Hollywood FX
Stunts and movies will always go together, and this can sometimes end up being a toxic relationship. Over the past several years, I have noticed an increase of actor injuries, and I believe there is a solution to this problem not everyone will agree with. Though I do like the realistic aspects of live stunts, special effects could limit the amount of injuries that could occur in the long run.
The major thing that sparked interest for me is actors solely doing their own stunts, which is starting to become more popular especially in recent years. When doing this, special effects get used a ton already, but there are other elements that come into play. This not only allows the actors to live in their character's shoes for the movie, but it also helps movie fans relate to the movie’s cast rather than the characters of the movie. In real life, people who are average and below average do not have stuntmen to handle the major stunts they do. Likewise, actors don’t have stunt men in real life. A couple of examples of this in real life are those people that ride and race dirt bikes, and also narrowly escape car accidents with their amazing driving skills.
Also, there is already a code of conduct in place in order to keep the actors as safe as possible. For instance, one of the biggest things that is mentioned in the handbook is “As an actor, you are ultimately responsible for your own safety and the safety of the cast members” (SAG 1). This is very important to the rest of the code. 80 % of the general code pertains to this, but this does not mean that the actors are generally following it. For instance, one of the values mentioned in the general code of conduct is supporting your castmates if one of them says no to doing any given stunt. This does not account for peer pressure. If the cast is a really close knit community, like the Maze Runner cast, castmates may push one out of their comfort zone so they could “grow as an actor.” Just like laws, just because the laws are in place, it does not always mean that those laws get followed.
The truth is, however, that it seems that there has been an increase in the amount of accidents involving actors for specific roles. There was a study done in 2015 by a research firm that discovered that, “In [California] across industries the comparative risk was slightly lower with an average of a 13-fold increased risk musculoskeletal over non-musculoskeletal injuries.” (Kusnezov 253). Just for reference musculoskeletal injury is just a fancy word that refers to any injury to either the skeleton or muscle, and the fact that it is 13 times more likely than non muscle and skeleton is rather scary. This shows that there is a higher risk of injury while making a film than other entertainment industries. The following accidents that are listed are just a few of the most recent accidents that seem to be worth noting.
The first injury that I am going to be looking at in detail is what happened to Daniel Craig in 2015 while filming Spectre. In one of the scenes, Daniel Craig and Dave Bautista were filming a hand to hand combat scene on a luxury train, and Craig’s foot hit a imperfection in the floor wrong. After impact his knee gave out. Because of this, Mr. Craig tore his meniscus, resulting in a 2 week film delay (Lee).
Another accident occurred a year later when Dylan O‘Brien was filming for The Death Cure. O’Brien was on top of a vehicle and was dragged off of that vehicle and got hit by another vehicle. This resulted in him breaking several bones in his face, including the bone around his eye. He also endured a concussion and several cuts on his face. This led to a massive delay of over a year (Rea).
The final accident that is worth mentioning is one that happened just recently. Tom Cruise was filming for a new Mission Impossible movie when he was jumping from building to building and landed short as was scripted, but he hit his ankle on the building wrong. This led to a broken ankle, and filming was halted for at least a couple of months (Hewitt).
All these accidents mentioned have one thing in common: the movie was being filmed on location, out in the elements. I am not just pinning the blame on the weather conditions, but I am saying that the accidents could have at least had a chance to be safer with the use of green screens and/or blue screens. I know that hand to hand combat is something that will always be a part of action movies, but something could be done.
Now before I get any further in this essay, I would like to go over some brief things to know when it comes to the use of green and blue screens. Green and bluescreens are just two different elements that have the ability to limit the amount of injuries that occur in the film industry. There are several different factors that influence what type of screen a director uses: the time of day that the scene is taking place in the movie and what the actor is wearing are two (Woods). To further expand on the time of day, green is used for day time shots because the green reflects more light while blue is used for night time shots because of the limited amount of light that get reflected back, thus limiting the halo that can occur in bad green and blue screen effects. What the actor is wearing can also affect a shot as well. For instance, if an actor is wearing green in a given shot in front of a green screen, chroma key can make a mistake and the director ends up getting a floating head in the movie (Thurston). This will be further defined shortly.
One thing that will be mentioned several times in this essay is chroma key. chroma key is the process that a visual effects designer will use when they are using a green or blue screen. For instance, let's say that I want to shoot (film) a scene where a co star and I are climbing around a series of caves high above a lake eventually leading to a fall. One of the things that I would need to do is build a set that looks like a rock wall of some kind, but for safety reasons I would have to take into account the safety of both the cast and crew, thus resulting in investing in a green screen to surround the wall that my co star and I are on. First, I would have to go to the location that inspired this scene and grab a picture. Then, we film the scene. Afterwards, the visual effects person will crop out the green that is on the film. Then, they would have to add a layer and move it behind what is left of the clip. Finally, they would have to blend the two together so it would seem seamless. Thus making the air mattress that would be underneath us when the the person falls off of the cliff invisible and ensure that the actor would have a safe fall compared to just landing in straight water, increasing the safety of filming the scene. This could have also been done to prevent the injuries that occurred in Spectre, The Death Cure, and MI-6.
the director could have made this scene safer for both Daniel Craig and Dave Bautista is instead of fighting on a set that was made out of wood and other things, the director could have had them fighting on a solid green or blue surface and and then use the magical powers of chroma key (the process that special effects designers use) and replace the green solid looking surface with a textured wooden surface. This would have made sure that the actors were on a solid surface, thus limiting the risk of an actor's foot hitting the ground wrong on an imperfection in the wood, or whatever they were using in order to build the set. Also, to prevent bodily harm from the scene in general with the hand to hand combat, the director could dress up the given actor or actress in pads that are a brilliant green, in order to give some bracing to the actor or actresses who are involved in that fight scene.
Since Dylan O’Brien’s accident was more of a freak accident because the belay that the crew was using was a bit too short (Rea), it is somewhat harder to explain what a better way to film this scene would be. First off, the vehicles should have been connected to ensure the actor’s safety, and special effects could have been used to make the bar disappear. Also, to make sure that O’Brien did not have to deal with the unstableness of a moving car, the directors could have filmed the part with the vehicles moving separately, and then film the leap from one vehicle to the other separate from the rest of the car chase. With the leap from the one vehicle to the other, they could have used some green screen magic to make it look like the vehicles were moving, while they were not. Granted, this would be more time consuming, but it would be safer for both the cast and crew.
Most recently, Tom Cruise was injured while filming an action for Mission Impossible parkouring between two buildings in London (Hewitt). This accident could have also been prevented through special effects. Green screens are incredibly versatile objects, and the director could build an entire set from them. This could have been done both to make sure that Mr. Cruise did not have a tough fall, but also make sure that he had an ideal location on the building that he was jumping two to push up from, without breaking his ankle. Building an entire set from green screens has been done before: the new Alice and Wonderland and The Matrix are just two examples. This gives the visual effects designer the freedom to make entire worlds for the given film, while ensuring that the weather does not have a major effect on filming as well.
In conclusion, in the future, special effects could play a major role in the safety of both the cast and crew. Whether stabilizing a set or just making sure that actors have some solid ground to step on, each are important. Although some people believe that doing stunts on location could provide a connection with an actor or actress and that studios just have the responsibility to follow standards that have been set by the Screen Actors Guild, the only sure way to keep people safe is to work in controlled environments. Though this may stir up some controversy in, the cast and crew's safety should be of highest priority. The best way to do this is to increasingly employ special effects to limit potentially life-threatening injuries.
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Works cited
Hewitt, Chris. “Christopher McQuarrie Talks Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible 6 Injury.” Empire, Empire, 16 Aug. 2017, www.empireonline.com/movies/features/christopher-mcquarrie-talks-tom-cruise-mission-impossible-6-injury/.
Lee, Chris. “Daniel Craig on the Brawl That Shut down Spectre.” EW.com, 26 Oct. 2015, ew.com/article/2015/10/26/daniel-craig-spectre-brawl/.
Rea, Paul V. “The Latest on Dylan O'Brien Accident.” Teen Wolf Wiki, Fandom, 13 June 2016, teenwolf.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:164977.
Thurston, Anthony. “When to Use a Green Screen vs a Blue Screen for Your Video Production.” SLR Lounge, www.slrlounge.com/when-to-use-a-green-screen-vs-a-blue-screen-for-your-video-production/.
Hiraoka, Glenn K. Safety Bulletins. Safety Bulletins, Screen Actors Guild, 2009.