Stunts and Cameramen
Another cameraman story because they never get old.
I was working on a shoot where a giant 250 pound guy was going to run through a giant pane of very thick glass (a running theme on this blog seems to be “glass breaking in dangerous ways”) for some stupid reason involving possible injury and death for our entertainment. I don’t want it to sound like I’m against stupid stunts for our entertainment; I’m a fan of Jackass. However this was the first stupid stunt I had ever been on set for, and upon seeing the way it was set up I have to say it wasn’t just stupid, it was EPICALLY stupid.
This is why we all had to sign wavers saying we would not sue if we were injured. There was sometimes a very REAL risk that we were going to be injured.
Especially the camera guys.
As a PA I was responsible for two things during this stunt. One thing was to set up temporary walls to protect the director and a lot of the crew from flying glass. The other thing was to set up what amounted to a cushion fort for a camera guy named Juan. Juan was to sit in front of where the glass was going to shatter as the man charged through it. He wanted to get the best shot possible and decided this spot in the direct line of fire of the man and the glass was the best place to get it. Since we did not want him to get hit by glass and killed we basically had to build him a fort. I am still not entirely sure he completely cared about the fort itself. I’m pretty sure I remember him simply shrugging at the thought like the glass wasn’t anything close to a big threat.
So the PAs built him a fort. We gathered up cushions and blankets and put them in a circle around him before covering his body in another blanket. He was, in essence, glass proof.
So when the stunt happened it dawned on us that, although he was glass proof, he was not 250 pound man proof.
The giant man ran into the window, broke through it, and ended up traveling farther than expect. Much farther. He trampled and tripped over poor Juan and careened into the temporary walls. Temporary walls are basically cubicle walls set up on shaky metal bars and as such it does not take much to knock them down. So when the giant man ran into the walls they fell over and smashed into a bunch of the crew, including a shocked director and a vocal producer.
I was over to the left of all this and, as soon as it was revealed no one was hurt in the slightest, thought it was funny as hell.
Juan was okay. He did not expect for his invincible fort to be destroyed by a giant man but thankfully the man has not stepped on anything vital. As he pointed out, the shot was amazing. To cameramen this is all that seems to matter.
In the end the only guy injured from this whole thing was the guy who went through the glass because of the glass itself. He was cut up and bleeding from so many small cuts his arms at one point looked like they had been dipped in blood…and yet all he could do is yell crazily about how awesome his stunt was as the nurse tried to treat him. I don’t know if he was even aware Juan was there, or that the director had been hit with a temporary wall. Personally I don’t think he needed to know. It was funnier that way.
