Crew Call: Stunt Performers Edition

When Brad Martin goes into work there’s a very real possibility his boss could ask to set him on fire… BRAD MARTIN: They want you to stay on fire for a long time and you know, I'm not super well versed in it. But he’ll do it anyway because he’s a stunt man. MUSIC BUMP 1 (drums) Hi I’m Beth Accomando and today Cinema Junkie does a Crew Call -- Stunt Performers edition. MUSIC BUMP 2 (the horns) Comic-Con just wrapped up another virtual edition and I’ll be wrapping up July’s theme of celebrating pop culture by highlighting Brad Martin and Mickey Facchinello, who have both worked on the wildly successful Marvel franchise. We’ll find out how you can become a stunt person and what the job entails …. and… put names to those unsung heroes and heroines. THEME MUSIC OUT Before we get to their interviews I need to take a quick break and I have my friend Fernando Jay Huerto with the latest Share Your Addiction. He’s a stuntman currently working in Beijing on a show for a theme park that’s opening soon. So Jay, what’s your addiction? SHARE YOUR ADDICTION Fernando Jay Huerto Jay kicks ass and I’ll be right back with another stunt person who kicks ass…. Brad Martin. MIDROLL 1 Welcome back to Cinema Junkie’s Crew Call Stunt Performers edition. I speak with stunt coordinator and stunt performer Brad Martin who took a break from his busy schedule shooting Dungeons and Dragons in Ireland to talk about what his job entails. I’ve always admired and respected what stunt people do and I urge you to check out my earlier podcast with stuntman-turned-director Chad Stahelski who raised the bar on action with his John Wick films. Stuntman have occasionally been the focus of movies whether it’s Richard Rush’s trippy what’s real what’s an illusion romp The Stunt Man or the raucous portrait of Australian stuntman Grant Page in Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Stunt Rock. But perhaps the best known film about stuntmen is the one made by stuntman-turned director Hal Needham, Hooper. HOOPER SONG [can you start with…] You can hit him, kick him, generally abuse him, set him on fire… There ain’t nothing like the life of a Hollywood stuntman… That Burt Reynolds action film might not have been the most realistic portrait of the stunt business but it had fun satirizing a director’s lack of respect for what stunt people do. CLIP As you remember it’s a giant earthquake… and you’ll be driving through it. That 1978 film inspired the Lee Majors TV show The Fall Guy… CLIP The Fall Guy: This is the story of one of America’s unsung heroes. I mean you’ve seen him but you never knew who he was. You’ve cheered for him and cried for him; women have been willing to die for him but did he ever get any credit? Or the girl? No. He was what we call a stunt man and the reason I am talking so fondly about him is because he’s me. Brad grew up in the 80s watching The Fall Guy and inspired by what the job could entail. CLIP Unknown Stuntman song: I might fall from a tall building I might roll a brand new car cause I’m the unknown stuntman… BRAD MARTIN: And I just remembered that that was a career that I had heard of when I was growing up. And I was like wait a second, that’s something that sounds perfect for me. And it was. Brad Martin is now a stuntman, stunt coordinator and second unit director with credits on The Matrix Reloaded, Live Free and Die Hard, Tropic Thunder, Batman V Superman, Spiderman 3 and TV’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I was curious about how someone actually becomes a stunt performer, I mean is there a school you can attend to learn how to get set on fire or do you have to find a mentor and do a kind of apprenticeship? Brad offered his journey as a good template for how to become a stuntman. MUSIC BRAD MARTIN: Up until like the eighties was a very, very tight-knit business and it was really hard to get in as an outsider. So I moved, uh, I moved down to LA in 93 and I just started asking people, questions, started finding. You know, who is a stunt man, how to become a stuntman? Where do people train? I started. Finding gyms where stuntmen worked out. I met a couple of stunt people, uh, found out about the art of hustling, which is not what you do in Vegas. It's more like it's like, it used to be going out to movie sets and meeting stunt coordinators and giving them your resume and introducing yourself and saying, hi, I'm Brad Martin. I'm here to be a stuntman And after, you know, a couple of years, and maybe he's a real, a video reel of showing your skills, somebody might give you or an opportunity for an audition. You might get a shot at working on a, on a movie. So my first shots came through auditions and then my first, like real jobs came through. Hustling and corresponding with stunt coordinators that had hired me in the past and just being diligent and keeping in touch with them. And you know, that in extending my interest in wanting to be an apprentice and an understudy and learning more about stunts. And finally there was a man named Conrad Palmisano who hired me originally through an audition to be Robin the Robin. In Batman forever. And so I kept in touch with him over the, over the next year and a half or so. And then he hired me to be the stunt double for the lead in the movie, the peacemaker, which happened to be George Clooney. So then I started doubling George Clooney and then after that it was a snowball effect.I followed George through his career and then just started, um, getting my name around there then. So for a stunt coordinator, I know that there's no such thing as a typical day on a movie set, but what might a day for you involve or what kind of things do you have to do on a regular basis on a film shoot? BRAD MARTIN: The funny thing is. No regular day on a, on a movie set, every single day is different. And as far as generalities, you know, there's often lots of fights and falls and crashes and things like that. So all in all, I'm a general idea you have to, or me as a stunt coordinator needs to hire the personnel, needs to design the action needs to correspond with the directors and make sure. I'm putting their vision on film and creating what they want to see and choreographing the top quality action. just basically anything you see that has to do with the action movie I would be involved with, or a stunt coordinator would be involved. And what kind of stunts do you most look forward to? And which ones kind of give you the most anxiety or present the most challenges as a stuntman. BRAD MARTIN: As a stuntman the things that would give me the most anxiety were the bigger stunts, the big car wrecks, precision based high falls and things that I haven't done that often. Um, like say for instance, hoodless fire burns and things like that. They, they, you know, they want you to stay on fire for a long time and you know, I'm not super well versed in it. I've done a lot on my shows, but I haven't been in that many burns. So they're just things that you're unfamiliar with, or just not super comfortable with as far as anxiety for stunt coordinating. When you get with a director that doesn't really know what they want, and you're trying to choreograph something for them, and you're trying to please them, and they're not giving you all the information that you need and you it's time for you to come up with the goods. Um, and, and now, as well as, um, and I'm, I'm directing the action. I'm trying to make sure that I'm on the same page as the actual directors and I'm producing the film that they want to see. And so, um, when I'm unsure about that, you know, it gives me anxiety. I just want to make sure that I'm proving myself and make sure that I'm coming up with the goods for everybody. And which stuff do you actually enjoy and really look forward to doing? BRAD MARTIN: Well, I mean, just because something gives me anxiety doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it. I enjoy the challenges. I enjoy working hard. I enjoy challenging myself. You know, again, it gives me anxiety. It doesn't mean that I'm not happy to do it, but like something that, that I'm super comfortable with, like say for instance, fights and, and physical chase sequence. Like something that I'm really comfortable with. I love designing that stuff. I love conceiving of it from the beginning of a script and breaking it down from the script to a set, figuring out the shots and figuring out what exactly the choreography is with everything. That's just something that I Excel in most. And that's what I enjoy doing. Probably the most. I'm a huge fan of Hong Kong action films. And I know that in Hong Kong, especially during their heyday, like back in the day, You know, stunt choreographers and stunt people. I mean, they were very much integrated into the process of making the film and, you know, played a very pivotal role in how all that played out today. What is it like for you creating, um, action choreography? Are you involved from very early on? Do you come in, you know, later in the process, are you there, like when they were working on the script, how does that work for you? BRAD MARTIN: So talking about Hong Kong action, take like Jackie Chan for instance or Woo Ping, they don't necessarily have. A long time ahead of time to conceive of action ideas and then choreograph him. Jackie, for instance, will walk onto a set and have a look at it and take a month shooting a two-minute fighting and he'll sit there for a day. Sometimes, you know, I haven't worked with them, but I've, you know, I've heard the stories sit there, you know, smoke a cigarette, take a nap and wait to get inspired. And everybody just sits around and waits for him to find these moments of genius… from the, the American filmmaking standpoint, we don't have that luxury. Um, so we try to choreograph things ahead of time on this movie in particular, uh, Dungeons dragons, we didn't get a lot of prep. I only had a few weeks of prep, So I'm kind of in that realm of what Jackie and and grouping would do is I'm just trying to figure it out on you, not necessarily on the day, but with little notice here. And, um, I think necessity, spawns, creativity. It's just kind of my, my phrase that I like to go to all the time and it just, I work well under pressure and I work well. Um, my creative juices flow under those moments, in the movies as a stunt or a second unit director. You may come into these productions and they may have something called a previous, which is like basically a computer cartoon of the action scene. That they're going to be doing in the movie. Those have been designed by the director and some computer people without the guidance of an action professional. So now in the future, what I'm hoping to do is coming in at the very beginning, early stages with these people and helping them design these pre visits and helping them design the script and helping them design the sets and making everything from early on. Stunt friendly and more on the cutting edge and helping them to develop more cutting edge action from an action professional and maybe even build up the level of, um, what's possible. Now you've talked about a lot of things that some people can do driving, being set on fire fights falling. So how does a stem person kind of prepare for all this? Do you try to get train yourself in a real diverse array of things? Or do you try to specialize? It seems like there's so much you can be asked to do. BRAD MARTIN: I would say to be a good stunt man, you have to be well-versed in almost in anything you can. So when I became a stuntman, I trained everything. Cars, motorcycles, falls, trampoline, gymnastics. Uh, I was a martial artist growing up, a lot of the other stuff you can't necessarily train for it. You just have to be tough and learn how to, you know, learn how to save yourself when you're falling in crashing. As a stunt coordinator and to be a good stunt coordinator. In my opinion, you have to have been a good stunt man. And what kinds of things do you look to , to help become better at that?I know that I've had a chance to interview Jackie Chan and he talked about how, you know, it was people like Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and even Gene Kelly who like really kind of inspired him in, in the way he was setting up shots and shooting. BRAD MARTIN: Yeah, well, that's so funny because I know Jackie was inspired by them and I've watched lots of Harold Lloyd and lots of Charlie Chaplin and because Jackie took all of that to the next level, I was inspired by Jackie. CLIP JACKIE CHAN FIGHTS BRAD MARTIN: Like I grew up with, uh, Chad , who is the director of the John wick movies. He and I trained with each other and came up through the business together and he, and I would just sit down. Our couch every night, for years, I know every move and every single Jackie Chan fight and every stunt that he's done, because yeah, he was inspiration to, to both of us. Now, you mentioned you were doubling George Clooney in Batman and Robin back in the nineties. And you've also worked on Dawn of Justice, which is a much more recent DC comic book superhero film. In that timeframe. It seems like the kind of action and stunts that are being asked of people in those films.Changed considerably. So what kind of things have you seen changed and how do you feel about those changes? BRAD MARTIN: Well, the evolution of stunts is very interesting in some ways it's a lot better. Like for instance, I would say the fight scenes right now are way more technical. And, um, you need to be a way better performer to be in those fights. However, the use of CG, computer graphics, and in some respects, I think kind of override the action at times. And if the filmmaker is not well-versed in being able to utilize the CG in a good way. It may just take away from the action. You’ve worked on action comedies as well, Tropic Thunder. It's one of my favorites. CLIP Tropic Thunder And I'm just curious, is there a difference to you when you're creating fight choreography or working as a stem person, um, between doing something that's an action comedy and something that's action that's serious or is the process pretty much the same? BRAD MARTIN: I've really come to terms with that on this movie, directing Dungeons and dragons because it's a PG 13 movie and it is a bit tongue in cheek at times. And on a serious movie, like say like John Wick like what Chad did and stuff like you want that stuff to look completely real. You want it to be super violent? That's what that's all about. Like take the underworld franchise, for instance, like I'm really a stickler with how the wire work is. I take on Jackie Chan's philosophy, which is you don't want people to really know that it's a wire gag. You want to walk away and go, wow. That really happened to them. Not they did not happen.I mean, obviously they was supernatural movement. You can't necessarily do that. They're going to know, but the more realistic you can make it look like. But you do a movie like the other guys or Tropic Thunder. You don't, you know, if you're going to do something that's grotesque, you want it to be so over the top, it's comedic. It'll I would say that, um, there's definitely tone that’s different for each genre. And in case people don't understand what wire work or wire gags are, what is, I mean, this is something that Hong Kong films do a lot of, but explain to people a little bit what that entails. CLIP underneath of some Hong Kong SFX BRAD MARTIN: Yeah, well, I'm like you been a fan of the Jackie Chan genre and then the Hong Kong movies and cinema. They started this whole movement of why our work and why our work is basically a wire on a person in a heart. And that would connect up to a poli and go over to another pulley. And on the other line, there'd be a bigger rope and there'd be people pulling on it that would lift the person up in the air or pull them across the floor or desend them down to the ground and make them do supernatural moves. So it started basically over there. And then. Like Chad and I, and a bunch of our buddies, we saw all of that happen and we knew that that was the evolution of stunts. So we took that and Americanized it and, uh, made it a little bit more realistic, more, brutal, more violent, And then there's other things that we'll have wire work as well, which it wouldn't necessarily be considered like wire work, like ratchets, a ratchet. Uh, like a pneumatic Ram where it's like a piston hooked up to a wire and you hit a button and that button, instead of people pulling on the line, ratchets a person across the floor, you know, through the air and crashes into something, That's when you see people just like fly across a room after they get punched or something. BRAD MARTIN: Exactly. But if you see the guy run up the wall and grab this banister and then flip up onto the next, you know, landing that's, that's more of the technical wire work that, that I like to do. say, take, for instance, like on Die Hard CLIP Live Free and Die Hard BRAD MARTIN: Well, I mean, . So the director of Die Hard was Len Wiseman and he directed the underworld movies and the first underworld he brought me on because he wanted to bring. An American team with them to Budapest to do Hong Kong wire work. So fast forward to die hard. And you know, aside from the Harrier scene where he jumps on the back of the jet, I'd like to think that a lot of that way I work is fairly realistic. Um, like for instance, we did a shot where. Bruce throws a fire extinguisher and blows them out the window. CLIP Live Free and Die Hard BRAD MARTIN: Not that you know, the action of blowing somebody out the window with the fire extinguisher is real, but the fall itself going out the window, we took him all the way out the window until he actually touched the hood of the car with force. And you can see the, the hood of the car bounce. So like something like that, I would say we're pushing the envelope and we're afforded that time to make sure that we can create new action that hasn't been seen before. And do you think there are any misconceptions out there that film goers have that you'd like to correct? Or is there something about what you do that you would like audiences to know and appreciate? BRAD MARTIN: The one thing that I think people don't understand, and if you walk away from a movie and you go, oh yeah, the action sucked or that fight scene wasn't that good or whatever it's. These are when you get a solid action scene or a solid fight scene. That's when everything comes together and everybody's working well together, but more often than not, it doesn't always happen. And more often than not, like for instance, the director. Completely believe in the stunt coordinator and his vision, and that's the person that's supposed to bring the new hot ideas to the table. And so they might think that they like something better. And, and at the, at the end of the day, it may be better. And at the end of the day, it may be worse. Um, you have how much time you have to film a fight. And if you don't have enough time or an action scene, and if you don't have enough time to film it, you may have to compromise a bit of quality. If you, um, don't have enough time to rehearse it, you may have to compromise a bit of quality. If you don't have the props you needed, if you didn't know what the set was like before you went in there, you may not be able to do a Jackie Chan type fight. Um, you know, everybody back in the, back in the late nineties, early two thousands, everybody wanted Matrix. Well, on matrix Keanu trained for eight months before they even went to camera. And then we trained all through filming as well. And then he did John Wick and trained even more. So you want John Wick, you want matrix, you want, I mean, Keanu is a great example that guy's a workhorse. CLIP The Matrix I know kung fu BRAD MARTIN: He works his butt off and he has the time he put in the time. So if that's what you want. And I think that that's, you know, that's at the end of the day, that's what everybody wants to see as a star doing amazing things. Well, those stars need to. Take the time to rehearse and learn and train and do that kind of stuff. Which so I guess the message I would like to leave. Is it just because something isn't great, it doesn't mean that it didn't have the potential of being great. There's just so many factors that can fall through the cracks to turn something that had huge potential into something that wasn't necessarily. If you want to see Brad Martin raising the bar on action as a stunt coordinator check out Live Free and Die Hard or Underworld Awakenings, and if you want to see him in action doubling famous actors then look for him as Spidey in Spider-Man 2, doubling for Ben Affleck in the bar scene in Daredevil, and being Agent Smith’s doppelganger in the Matrix films. I need to take one last break and then I will speak with stuntwoman Mickey Facchinello whose work is on display in the new Black Widow film. CLIP You can add Black Widow clip here if you want And to take us into this break I have teacher, filmmaker and pro wrestler Keith Hammond who’s got a Cold Turkey stunt people may appreciate. COLD TURKEY Keith Hammond Thanks Keith, and I’ll be right back with my interview with Mickey Faccionello. MIDROLL 2 Welcome back to Cinema Junkie’s Crew Call: Stunt Performers Edition. There’s a new documentary out called Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story and it explores the particular challenges of being a stunt WOMAN in Hollywood. Here’s the trailer. CLIP Stuntwomen trailer Mickey Facchinello is one of the stunt women featured in that film. She’s worked in the industry less than a decade but has already demonstrated her versatility in terms of dealing with the ever changing landscape for stunt work. So in addition to doing traditional action and doubling for stars she has also brought her expertise to the computer realm doing pre-viz or previsualization, which involves visualizing complex action in a movie before filming as well as motion capture for animation, video games, and movies. She spoke to me from Belfast where she’s shooting a film. I asked what a typical day on the set might entail for her. MICKEY FACCHINELLO: So a typical day on set, I think, um, Definitely starts with, uh, a nice early call time. Um, depending on like, if you're in, let's say a wig, like a full way, big, um, maybe have to get some like good makeup done, maybe some tattoos or something on the arm. So probably like, let's say your call times 9:00 AM. Um, Or shooting calls 9:00 AM. So then you have to get ready probably at 7:00 AM. So you have to be there, um, nice and early, and let's say you're doing some fighting that day. Um, some wire work. Um, so you have to make sure everything's, you know, together and that you're nice and stretch. Nice and limber, nice and warm. Um, and then normally there's like the coordinator, um, second unit director or director. Gives you a rundown when you get to set up kind of what you're doing. Um, normally have you obviously have an idea because you've rehearsed and stuff like that, but there's generally like little changes and sometimes big changes depending on the film or TV show that you're on. You know, it could be a choreo chain or something like that. So there has to be, you know, rehearsals with actors, you know, you have to be getting actors ready for the stuff that they'll have to do as well. Not only getting yourself ready, but also the actor that you may be doubling, um, do you have a ratchet or something like that? Um, that normally takes, let's say it takes like one to like, you know, seven takes to get that. So yeah, long day of getting, you know, maybe beat up a little bit and then probably ending at like 6:00 PM. What stunts do you look most forward to doing? MICKEY FACCHINELLO: And which ones tend to be the ones that like, cause the most anxiety or present the most challenges. I think one of my favorite things to do when working, I really do enjoy the, like the screen fighting and I really do enjoy like the wire work as well, specifically, like the. Hong Kong style, like wires and stuff like that. Yeah, I just, I just love fighting. So with wire work, you have to really trust the person on the other end because you're a bit of a puppet on a string to a degree where you really have to trust them to be attentive. MICKEY FACCHINELLO: Yeah, definitely. Trust is one of the most important things, um, that we have to build. And, um, but between the performer and the rigors and the stunt coordinator, it's, depending on the job, you might be working with the same people that you've worked with for three jobs, you know, some teams all work together, um, uh, quite a bit. And then sometimes you, you come onto a job. Normally we have, um, let's say for, um, a film. Two to four months prep depending. Um, and so you get time to, to build the relationship there, which is so, so important because literally their life, our life is. There hands. So trust is super important. You know, if, if I'm going to, you know, jump off the side of a building or if I'm going to do a, even just a flip or something like that. And I know that if something goes wrong or if timing needs to be super specific that the person on the line or on the button, like has my back literally. It's all about teamwork. Now. There's so much technology being used in films now, and I noticed you've done some mo-cap work for both films and video games. Can you explain what motion capture is and how that differs or is the same from doing other kinds of stunt work? MICKEY FACCHINELLO: I've done quite a bit of motion capture work. I've done some stuff for some video games. I did some of the mortal combat games, um, and a couple of other video games. And then I've also done. Like we've done pre visual work, but it was motion capture based. Um, and then I've also done on battle angel. It was like, um, like motion capture, but it was on the actual set, which is quite different. And that's like super fancy, like James Cameron stuff, like Avatar style stuff. So that was really cool to experience. Um, generally you have, um, a suit which has like tracker markers on there and there's cameras that are set and calibrated, um, which are calibrated beforehand. Um, once you put the suit on, you got a little cute little hat, normally, um, some gloves to track your hands and, and on your shoes as well. it's got your. Your body put into the computer basically, and it can track your body. And then whether it's, let's say for a video game, for instance, we normally work in like a, a smaller volume at a filming studio, um, specifically for like, let's say it's like for Warner brothers or something, they have like a specific area that they, they do it in. And it's nice depending on what you're doing, you can, um, sometimes they let you make up your own own moves and stuff. It's creatively freeing, so that's quite fun. You mentioned that stunt work can entail a lot of different things. It can be fighting, it can be wire work. It could be jumping, it can be cars, it can be using weapons. So how do you kind of prepare and train? Do you try to be good at all of it? And do you have a particular specialty? MICKEY FACCHINELLO: Specifically for me, I definitely lean towards the, because I have a martial arts background and, uh, acrobatic background. I lean towards like the, the fight stuff just cause I really enjoy the screen fighting the industry, I think has definitely changed as well. It used to be where, like you did, you know, you should know your own rigging, um, uh, driving, biting, um, falling and like a few other skills. But now it's, I think how the industry has changed, there are more like specialized performers because there's such a high demand for bigger action and just extreme everything, but also. It needs to be done quickly as well. Like everything's filmed so quickly. Now there's such a demand for it that you have drivers and, you know, fire people, people who do high falls, um, uh, there's movement specialists as well. So I think you get, you definitely get a different spectrum. Normally you need like two doubles because we have two units running most of the time and you also need people to rehearse while you're also filming. So that helps. But then sometimes they bring on specialty performers. Let's say I'm doing fighting a lot of wire work and they need someone who can do some like crazy car stuff. And so they bring in someone who's really good at driving as well. It just depends on the job. So, and are there any misconceptions out there about what stunt people do that you would want to address, like in the general public? Or is there something about what you do that you think people in general just don't fully appreciate? MICKEY FACCHINELLO: I think maybe one of the things. Right now it's quite, the industry is very forward moving too, but like we are performers and we are, you know, actors and, and we, we are, you know, part of the, the illusion that that's up there and yeah, it's all just entertainment and having fun and playing make believe. And there are aspects to where. We do have to be quite serious and it can be not life-threatening, but you know, sometimes, you know, if you don't hit your mark, something bad could happen. So you just, you gotta be on your mark and you gotta do your thing and, you know, make sure it's right. But I think that, yeah, it's all, it's all gravy. That was Mickey Facchinello. You can admire her work in Black Widow, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard and Wonder Woman 1984. I’m adding a bonus Share Your Addiction this episode because it’s too perfect for the end of our month long obsession with pop culture. So here’s Keith Hammond back to give some props to the people who often take our breath away and make our jaws drop in awe. SHARE YOUR ADDICTION Keith Hammond Thanks Keith. And that wraps another edition of KPBS listener supported Cinema Junkie. Remember to check out the new Geeky Gourmet where I will show you have to make edible blood and then use it to make a stunt look better. You can find the video and the podcast at K-P-B-S-dot org-slash-cinema-junkie. And just like stunt performers have a team to support them, Cinema Junkie has a kick ass crew that includes podcast coordinator Kinsee Morlan, technical director Rebecca Chacon, and director of sound design Emily Jankowski. Coming up next month, the theme is Bollywood! And I’ll be speaking with the podcasters of Moviewallas to give you a brief history of Bollywood cinema and to provide a must-see viewing list. So till our next film fix, I’m Beth Accomando your resident Cinema Junkie.