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