.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Not necessarily to a better effect. Like all I have
to say is Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Yeah, where
it was like they suddenly cut to drawings of Harrison
Ford swinging on a lasso.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
He's famous for doing his own stunts, though.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
He didn't do him And Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Well, this's because he's eighty nine years old. Then he
would die.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
He was awesome in Bruno.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I didn't see that. Was he Harrison Borders in that?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah for about two seconds.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Did they do like gay jokes to him or something?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
They didn't even get that far?
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Okay, yeah, did he just shut it down?
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah? All it's hilarious. But anyway, so stunts like the
I guess throughout this progression of the field of stunt people,
safety has gotten better and better, is what I think
we were just trying to say. To the point now
where they're not even used it's gi Yeah, but there's
there's always going to be room for stunt people.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Uh. And the fact that it's gotten safer is much better.
But there's still there's an element of risk to it
no matter what it's grabs or points out. If a
stunt didn't present some sort of risk, there'd be no
need for stunt people at all, as tractors would do it. Yeah,
but the actors can't always do it.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
That's right. Uh. And when you want to call in
a stunt person is when they either have a specific
skill that they're really good at, like fake martial arts
or I mean real martial arts, but fake hitting and kicking, or.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Fake marshals like chew kwong like stuff you just made up.
It's a lot of like just front kits in the air.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
That's what you practice.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
That's a quong.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Sword fighting, stage combat, like we've talked about stuff like that.
They are trained to fall, they are trained to you know,
safely fall. I guess I should point out. And it
just basically it's a safety factor on one and it's
a financial factor on the other, because you can't have
your main actor actress going down with a broken leg,
(10:07):
yeah for four weeks, So you put your stunt person
in there and keep your actor all license safe in
their trailer.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Or you want to be shooting two things at once,
so you have your second unit out there shooting the
fast cars whizzing by in the car chase. Then you
have your first unit shooting the actor inside the car
driving a lot slower and acting like it's really.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Fast but shouting and like moving the steering wheel back
and forth a lot. Yeah, maybe there's somebody rocking the car.
What's that called.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Poor men's process?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Is yeah, so when you, I guess we should say this,
when you're in a car, you either have a camera
rig on your car where it's the real car with
cameras attached to it. We've done that, or the cars
on a process trailer, which means a lot of these
shots you see with someone driving and you're like, they're
not even paying attention to the road. Yeah, it's because
the car sitting on a trailer being pulled by a.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Truck, right, Or it's got a little rock to it.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
A little rock to it, or you do the poor
man's process was when the car is not going anywhere and.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
You have PA's pushing on the outside.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Pushing on the outside, little tricks with lighting to make
it look like headlights going by.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
We've done that.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
It's really neat in the end to look at a
scene that's poor man's process and think, wow, they're really
not even moving and it looks so good.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah. Yeah, see if you can pick it out and
the stuff you should know TV series, they can probably
pick it up. So yeah, it's financial. It makes sense. Also,
one of the other reasons people use stunt people is
they come with a set of skills that the average
actor doesn't have a particular set of skills exactly. That
makes them very dangerous to you. And so you can
(11:40):
either hire a stuntman who looks like your star to
carry out like a combat scene or sort of look
like your star, or you can teach your star, you know,
spend all this extra money and time to training the
star to the skill in a crash course. So it
just most of the time it makes sense to just
hire a stunt person. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
And you know, chances are these days you're going to
get a mix in a big action movie, you're gonna
get a mix of all three. You're gonna get some CGI,
you're gonna get some stunt people, and these days you're
gonna get real actors doing some of the real fake fighting.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Doesn't Tom Cruise do a lot of his own stunts?
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah, I got a list of actors who prefer to
do us. I don't mean to jump the gun No,
the Cruse is famous for that.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I was reading this and I was like, I wonder
if I would do my own stunts. I would do some.
I would say, sure, I want to learn how to
sword fight. Teach me that's something I want to know,
and I'm certainly not going to shell out for it myself, ever,
so let's go ahead and learn.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Now, that's a good point. I would do my own stunts.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
It depends the heights.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
No way I would do that. I would jump off
so California state law. And of course they shoot movies
all over the place now and the union rules in
Hollywood have really made it pretty safe these days. But
you're still going to find injuries in your occasional death
on set, which is really awful.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah. Well, there always have been, pretty much from the beginning,
deaths and injuries.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Howard Hughes.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, the movie Hell's Angels, which we must have talked
about in the Hell's Angels podcast. I'm sure we did,
because I think we talked about the origin.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Of the name, which was from the air combat.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
It was, you know, that's what they think the fighting.
I think that was one of the theories. But there
were three, maybe four fatalities yeah, because they were doing
like real dog fights with airplanes and there were a
lot of crashes. Yeah, so that was a movie where
people died.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yes, very famously the Twilight Zone, the movie Jennifer Jason
Lee's father, Vic Morrow, and two little Vietnamese kids died
when a helicopter crashed into the water where they were
crossing a river. That's on YouTube, by the way.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I know, it's pretty awful.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It is, and I saw it recently because I was
just curious. I'd always wondered how it went down in
my head because I've heard the story since the movie
came out, since I was a kid, and I was wondering, like,
exactly what was the logistics and how did that go down.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
It's pretty bad to watch, it is, because it just
goes totally out of control.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
It does, so I would not recommend that, but you
do have to enter your age, by the way to
watch that video I saw. Yeah, And on set, the
ad is ultimately responsible the assistant director for everyone's safety,
and in fact, on our own little TV show, when
we had fake guns on set just as props. Yeah,
(14:28):
like we didn't even use them in the scene, but
just to have a fake gun on set, the ad
has to announce to the whole crew and show them
the gun. Say it's fake, it's not real. Look at
the barrel. There's no bullets, there's no nothing. It will
not be fired. We will not be shooting blanks or
dummy cartridges. And it's just you know, even on a stupid,
little silly show like ours, you gotta be really careful
(14:50):
with that stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, so chuck. Because of this incredibly high risk profession work,
some people to be paid out the yin yang true
or false.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Well, they make a good rate, but like we said earlier,
there's not a ton of work for the amount of
stunt people trying to get work. Oh okay, And that
was when I used to work out in la as
a Pa. I would always try and talk to the
stunt people when I worked on jobs where they had
stunt people, because they're just really interesting. Yeah, and to
(15:25):
say the least, and they would usually bemoan the fact
that there's not a ton of work, and you know,
they're all kind of scrapping for the same piece of cheese.
But that's like everyone in the film business, sure, from
crew to the lead actor. You're all after that same
piece of cheese.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yep. We've worked with some stunt people too.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Yeah, you'd be surprised when you need to call in
a stunt person. I worked on this one commercial where
the was just like bad traffic on the highway that
the shot was and cars had to just sort of
pull over to the side while another car came through.
All the cars that pulled over to the side of
the road had to have stunt drivers.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I was like, I could do that, but then I'd
be taking bread off the table at a stunt person.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Right, and then the whole production was shut down.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Okay, So the most stunt people, you say, because there's
just so little work for so many people. It's not
a high paying job. A lot of people do it
for the love of it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I mean you can make money if you're experienced and
get tons of work, obviously, but right I'd say those
are the few and far between.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
But you'd have to love it because the hours are
usually very very long. Yeah, to do a stunt is
not You don't just walk up and get in the
car and drive it and all of a sudden it
flips and there's an explosion and you're hoping for the best.
Like when you see a stunt, these things are rehearsed
over and over again. Say for a car chase, they'll
(16:49):
go through the entire car chase, but they'll do it
at a low speed so that it's choreographed, rehearsed, and
everybody knows what's going to happen when. Yeah, that takes
a very long time. If you need to flip a car,
you need to do measurements. The pyrotechnics guys are probably involved. Yeah,
there's a lot of standing around, there's a lot of practicing,
there's a lot of measuring, there's a lot of talking.
(17:11):
And then if, for say you're doing something like in water,
you're probably standing in water the whole time, So you're
doing that for fourteen hours. Yeah, it sounds like some
you would have to love your work to do this.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Yeah, it's definitely not a glory job, especially factoring in
the anonymity factor.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Right when you do all this and you do it
absolutely perfectly, no one notices.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
That's the goal.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
In fact, one of my biggest pet peeves is when
you do notice and you see that one shot of
the dude with a wig on, it's supposed to be
Clint Eastwood. Right, Yeah, just disappointing.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
So you were saying the second unit director handles this.
The second unit director is in charge of shooting stunts,
but the person who's in charge in like of the
stunts themselves, is the stunt coordinator. Yeah, and that person
high hires the stunt people, plans the stunts, oversees the stunts, execution,
does everything, but actually sets up the camera and all that,
(18:08):
or handles the camera shooting it. Right.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Yeah, it's basically it's like a film crew is broken
up into many departments, and that's just sort of its
own little department headed by the coordinator.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Gotcha.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Like they'll have a budget to work with and all
that kind of stuff, just like any other department.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
So let's talk about how they do some stunts.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Okay, and actually the second unit director a lot of
times is a former stunt person or stunt coordinator. Right,
it makes sense, comes in handy. Sure, let's talk about
stunts without fire.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
How about punches?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
How about them? Stage fighting man something we have not
learned yet.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That's pretty much a must if you want to become
a stunt man. That's less than one is go take
stage fighting courses.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Yep, learn how to sell a punch as the giver
and as the receiver mm hmm, without looking corny and
hoky and fake like pro wrestling.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Right, But it's very much similar to pro wrestling, especially
if you've ever seen somebody throw a punch in pro
wrestling and you can hear the skin slap, Yeah, that's
because that person was actually just punched.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
The key is they weren't punched very hard, certainly not
as hard as there the jerk of their head would
would say.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Yeah, you've got camera angles and you've got sound effects,
and through the art of movie magic, it looks like
a good knockdown, drag out brawl.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Right, And if you've got it like a really good
stunt coordinator, they'll be like a punch that's sold and
the person who's being punched is on a ramp so
they fly through the air.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, that's awesome, all right. Gunshots, we talked about squibs.
A squib is basically you're gonna have a chest metal
chest plate with a squib on the front of it,
right to protect your body. And it's it's basically a
little blood packet that's rigged electronically to explode when it's
(19:57):
supposed to.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And so the plate in between this gribbing and chest
protects you. Sure, and maybe you are in charge of you,
the stuntman are in charge that you have a little button.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah, maybe to explode.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
The charge or there's somebody else doing it remotely. And
it's pretty awesome. Releases theater blood opens a hole in
the shirt. Yeah, pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
It is very awesome.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
This I didn't realize though, how they make bullet holes
in like a wall, like a stuck a wall. Yeah,
I thought this was pretty ingenious. They drill the hole
ahead of time and then they cover it up with
like putty or paper or something and paint with a
squib in there. Yeah, and they blow that squib out
(20:40):
and it makes a bullet hole.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
It's ingenious. It's simple, it seems like, but it's very ingenious.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Well, especially when you watch a movie. Ideally you're getting
lost in the movie not paying attention, but if you
watch like a John woufilm or something, and you see
just like a wall get riddled with bullets, just think
about all the time. Yeah, it took to set up
all those squibs.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
And like what if the act trips. In the middle
of it, you're just like, ah, we have to do
it again.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Yeah, which is no good. And in fact, big stunts
they go with many mini cameras on stunts that you
don't or can't recreate because of either danger or money. Yeah,
and like some of these shots have like you know,
a dozen more camera shooting.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Right time, which makes a lot of sense, of course,
and Grabster points out that another reason why you don't
want to do a big take like that more than
once is because every time you do, the danger for
the stunt person multiplies. Yeah, And I was like, how,
and then I thought, oh, well doing it more right,
your your chances of injury are increased the more you
carry out the more times you carry out a dangerous act.
(21:38):
So yeah, that's how it multiplies.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Getting back to squibs, these days, a lot of directors
are opting for CGI blood and bullet wounds. But supposedly
Quentin Tarantino and this is out. By the time this comes.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Out, Jango and chain Man, I can't wait to see it.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Supposedly he had one percent real squibs and the blood
like they're supposed to be the bloodiest, nastiest quibs that
hollywould have seen in years.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah, it's supposed to be pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Huh. Yeah, have you seen a machete? Yeah that was
pretty bloody. Yeah that was bad though I didn't like
I agree it was, but it was still pretty bloody.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
They also blanks. If you were firing a gun on set,
it is probably a blank, you would hope. So it's
not the same as a dummy cartridge. No, a blank
actually fires gunpowder, has gunpowder and fires what's called a wad.
It's like paper or wood or plastic. But it does
not obviously have shot or a bullet.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
No, but there's sometimes when the bullet explodes, bits of
metal can end up being shot out as well.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
That's how Brandon Lee died when they were filming The Crow.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah. His was actually an accident. There was a bullet
lodged in the barrel that they didn't know about what
I thought.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Okay, well then I'm thinking of somebody else who like
was messing around with a gun.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
That was oh man, I can't remember his name, put
it to his Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Pulled the trigger and like the water like the gases
or something killed them.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, that was h I can't remember his name, but
it was on a TV show set and he like
goofing around, put it to his head as a joke.
So you should never mess around with blanks. No, it's
very dangerous. Still No, but there was a bullet in
the Yeah, there was a bullet. They got the guns
mixed up and there was a real bullet slug lodged
in the barrel that they didn't know about. So it
fired a blank, but it ejected that other thing and
(23:27):
Brandon Lee died.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, man, it was one of the biggest oops is
probably in Hollywood history.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, you know, I guess you could call it that.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
And I think he they thought he was still acting
and continued to roll cameras for a bit afterwards.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Oh geez.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Even Yeah, very sad, tragic. Are we to falling?
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, which you'll do I won't do.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Yeah, I'll jump off of stuff. I've always done that.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Well, they use these huge, huge air bags right.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Well, back in the day they did, and if you
and if you're doing a fall today, they still will sometimes,
but generally these days they have like a bungee type contraption.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I would still demand an air bag. Yeah, they apparently
also for shorter falls, they'll take some cardboard boxes and
they'll cut the sharp corners off. Yeah, and then you
jump onto that. Did you do that when you were
a kid? No?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
No, no, I always would jump into water.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I would jump like onto the ground off like the
credenza or whatever. And now I'm like, I wouldn't even
do that. It's dangerous.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Falls used to be the thing. Like I'm sure you
remember as a kid, falls were a really big deal
for stuntmen and Dar Robinson. Remember that guy. No, he
did the Sharkis Machine fall okay in Atlanta and the
Burt Reynolds movie. Nope, it's very famous fall out of
the Peachtree Plaza Hotel.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I was up in Toledo at a time.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
It was still it was released in Toledo in Toledo,
Sharky's Machine one.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, uh off the off the Witch Hotel.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
He went through a window of the Peachtree Plaza and
uh into onto an airbag. And it's just it was
one of the famous early and or not early falls,
but one of the famous falls.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
What Florida did he jump out of?
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Oh man, I can't remember.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Was it pretty high?
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Yeah? I mean it was over over like one hundred
and fifty feet I know.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Oh wow, Yeah that's nuts.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
But see, so imagine planning that stunt. How many times
they measured, yeah, everything to figure out where the air
bags needed to go, and then they probably supplemented it
with additional airbags. And if they loved the guy at all,
they did all this.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Yeah, stuntman, When you go to talk to one, if
you're on set, you'll be disappointed by the fact that
they aren't these crazy dudes like you want them to be.
They're actually really sensible because they want to work and
earn money, so they want to be really, really sure
that no one gets hurt. It's a little more boring
than you would think talking to them. Sure, but there
are little nuts.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, well you'd have to be at what else, chuck fire?
How about fire?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
I just saw Anchorman the other night, Remember when they
had the street brawl and got on fire just walks by.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, that's a pretty serious stunt, like when you are
when you set yourself on fire. Yeah, and there's a
lot of safety precautions, but even still, it's you're on fire,
whether you like it or not.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah, you're wearing all kinds of fire protective clothing and
fire retardant, and then you're smeared with the flammable gel.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yep, you have a hood on that protects you as well,
and there's an oxygen tank in there, so you're basically
just completely wrapped in this outfit. Yeah, but yeah, the
flammable gels on. And they liked you and then film
you and you're going, oh, it's always.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
The wavy and this kind of looks the same.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
And then the people run over and put you out
with fire extinguisher.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
But they time it very closely as well. Oh, I'm sure,
because I think it's kind of like, well, if we
go twelve seconds, he actually will catch on fire, so
we can shoot.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
For eleven eleven point five. Explosions are a big deal,
obviously these days. There are so many explosions in movies.
Sometimes they cheat a little bit what's called a technique
called force perspective to make it look like the actor
is closer to the explosion, and if there's an explosion,
you're probably also going to be propelled with the air
(27:09):
ram that we were talking about. It's very it's almost
I would call it a Hollywood trope. At this point
the explosion and the dudes flying like twenty feet in
the ear.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that was big in a commando.
Oh yes, I went there a lot of air rams using.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Commanda, many more than I can count.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
That such a good movie. Car chases and crashes, yeah,
they use rams as well. They may be attached to
the car. So if a car needs to flip, you
see people like going up on a ramp or whatever. Yeah,
and I they'd probably use that if you're just trying
to stay on two wheels. But if you're trying to flip,
there's usually a ram that pushes the car, pushes it
(27:46):
off to the ground and it flips, or if you
haven't coming out of the rear, it'll make it jump
really high.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Oh true. Like in Hooper.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I don't know all these movies you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Oh dude. Hooper was the stuff man movie with Burt Reynolds.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I didn't see it.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Oh my god. Hal neaedam very famous stuntman turned director directed.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Founder of The Cannonball Run well.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, and director of the movie The Cannonball Run and
Smoking the Bandit and Hooper. Hooper was about an aging
stuntman Burt Reynolds who was challenged by the up and
comer Jan Michael Vincent. And of course there's the love
relationship with Sally Field choosing that too. And it was good.
It was like the best. It's sort of the best
stunt movie ever because it was about stunts, huh. And
(28:29):
he had a rocket car and that one that was
a big rocket car jump. It was the big climax.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
I did not see Hooper.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
D you need to see Hooper?
Speaker 1 (28:36):
What was I watching back then?
Speaker 3 (28:39):
What were you? You're probably watching TV and stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I guess, Yeah, it.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Was a little before your time. Secret of nim And
like I said earlier, stunt drivers, it's not all like
a lot of this stuff you're going to see on
TV is stunt driving, even though you might not think
it's necessary.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yeah, apparently does this pull off of the.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Sometimeway sometimes not. How do you become a stuntman.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Josh, Well, apparently, as far as Grabanowski says, you basically
have to start off as an extra on the set.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
That's not necessarily true.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Okay, if you want to, if you want to go
from the absolutely from from zero to stuntman in the
slowest way possible, then you would start out as an
extra on the set. You have to be a screen
act You have to be a member of the Screen
Actors Guild in most cases. Yeah, and when you're hanging
around the set, you identify who the second unit director
or stunt coordinator is and you hand them your headshot.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
This ad painted a path to becoming a stunt person
that we've kind of laughed at. It is not the
only path, but one thing is for sure. To become
a stunt person, you need to get to know someone
else in that department. And that's really with every film department.
If you want to be in a wardrobe you should
get a job as a BA and start hanging out
(29:56):
with the wardrobe people. If you want to be in makeup,
start hanging out with the makeup people. And that's just
how it works in Hollywood. There is no degree. You
can get a film degree, but come on, let's wasted money.
Just go to work on a set. You get to
know the people in the department and then start bugging
them a little bit when they're not busy. Stunt coordinators
are a little testy because there's a lot on the line,
you know, sure, so you know if you're a new
(30:18):
pa on set. Don't run over the stunt coordinator, start
bugging them right away. Pick and choose right your time,
and then give them your headshot and then give him
your head shot.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
But yeah, what you're saying is that it's apprentice based.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It is.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Basically.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
There are schools. One recommended driving school, the Rick Seaman
Stunt Driving School. There's also the International Stunt School that
sounds pretty serious, and this is where you can learn
to do some of the stuff. But it's not like
you exit with a degree and then show up and
say now I'd like to do stunt work.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Right, all the rest of you are fired. I have
a degree from the International Stunt School.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
And Grabster points out that you should have a large
area of specialty rather than one thing.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I thought it's a very good point.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Yeah, but that this is not necessarily true. I've talked
to some stunt dudes that say, eventually you would like
to have a wide range of skills, but a good
way to get in is to have one really specific
skill that you're great at. And you might get that
call like this guy's good with wirework or water work,
and or he's a hell of a driver or a
(31:21):
really good motorcycle guy, yeah, or a great skier if
you're doing like, what was that for your eyes only?
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Is that the one that over had ski chase?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Never say never again?
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I know it's definitely Roger Moore.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Okay, I think it's for your eyes only, all right.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
But it helps to have these skills, Like a lot
of stunt people are former motorcycle motocross racers or car
enthusiasts or you know, how to stupid stand the forest
back riding.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, so a lot of.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Them had these skills just anyway, and they're like, hey,
I can I've been driving dirt track for twenty years
as well make some money.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, film me.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
There's books out there, are there? So you want to
be a stunt Man? By Mark Aspitt?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Oh, that's a great name for a book like.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
That, The Full Burn by Kevin Conley, Fight Choreography The
Art of Nonverbal Dialogue by John Kring, and then Hall
Needham's biography Stuntman with a exclamation.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Had to be had to be you got You said
you have a list of actors that do their own stunts.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Yeah. I think most people know this. People like Jason Statham,
famous for doing his own stunts, Huh.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I see Zoe Bells on there. I thought she was
a stunt person.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Well she is, and she was in Death Proof though
as an actor, right, And they were like, I guess
they include her now because she did that awesome hanging
onto the hood scene.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I was watching that earlier and it is just nut.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
It's like she's when she's hanging on it looks like
by belts or whatever. Yeah, and then she's she's kind
of sliding still across the hood.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
All it would take is like half an inch, and
then all of a sudden she's gone too far and
she's off the side of the car. Yeah, that was it.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
She's one of the best in the business apparently.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Man, that's scary.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Burt Reynolds used to do a lot of his stunts.
In fact, he got injured pretty bad. That led to
some bad health problems on set. Oh yeah, a city Heat,
the Clint Easwood movie. Burt Lancaster, he used to do
his on stunts.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
He's a tough guy. Yeah, remember the movie Tough Guys.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yes, in that Yeah. Yeah, I don't think we mentioned
Ben hur either. That's one of the famous stunts ever.
The Chariot race.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, you want to tell him about it?
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Go ahead, what do you got.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Oh, well, there's a stuntman named Joe Canutt and he
was doubling for Charlton Heston and during the chariot race,
this big, long, intense race. Yeah, he falls off the
chariot and it's about to be run over, but in
true stuntman fashion, grabs it is being dragged, Yeah, pulls
(33:53):
himself back up and continues on.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
And I think that made it on screen.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yeah, it's in the movie. But that was a real thing,
Like it wasn't a planned stunt. Like the guy saved
his own life.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
That's awesome, Dad, Harrison Ford. We mentioned as far as
the ladies go, Angelina Jolee and Cameron Diaz are known
for doing stunts. Arnie Schwartz and Niagata and Jackie Chan
of course very famous for doing his own stunts.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
And it makes a difference, man, when you can tell
it's Tom Cruise on the side of that mountain.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Man that was scary. Is that really him?
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Yeah, Emily worked on that shoot on there, just that
segment in mo Ab, the rock climbing segment, and that's
when famously Tom Cruise was like four hours late and
flies in on a helicopter and like the whole crew
was waiting around all day for him.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I hadn't heard that.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
And then oh, yeah, I mean famous in my family. Yeah,
and now I guess famous to the podcast community.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Yea Cruiz is not punctual.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Well he wasn't that day.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Wow, stunts.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Have you seen Haywire, the Soderberg movie? Huh huh, it's
about h assassinate assassins. Basically, it's an action movie, Soderberg's
take on an action movie. But Gina Karana was a
former mixed martial artist and she she's awesome and does
her own stunts. What's her name, Gina Carano.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
I don't believe I know her.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
She plays the lead. I she I think that was
her first, like legit movie known for mixed martial arts.
But yeah, she does her own stunts.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
She's b a hey wy hey, I'll check it out.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I don't either.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
If you want to learn more about stunts, you can
type stunts into the house stuff works search bar. And
I said search bar, which means it's time for listener.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
May Josh, I'm gonna call this, uh things we I
guess say a lot. Oh no, yeah, like no, no, no,
that's not in there. Okay, everyone says like.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Though, I know, but I've people have pointed out here
They're like, you guys say like a lot. And I've
started to notice. And when I say it when I
hear the podcast, I don't hear it when I'm saying it,
only later on when I can't do anything about it.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Don't beat yourself up. Everybody says that, like, there are
articles written in the New Yorker about the use of
the word like in the twenty first century.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Okay, so you're part of that crowd.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
I know you're no millennial.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I'm not. I'm an aged person. Sorry, what's wrong with
me today?
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Guys? Before I start, I feel like I should get
out my adoration of the podcast. Always listen as I'm
walking my dog, Chloe keeps me entertained for hours. I
love that you guys are still going strong, and I'm
very thankful. I've comprised a list, however, of words and
phrases used most often in the show. Besides obvious ones
like Chuck or Josh or search bark, let's hear them
(36:46):
in no particular order. About it being a bout a boom.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Sure he left off the bon Jovi she oh.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
She, we'll talk about this later or we'll get to.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
That, and then a lot of times we don't.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, I feel like I say that a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I think it's hilarious when we say that we're going
to talk about something later and then we just forget too.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Yeah, or I say all the time, I think we
should point out and she didn't put that in here,
but I'll go ahead and throw my own on there.
Oh yeah, I'm making air quotes. Yeah, I E E G. Yeah,
that's one of yours. That's a good band name, and
that's usually me. Sure, because that's not just sweat. You
(37:27):
just talk about sweat a lot because of me. That's
a stand up guy. I don't remember her saying that
a lot. Do you say that a lot? All right,
I'm gonna take at you with that one, Katherine on
the up and up. I don't know' CoA. Of course
you say that a lot.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Definitely.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
People always ask it what it means.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
We never tell.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
They never tell, And then have you seen the movie? Ironically?
Speaker 1 (37:49):
That's about right.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, And those are ten things that we say a lot,
and that is she says she thinks these are great
comforts her and she smiles, and that is Catherine Phillips.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Thanks a lot, Katherine. That's pretty cool. Somebody's out there
like writing lists of things we say.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
It's nicer to hear people say like, I take comfort that.
And except for the emails when we get like you
guys always.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Say this and you usually like too much. That's John
Travolta taking against the task. Or if you want to
take us the task, whether John Travolta or anybody else,
or you just want to say, hey, here's the list
of things I noticed because the podcast or whatever, you
can join us on Twitter. Actually, first, before we sign off,
(38:34):
let's remind everybody that we're going to be on the
TV again the TV. Yeah, Saturday night on Science Channel
at ten pm would be the premiere of another Stuff
you Should Know episode.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
You can watch us each and every week, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
TV show Stuff you Don't Should Know TV show ten pm, or.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Get it on iTunes the following day on Sunday. That's right, Chuck,
Just go to iTunes and type in stuff you Should
Know and.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Two it comes off all right, So now we'll sign off, right, Yep,
you can get in touch with us on Twitter at
s y s K podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com slash w should Know, and you can
send us a good old fashioned email too. Stuff Podcast
at Discovery dot com.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com
Hi, everybody. Back to the Stuff you Should Know Summer
Movie playlist, and this one is from January twenty thirteen.
It's our House Stuntmen and Women Work episode. I think
your socks are gonna be knocked off by how hard
these people work for our movie viewing Enjoyment. You enjoy too.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know Fromhoustuffworks dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Old Jerry had an itchy trigger finger today. Age you
here in there?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, she's ready to go home.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah, she's like, come on, three, do you want to go?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You guys aren't my entire life.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I know we like to think we are, but that is,
we're like zero point one percent of Jerry's life. Yeah,
she's giggling in there. She's quite the adventurer. How you doing, man,
I'm great, man. I'm ready to jump from a tall
building or roll a brand new car.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Man. Sorry, that's what I was gonna ask you. So,
I guess you did the intro for us.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Go ahead, let's pretend like that didn't happen. No, it's
fine Okay, you were just.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Doing what the theme from The Fall Guy starring Lee
Majors nineteen eighties, awesome TV show with probably the best
truck ever featured in a TV show.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
That gmc man. That thing is sweet. Yeah, you know,
dudes recreate that truck if you google it. There's a
lot of guys that have like made that truck for themselves.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
For good reason too. It's a cool truck.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, And it's interesting that The Fall Guy points out
a couple of the show itself points out a very
important things as far as stuntman go. One is that
he had to moonlight as a bounty hunter, and that's
kind of one of the things we'll learn is that
there's not a lot of work out there and to
go around, you know, like, it's tough to make it
as a stunt man.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, you get punched.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
And b he's if you look at the lyrics to
that theme song man, he is really salty about not
getting the glo, glory and the.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Girls, mainly the girls and the glory. He uh well,
when he winds up in the hey, it's only hey,
hey hey.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Uh So the song complains about not getting glory or women,
and that is One of the hallmarks, though, of the
stunt person is to remain anonymous.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And to be bitter about it.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I guess so very few stunt people you've ever heard of?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Well, yeah, they're the Academy of Arts and Sciences. They
give out the Academy Awards.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, they don't have a category for stunt people. Nope,
never have. And the reason some people give is because
they like to maintain the anonymity and the illusion. Sure
that's provided by stunt people filling in his doubles for stars.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, but you can win a What Will See Award.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
You can win an Emmy for Best Stunt Coordinator.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
True, or the Stunt Award. They had their own Stunt Awards.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Oh yeah, the Taurus World Stunt Awards.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, you can win a Tory.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
They took a hiatus. I saw that there was twenty
ten and then they're having stuff for twenty twelve. Couldn't
find anything about twenty eleven. Really, Yeah, so if you
know what happened to the Tourist World Stunt Awards for
twenty eleven, we are curious.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Interesting, let us know, So thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So anyway, well, let's talk about the history of stunt people.
They pretty much have only been around as long as
you've had motion pictures. Right, Yeah, there wasn't much of
a need for him before then. No, I mean maybe
for like a show or something like that, like a
wild Bill Hickcock show. Oh, I guess you call them
(03:41):
stunt men, but really you kind of want to differentiate
because you can also say, all right, so people who
ride horses on standing up on a horse's back, that's
a stunt person. Yeah, right, A guy who likes in
the X Games, those extreme sports kids, sure that all
the kids are into these days, that's a stunt. These
are by, you know, technically stunt people. What we're talking
(04:04):
about are movie stunt people, sure. And the whole point
to their craft isn't to, like, you know, do a
five to eighty on a bike unless somebody asks them to.
What they want to do is create what you would
just take for granted, like, oh, that guy just got clocked, right, No,
he didn't actually get clocked. That was a stunt man
who knows what he's doing, and that was a carefully
(04:26):
choreographed scene that just flew right past you. But it's
still your brain still just absorbed it as that man
just got punched even though they didn't really happen.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
That's right, And we will probably slip into the word
stuntman here and there instead of stunt people. Of course,
there were tons and tons of stunt women, but we'll
say stunt persons are stunt man and like luckily there
are women now. In the back in the day, they
would dress men as women to do stunts many times.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, there's a lot of cross dressing back in the day, there.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Was until they decided, hey, women are people too, can
act and do stunts right, just like guys can.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
We could put them in danger just as much as well. Exactly, so,
so there wasn't much call for stunt people for movies
before movies just by definition. Sure, don't be ridiculous, but
right out of the gate when we started making movies,
we started needing people to do stunts. And the earliest
people who were doing stunts were actually comedians, slapstick comedians
(05:23):
like Buster Keaton had a very famous early.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Stunt steamboat Bill Junior.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Is that what it was in?
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, the very famous you've probably seen it in like
you know, Hollywood legends of screen clips and things like that.
On AMC. Yeah, it is the famous shot where the
front facade of a house falls down and on well
would have been on Buster Keaton, but he is saved
because the attic window or attic door was open, so
(05:49):
it just falls all around him. And there was some
careful measuring in place, because if he would have been
off by a few inches, he would have been dead.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yeah, and that was a real thing, Like the earliest
dunts were nothing, but the real thing. Like apparently if
you had I don't know, somebody hanging from like the
construction the skeleton of a steel skyscraper, yeah, you needed
that shot. That's what the guy did.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Yeah, and they ed the grabster wrote this one, of course,
and Ed points out that back in the day before
they were like, you know, before they called them stuntmen,
they were just like, let me go find someone crazy
enough to go do this exactly, and that guy, that
guy craft Service, looks crazy enough to do it, and
let's go see if he wants an extra twenty bucks.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, and he does. Yeah, because Beck, you know, in
nineteen oh two, twenty bucks was a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
So as the film industry grew and grew early in
the twentieth century, we went from just nothing but slapstick
comedies to things like westerns and action flicks, and all
of a sudden, those people who really can ride on
the back of a horse standing out became stunt people
as well. And as stunts became more and more complex,
(07:05):
the idea of having somebody whose job and specialty was
to just do the stunt and make it look like
the actor the star sure was doing it started to
really develop.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Yeah, and then flash forward even more the sixties and
seventies is when things really came to their own as
far as stunt technology developing. Things like squibs, which we
will talk about for gunshots and air rams. Is that
what they're called.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, it's like a like a hydratic lift. Yeah, it's pneumatic,
just shoots you up into the air like with a
human cannonball.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
But like so if somebody, if a grenade blows up
by somebody and you see the dude fly through the air,
he was on a ram, that's right.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
And then other things like airbags and and you know,
more technology with cars with the cages, like it just
got more and more complex, right, And now of course
we have CGI which replaces a lot of stunts in
many cases.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Not necessarily to a better effect. Like all I have
to say is Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Yeah, where
it was like they suddenly cut to drawings of Harrison
Ford swinging on a lasso.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
He's famous for doing his own stunts, though.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
He didn't do him And Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Well, this's because he's eighty nine years old. Then he
would die.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
He was awesome in Bruno.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I didn't see that. Was he Harrison Borders in that?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah for about two seconds.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Did they do like gay jokes to him or something?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
They didn't even get that far?
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Okay, yeah, did he just shut it down?
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah? All it's hilarious. But anyway, so stunts like the
I guess throughout this progression of the field of stunt people,
safety has gotten better and better, is what I think
we were just trying to say. To the point now
where they're not even used it's gi Yeah, but there's
there's always going to be room for stunt people.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Uh. And the fact that it's gotten safer is much better.
But there's still there's an element of risk to it
no matter what it's grabs or points out. If a
stunt didn't present some sort of risk, there'd be no
need for stunt people at all, as tractors would do it. Yeah,
but the actors can't always do it.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
That's right. Uh. And when you want to call in
a stunt person is when they either have a specific
skill that they're really good at, like fake martial arts
or I mean real martial arts, but fake hitting and kicking, or.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Fake marshals like chew kwong like stuff you just made up.
It's a lot of like just front kits in the air.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
That's what you practice.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
That's a quong.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Sword fighting, stage combat, like we've talked about stuff like that.
They are trained to fall, they are trained to you know,
safely fall. I guess I should point out. And it
just basically it's a safety factor on one and it's
a financial factor on the other, because you can't have
your main actor actress going down with a broken leg,
(10:07):
yeah for four weeks, So you put your stunt person
in there and keep your actor all license safe in
their trailer.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Or you want to be shooting two things at once,
so you have your second unit out there shooting the
fast cars whizzing by in the car chase. Then you
have your first unit shooting the actor inside the car
driving a lot slower and acting like it's really.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Fast but shouting and like moving the steering wheel back
and forth a lot. Yeah, maybe there's somebody rocking the car.
What's that called.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Poor men's process?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Is yeah, so when you, I guess we should say this,
when you're in a car, you either have a camera
rig on your car where it's the real car with
cameras attached to it. We've done that, or the cars
on a process trailer, which means a lot of these
shots you see with someone driving and you're like, they're
not even paying attention to the road. Yeah, it's because
the car sitting on a trailer being pulled by a.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Truck, right, Or it's got a little rock to it.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
A little rock to it, or you do the poor
man's process was when the car is not going anywhere and.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
You have PA's pushing on the outside.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Pushing on the outside, little tricks with lighting to make
it look like headlights going by.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
We've done that.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
It's really neat in the end to look at a
scene that's poor man's process and think, wow, they're really
not even moving and it looks so good.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah. Yeah, see if you can pick it out and
the stuff you should know TV series, they can probably
pick it up. So yeah, it's financial. It makes sense. Also,
one of the other reasons people use stunt people is
they come with a set of skills that the average
actor doesn't have a particular set of skills exactly. That
makes them very dangerous to you. And so you can
(11:40):
either hire a stuntman who looks like your star to
carry out like a combat scene or sort of look
like your star, or you can teach your star, you know,
spend all this extra money and time to training the
star to the skill in a crash course. So it
just most of the time it makes sense to just
hire a stunt person. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
And you know, chances are these days you're going to
get a mix in a big action movie, you're gonna
get a mix of all three. You're gonna get some CGI,
you're gonna get some stunt people, and these days you're
gonna get real actors doing some of the real fake fighting.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Doesn't Tom Cruise do a lot of his own stunts?
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah, I got a list of actors who prefer to
do us. I don't mean to jump the gun No,
the Cruse is famous for that.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I was reading this and I was like, I wonder
if I would do my own stunts. I would do some.
I would say, sure, I want to learn how to
sword fight. Teach me that's something I want to know,
and I'm certainly not going to shell out for it myself, ever,
so let's go ahead and learn.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Now, that's a good point. I would do my own stunts.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
It depends the heights.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
No way I would do that. I would jump off
so California state law. And of course they shoot movies
all over the place now and the union rules in
Hollywood have really made it pretty safe these days. But
you're still going to find injuries in your occasional death
on set, which is really awful.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah. Well, there always have been, pretty much from the beginning,
deaths and injuries.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Howard Hughes.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, the movie Hell's Angels, which we must have talked
about in the Hell's Angels podcast. I'm sure we did,
because I think we talked about the origin.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Of the name, which was from the air combat.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
It was, you know, that's what they think the fighting.
I think that was one of the theories. But there
were three, maybe four fatalities yeah, because they were doing
like real dog fights with airplanes and there were a
lot of crashes. Yeah, so that was a movie where
people died.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yes, very famously the Twilight Zone, the movie Jennifer Jason
Lee's father, Vic Morrow, and two little Vietnamese kids died
when a helicopter crashed into the water where they were
crossing a river. That's on YouTube, by the way.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I know, it's pretty awful.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It is, and I saw it recently because I was
just curious. I'd always wondered how it went down in
my head because I've heard the story since the movie
came out, since I was a kid, and I was wondering, like,
exactly what was the logistics and how did that go down.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
It's pretty bad to watch, it is, because it just
goes totally out of control.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
It does, so I would not recommend that, but you
do have to enter your age, by the way to
watch that video I saw. Yeah, And on set, the
ad is ultimately responsible the assistant director for everyone's safety,
and in fact, on our own little TV show, when
we had fake guns on set just as props. Yeah,
(14:28):
like we didn't even use them in the scene, but
just to have a fake gun on set, the ad
has to announce to the whole crew and show them
the gun. Say it's fake, it's not real. Look at
the barrel. There's no bullets, there's no nothing. It will
not be fired. We will not be shooting blanks or
dummy cartridges. And it's just you know, even on a stupid,
little silly show like ours, you gotta be really careful
(14:50):
with that stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, so chuck. Because of this incredibly high risk profession work,
some people to be paid out the yin yang true
or false.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Well, they make a good rate, but like we said earlier,
there's not a ton of work for the amount of
stunt people trying to get work. Oh okay, And that
was when I used to work out in la as
a Pa. I would always try and talk to the
stunt people when I worked on jobs where they had
stunt people, because they're just really interesting. Yeah, and to
(15:25):
say the least, and they would usually bemoan the fact
that there's not a ton of work, and you know,
they're all kind of scrapping for the same piece of cheese.
But that's like everyone in the film business, sure, from
crew to the lead actor. You're all after that same
piece of cheese.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yep. We've worked with some stunt people too.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Yeah, you'd be surprised when you need to call in
a stunt person. I worked on this one commercial where
the was just like bad traffic on the highway that
the shot was and cars had to just sort of
pull over to the side while another car came through.
All the cars that pulled over to the side of
the road had to have stunt drivers.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I was like, I could do that, but then I'd
be taking bread off the table at a stunt person.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Right, and then the whole production was shut down.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Okay, So the most stunt people, you say, because there's
just so little work for so many people. It's not
a high paying job. A lot of people do it
for the love of it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I mean you can make money if you're experienced and
get tons of work, obviously, but right I'd say those
are the few and far between.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
But you'd have to love it because the hours are
usually very very long. Yeah, to do a stunt is
not You don't just walk up and get in the
car and drive it and all of a sudden it
flips and there's an explosion and you're hoping for the best.
Like when you see a stunt, these things are rehearsed
over and over again. Say for a car chase, they'll
(16:49):
go through the entire car chase, but they'll do it
at a low speed so that it's choreographed, rehearsed, and
everybody knows what's going to happen when. Yeah, that takes
a very long time. If you need to flip a car,
you need to do measurements. The pyrotechnics guys are probably involved. Yeah,
there's a lot of standing around, there's a lot of practicing,
there's a lot of measuring, there's a lot of talking.
(17:11):
And then if, for say you're doing something like in water,
you're probably standing in water the whole time, So you're
doing that for fourteen hours. Yeah, it sounds like some
you would have to love your work to do this.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Yeah, it's definitely not a glory job, especially factoring in
the anonymity factor.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Right when you do all this and you do it
absolutely perfectly, no one notices.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
That's the goal.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
In fact, one of my biggest pet peeves is when
you do notice and you see that one shot of
the dude with a wig on, it's supposed to be
Clint Eastwood. Right, Yeah, just disappointing.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
So you were saying the second unit director handles this.
The second unit director is in charge of shooting stunts,
but the person who's in charge in like of the
stunts themselves, is the stunt coordinator. Yeah, and that person
high hires the stunt people, plans the stunts, oversees the stunts, execution,
does everything, but actually sets up the camera and all that,
(18:08):
or handles the camera shooting it. Right.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Yeah, it's basically it's like a film crew is broken
up into many departments, and that's just sort of its
own little department headed by the coordinator.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Gotcha.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Like they'll have a budget to work with and all
that kind of stuff, just like any other department.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
So let's talk about how they do some stunts.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Okay, and actually the second unit director a lot of
times is a former stunt person or stunt coordinator. Right,
it makes sense, comes in handy. Sure, let's talk about
stunts without fire.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
How about punches?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
How about them? Stage fighting man something we have not
learned yet.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That's pretty much a must if you want to become
a stunt man. That's less than one is go take
stage fighting courses.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Yep, learn how to sell a punch as the giver
and as the receiver mm hmm, without looking corny and
hoky and fake like pro wrestling.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Right, But it's very much similar to pro wrestling, especially
if you've ever seen somebody throw a punch in pro
wrestling and you can hear the skin slap, Yeah, that's
because that person was actually just punched.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
The key is they weren't punched very hard, certainly not
as hard as there the jerk of their head would
would say.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Yeah, you've got camera angles and you've got sound effects,
and through the art of movie magic, it looks like
a good knockdown, drag out brawl.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Right, And if you've got it like a really good
stunt coordinator, they'll be like a punch that's sold and
the person who's being punched is on a ramp so
they fly through the air.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, that's awesome, all right. Gunshots, we talked about squibs.
A squib is basically you're gonna have a chest metal
chest plate with a squib on the front of it,
right to protect your body. And it's it's basically a
little blood packet that's rigged electronically to explode when it's
(19:57):
supposed to.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And so the plate in between this gribbing and chest
protects you. Sure, and maybe you are in charge of you,
the stuntman are in charge that you have a little button.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah, maybe to explode.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
The charge or there's somebody else doing it remotely. And
it's pretty awesome. Releases theater blood opens a hole in
the shirt. Yeah, pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
It is very awesome.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
This I didn't realize though, how they make bullet holes
in like a wall, like a stuck a wall. Yeah,
I thought this was pretty ingenious. They drill the hole
ahead of time and then they cover it up with
like putty or paper or something and paint with a
squib in there. Yeah, and they blow that squib out
(20:40):
and it makes a bullet hole.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
It's ingenious. It's simple, it seems like, but it's very ingenious.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Well, especially when you watch a movie. Ideally you're getting
lost in the movie not paying attention, but if you
watch like a John woufilm or something, and you see
just like a wall get riddled with bullets, just think
about all the time. Yeah, it took to set up
all those squibs.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
And like what if the act trips. In the middle
of it, you're just like, ah, we have to do
it again.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Yeah, which is no good. And in fact, big stunts
they go with many mini cameras on stunts that you
don't or can't recreate because of either danger or money. Yeah,
and like some of these shots have like you know,
a dozen more camera shooting.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Right time, which makes a lot of sense, of course,
and Grabster points out that another reason why you don't
want to do a big take like that more than
once is because every time you do, the danger for
the stunt person multiplies. Yeah, And I was like, how,
and then I thought, oh, well doing it more right,
your your chances of injury are increased the more you
carry out the more times you carry out a dangerous act.
(21:38):
So yeah, that's how it multiplies.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Getting back to squibs, these days, a lot of directors
are opting for CGI blood and bullet wounds. But supposedly
Quentin Tarantino and this is out. By the time this comes.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Out, Jango and chain Man, I can't wait to see it.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Supposedly he had one percent real squibs and the blood
like they're supposed to be the bloodiest, nastiest quibs that
hollywould have seen in years.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah, it's supposed to be pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Huh. Yeah, have you seen a machete? Yeah that was
pretty bloody. Yeah that was bad though I didn't like
I agree it was, but it was still pretty bloody.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
They also blanks. If you were firing a gun on set,
it is probably a blank, you would hope. So it's
not the same as a dummy cartridge. No, a blank
actually fires gunpowder, has gunpowder and fires what's called a wad.
It's like paper or wood or plastic. But it does
not obviously have shot or a bullet.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
No, but there's sometimes when the bullet explodes, bits of
metal can end up being shot out as well.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
That's how Brandon Lee died when they were filming The Crow.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah. His was actually an accident. There was a bullet
lodged in the barrel that they didn't know about what
I thought.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Okay, well then I'm thinking of somebody else who like
was messing around with a gun.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
That was oh man, I can't remember his name, put
it to his Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Pulled the trigger and like the water like the gases
or something killed them.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, that was h I can't remember his name, but
it was on a TV show set and he like
goofing around, put it to his head as a joke.
So you should never mess around with blanks. No, it's
very dangerous. Still No, but there was a bullet in
the Yeah, there was a bullet. They got the guns
mixed up and there was a real bullet slug lodged
in the barrel that they didn't know about. So it
fired a blank, but it ejected that other thing and
(23:27):
Brandon Lee died.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, man, it was one of the biggest oops is
probably in Hollywood history.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, you know, I guess you could call it that.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
And I think he they thought he was still acting
and continued to roll cameras for a bit afterwards.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Oh geez.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Even Yeah, very sad, tragic. Are we to falling?
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, which you'll do I won't do.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Yeah, I'll jump off of stuff. I've always done that.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Well, they use these huge, huge air bags right.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Well, back in the day they did, and if you
and if you're doing a fall today, they still will sometimes,
but generally these days they have like a bungee type contraption.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I would still demand an air bag. Yeah, they apparently
also for shorter falls, they'll take some cardboard boxes and
they'll cut the sharp corners off. Yeah, and then you
jump onto that. Did you do that when you were
a kid? No?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
No, no, I always would jump into water.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I would jump like onto the ground off like the
credenza or whatever. And now I'm like, I wouldn't even
do that. It's dangerous.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Falls used to be the thing. Like I'm sure you
remember as a kid, falls were a really big deal
for stuntmen and Dar Robinson. Remember that guy. No, he
did the Sharkis Machine fall okay in Atlanta and the
Burt Reynolds movie. Nope, it's very famous fall out of
the Peachtree Plaza Hotel.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I was up in Toledo at a time.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
It was still it was released in Toledo in Toledo,
Sharky's Machine one.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, uh off the off the Witch Hotel.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
He went through a window of the Peachtree Plaza and
uh into onto an airbag. And it's just it was
one of the famous early and or not early falls,
but one of the famous falls.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
What Florida did he jump out of?
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Oh man, I can't remember.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Was it pretty high?
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Yeah? I mean it was over over like one hundred
and fifty feet I know.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Oh wow, Yeah that's nuts.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
But see, so imagine planning that stunt. How many times
they measured, yeah, everything to figure out where the air
bags needed to go, and then they probably supplemented it
with additional airbags. And if they loved the guy at all,
they did all this.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Yeah, stuntman, When you go to talk to one, if
you're on set, you'll be disappointed by the fact that
they aren't these crazy dudes like you want them to be.
They're actually really sensible because they want to work and
earn money, so they want to be really, really sure
that no one gets hurt. It's a little more boring
than you would think talking to them. Sure, but there
are little nuts.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, well you'd have to be at what else, chuck fire?
How about fire?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
I just saw Anchorman the other night, Remember when they
had the street brawl and got on fire just walks by.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, that's a pretty serious stunt, like when you are
when you set yourself on fire. Yeah, and there's a
lot of safety precautions, but even still, it's you're on fire,
whether you like it or not.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah, you're wearing all kinds of fire protective clothing and
fire retardant, and then you're smeared with the flammable gel.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yep, you have a hood on that protects you as well,
and there's an oxygen tank in there, so you're basically
just completely wrapped in this outfit. Yeah, but yeah, the
flammable gels on. And they liked you and then film
you and you're going, oh, it's always.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
The wavy and this kind of looks the same.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
And then the people run over and put you out
with fire extinguisher.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
But they time it very closely as well. Oh, I'm sure,
because I think it's kind of like, well, if we
go twelve seconds, he actually will catch on fire, so
we can shoot.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
For eleven eleven point five. Explosions are a big deal,
obviously these days. There are so many explosions in movies.
Sometimes they cheat a little bit what's called a technique
called force perspective to make it look like the actor
is closer to the explosion, and if there's an explosion,
you're probably also going to be propelled with the air
(27:09):
ram that we were talking about. It's very it's almost
I would call it a Hollywood trope. At this point
the explosion and the dudes flying like twenty feet in
the ear.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that was big in a commando.
Oh yes, I went there a lot of air rams using.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Commanda, many more than I can count.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
That such a good movie. Car chases and crashes, yeah,
they use rams as well. They may be attached to
the car. So if a car needs to flip, you
see people like going up on a ramp or whatever. Yeah,
and I they'd probably use that if you're just trying
to stay on two wheels. But if you're trying to flip,
there's usually a ram that pushes the car, pushes it
(27:46):
off to the ground and it flips, or if you
haven't coming out of the rear, it'll make it jump
really high.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Oh true. Like in Hooper.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I don't know all these movies you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Oh dude. Hooper was the stuff man movie with Burt Reynolds.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I didn't see it.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Oh my god. Hal neaedam very famous stuntman turned director directed.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Founder of The Cannonball Run well.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, and director of the movie The Cannonball Run and
Smoking the Bandit and Hooper. Hooper was about an aging
stuntman Burt Reynolds who was challenged by the up and
comer Jan Michael Vincent. And of course there's the love
relationship with Sally Field choosing that too. And it was good.
It was like the best. It's sort of the best
stunt movie ever because it was about stunts, huh. And
(28:29):
he had a rocket car and that one that was
a big rocket car jump. It was the big climax.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
I did not see Hooper.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
D you need to see Hooper?
Speaker 1 (28:36):
What was I watching back then?
Speaker 3 (28:39):
What were you? You're probably watching TV and stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I guess, Yeah, it.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Was a little before your time. Secret of nim And
like I said earlier, stunt drivers, it's not all like
a lot of this stuff you're going to see on
TV is stunt driving, even though you might not think
it's necessary.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yeah, apparently does this pull off of the.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Sometimeway sometimes not. How do you become a stuntman.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Josh, Well, apparently, as far as Grabanowski says, you basically
have to start off as an extra on the set.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
That's not necessarily true.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Okay, if you want to, if you want to go
from the absolutely from from zero to stuntman in the
slowest way possible, then you would start out as an
extra on the set. You have to be a screen
act You have to be a member of the Screen
Actors Guild in most cases. Yeah, and when you're hanging
around the set, you identify who the second unit director
or stunt coordinator is and you hand them your headshot.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
This ad painted a path to becoming a stunt person
that we've kind of laughed at. It is not the
only path, but one thing is for sure. To become
a stunt person, you need to get to know someone
else in that department. And that's really with every film department.
If you want to be in a wardrobe you should
get a job as a BA and start hanging out
(29:56):
with the wardrobe people. If you want to be in makeup,
start hanging out with the makeup people. And that's just
how it works in Hollywood. There is no degree. You
can get a film degree, but come on, let's wasted money.
Just go to work on a set. You get to
know the people in the department and then start bugging
them a little bit when they're not busy. Stunt coordinators
are a little testy because there's a lot on the line,
you know, sure, so you know if you're a new
(30:18):
pa on set. Don't run over the stunt coordinator, start
bugging them right away. Pick and choose right your time,
and then give them your headshot and then give him
your head shot.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
But yeah, what you're saying is that it's apprentice based.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It is.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Basically.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
There are schools. One recommended driving school, the Rick Seaman
Stunt Driving School. There's also the International Stunt School that
sounds pretty serious, and this is where you can learn
to do some of the stuff. But it's not like
you exit with a degree and then show up and
say now I'd like to do stunt work.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Right, all the rest of you are fired. I have
a degree from the International Stunt School.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
And Grabster points out that you should have a large
area of specialty rather than one thing.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I thought it's a very good point.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Yeah, but that this is not necessarily true. I've talked
to some stunt dudes that say, eventually you would like
to have a wide range of skills, but a good
way to get in is to have one really specific
skill that you're great at. And you might get that
call like this guy's good with wirework or water work,
and or he's a hell of a driver or a
(31:21):
really good motorcycle guy, yeah, or a great skier if
you're doing like, what was that for your eyes only?
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Is that the one that over had ski chase?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Never say never again?
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I know it's definitely Roger Moore.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Okay, I think it's for your eyes only, all right.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
But it helps to have these skills, Like a lot
of stunt people are former motorcycle motocross racers or car
enthusiasts or you know, how to stupid stand the forest
back riding.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, so a lot of.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Them had these skills just anyway, and they're like, hey,
I can I've been driving dirt track for twenty years
as well make some money.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, film me.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
There's books out there, are there? So you want to
be a stunt Man? By Mark Aspitt?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Oh, that's a great name for a book like.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
That, The Full Burn by Kevin Conley, Fight Choreography The
Art of Nonverbal Dialogue by John Kring, and then Hall
Needham's biography Stuntman with a exclamation.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Had to be had to be you got You said
you have a list of actors that do their own stunts.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Yeah. I think most people know this. People like Jason Statham,
famous for doing his own stunts, Huh.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I see Zoe Bells on there. I thought she was
a stunt person.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Well she is, and she was in Death Proof though
as an actor, right, And they were like, I guess
they include her now because she did that awesome hanging
onto the hood scene.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I was watching that earlier and it is just nut.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
It's like she's when she's hanging on it looks like
by belts or whatever. Yeah, and then she's she's kind
of sliding still across the hood.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
All it would take is like half an inch, and
then all of a sudden she's gone too far and
she's off the side of the car. Yeah, that was it.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
She's one of the best in the business apparently.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Man, that's scary.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Burt Reynolds used to do a lot of his stunts.
In fact, he got injured pretty bad. That led to
some bad health problems on set. Oh yeah, a city Heat,
the Clint Easwood movie. Burt Lancaster, he used to do
his on stunts.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
He's a tough guy. Yeah, remember the movie Tough Guys.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yes, in that Yeah. Yeah, I don't think we mentioned
Ben hur either. That's one of the famous stunts ever.
The Chariot race.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, you want to tell him about it?
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Go ahead, what do you got.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Oh, well, there's a stuntman named Joe Canutt and he
was doubling for Charlton Heston and during the chariot race,
this big, long, intense race. Yeah, he falls off the
chariot and it's about to be run over, but in
true stuntman fashion, grabs it is being dragged, Yeah, pulls
(33:53):
himself back up and continues on.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
And I think that made it on screen.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yeah, it's in the movie. But that was a real thing,
Like it wasn't a planned stunt. Like the guy saved
his own life.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
That's awesome, Dad, Harrison Ford. We mentioned as far as
the ladies go, Angelina Jolee and Cameron Diaz are known
for doing stunts. Arnie Schwartz and Niagata and Jackie Chan
of course very famous for doing his own stunts.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
And it makes a difference, man, when you can tell
it's Tom Cruise on the side of that mountain.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Man that was scary. Is that really him?
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Yeah, Emily worked on that shoot on there, just that
segment in mo Ab, the rock climbing segment, and that's
when famously Tom Cruise was like four hours late and
flies in on a helicopter and like the whole crew
was waiting around all day for him.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I hadn't heard that.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
And then oh, yeah, I mean famous in my family. Yeah,
and now I guess famous to the podcast community.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Yea Cruiz is not punctual.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Well he wasn't that day.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Wow, stunts.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Have you seen Haywire, the Soderberg movie? Huh huh, it's
about h assassinate assassins. Basically, it's an action movie, Soderberg's
take on an action movie. But Gina Karana was a
former mixed martial artist and she she's awesome and does
her own stunts. What's her name, Gina Carano.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
I don't believe I know her.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
She plays the lead. I she I think that was
her first, like legit movie known for mixed martial arts.
But yeah, she does her own stunts.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
She's b a hey wy hey, I'll check it out.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I don't either.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
If you want to learn more about stunts, you can
type stunts into the house stuff works search bar. And
I said search bar, which means it's time for listener.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
May Josh, I'm gonna call this, uh things we I
guess say a lot. Oh no, yeah, like no, no, no,
that's not in there. Okay, everyone says like.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Though, I know, but I've people have pointed out here
They're like, you guys say like a lot. And I've
started to notice. And when I say it when I
hear the podcast, I don't hear it when I'm saying it,
only later on when I can't do anything about it.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Don't beat yourself up. Everybody says that, like, there are
articles written in the New Yorker about the use of
the word like in the twenty first century.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Okay, so you're part of that crowd.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
I know you're no millennial.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I'm not. I'm an aged person. Sorry, what's wrong with
me today?
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Guys? Before I start, I feel like I should get
out my adoration of the podcast. Always listen as I'm
walking my dog, Chloe keeps me entertained for hours. I
love that you guys are still going strong, and I'm
very thankful. I've comprised a list, however, of words and
phrases used most often in the show. Besides obvious ones
like Chuck or Josh or search bark, let's hear them
(36:46):
in no particular order. About it being a bout a boom.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Sure he left off the bon Jovi she oh.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
She, we'll talk about this later or we'll get to.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
That, and then a lot of times we don't.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, I feel like I say that a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I think it's hilarious when we say that we're going
to talk about something later and then we just forget too.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Yeah, or I say all the time, I think we
should point out and she didn't put that in here,
but I'll go ahead and throw my own on there.
Oh yeah, I'm making air quotes. Yeah, I E E G. Yeah,
that's one of yours. That's a good band name, and
that's usually me. Sure, because that's not just sweat. You
(37:27):
just talk about sweat a lot because of me. That's
a stand up guy. I don't remember her saying that
a lot. Do you say that a lot? All right,
I'm gonna take at you with that one, Katherine on
the up and up. I don't know' CoA. Of course
you say that a lot.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Definitely.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
People always ask it what it means.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
We never tell.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
They never tell, And then have you seen the movie? Ironically?
Speaker 1 (37:49):
That's about right.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, And those are ten things that we say a lot,
and that is she says she thinks these are great
comforts her and she smiles, and that is Catherine Phillips.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Thanks a lot, Katherine. That's pretty cool. Somebody's out there
like writing lists of things we say.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
It's nicer to hear people say like, I take comfort that.
And except for the emails when we get like you
guys always.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Say this and you usually like too much. That's John
Travolta taking against the task. Or if you want to
take us the task, whether John Travolta or anybody else,
or you just want to say, hey, here's the list
of things I noticed because the podcast or whatever, you
can join us on Twitter. Actually, first, before we sign off,
(38:34):
let's remind everybody that we're going to be on the
TV again the TV. Yeah, Saturday night on Science Channel
at ten pm would be the premiere of another Stuff
you Should Know episode.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
You can watch us each and every week, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
TV show Stuff you Don't Should Know TV show ten pm, or.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Get it on iTunes the following day on Sunday. That's right, Chuck,
Just go to iTunes and type in stuff you Should
Know and.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Two it comes off all right, So now we'll sign off, right, Yep,
you can get in touch with us on Twitter at
s y s K podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com slash w should Know, and you can
send us a good old fashioned email too. Stuff Podcast
at Discovery dot com.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com
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