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Vehicle suppliers and stunt
engineers MGM were crucial to the safety of this stunt and even helped me by
driving the cars at Elstree film studios in my very first tests upon timings and
positions for which I am indebted.
Both Cadillacs were prepped
and the morning of the shoot arrived at Quinitec Test Track.
I had discussed this action
with several special effects engineers; as to my knowledge no stunt artists in
the world have ever driven two vehicles head to head at such speeds.
The initial idea was to hit
at around 12- 15 miles an hour, giving at the top range a joint impact of thirty
miles and hour, but because of the size of the vehicles and weight; I was deeply
concerned that the gag would not look spectacular enough and there is nothing
worse for any stunt artist to immediately want to shoot again, because he or she
under cooked the gag. As there was no option of a second take here, we had to
get it right.
A decision of 18 miles an hour
was agreed at; giving a head on impact of 36 miles an hour, but something just
gnawed away at me that this still might not be enough; especially as we were not
going to hit completely head on, but half head on. These decisions are crucial
both creatively and in respect to safety. I was pretty nervous about such an
unknown and for the first time in twenty five years; I also knew that Trevor
was.
With the best car prep and
safety paramedics in place, we made numerous line ups.
Exact start positions were
calculated and slowly moved further and further back. I asked the first AD
(Julian again) to give Trevor and myself something that I have invented called a
rolling ‘aaaaaaand’ which might sound a bit mad, but works.
Both cars had to take off at
exactly the same moment; travel the exact same speeds and reach an exact impact
point for both cameras. In twenty five years of film making, this was the most
crucial timing that Trevor and I had ever done.
The rolling aaaaaand is so
that when action is called after this, both stunt artists can dump the clutch
(or in the case of automatic Cadillacs) accelerate at precisely the same
moment.. .timing that is absolutely crucial creatively.
Trevor and I had done the last
line up at around 20 mph each and had hit the final end mark exactly; so we made
the decision to run with these speeds; thus creating a final impact of 40 mph.
Despite all the gags we had
both ever done over the years word-wide; when you are lining up and driving past
each other; the actual job only really sinks in when it is show time and both
cars are moved across to make a head on impact. There could be no stopping and
certainly no element of braking by either of us, otherwise the final position
for impact would have been out.
Adrenalin must also not effect
the speed, which is where the word ‘professional’ in professional stuntman
comes into its own.
When the 1st AD
called his rolling action; I knew that we were both bang on take off; as my
vehicle was slightly heavier, the impact on Trevor’s was greater and you can
see from the footage that the entire engine mount is pushed backwards. It’s
probably best that I don’t ever cut together the making of, as I was pretty
concerned that Trevor has sustained major injury and leapt from my car in
concern. Eventually after what seemed like hours with Trevor being attended to
by paramedics his helmet was taken off, he was fully checked over and he walked
from the car and smiled. A pretty emotional moment; a gag we are both extremely
proud of and footage that I believe has only ever been achieved by Special
effects men firing the cars together remotely with dummies inside.
Enjoy the crash.
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