Stunts & stunt coordination

Andrew Niccol

And the one coming up was gonna be a very large one since nothing explodes quite like explosives. And this was the first explosion actually that Jared's South African stunt double, Warren, had ever been part of. And we only had one take where the stunt double had to run and fall down in exactly the right place. And you can do this digitally, but I didn't have the money or the time.

1:43:53 · jump to transcript →

We did concept-design work with an artist called George Hull... ...Who Larry, Andy and James all Know from Matrix. And he drew up the initial sketches that we approved... ...and put into the digital pipeline. When we were shooting it, we didn't actually do a great deal different. We kind of left them to it. We ended up having some rig removal. And the way the blood was done was very crude, if you like. We literally taped plastic bags of stage blood... ...to the costumes of the S.W.A.T. members. And V's stunt double, Dave Leitch... ...used a real knife. And he just had to be very precise to cut the bags... ... Just at the right level so that the blood would splurt out. There are some shots when the knife is in the air... ...where we have got digital knives. CG knives that we put in there. And then, throughout the sequence we had tracked V's motions... ...and rendered in the trails that you see. It's the final confrontation... ... sort of ideological confrontation... ... between Creedy, who represents the administration... ...and V, the independent-minded terrorist. The great line at the end of it is that, you know... ...when Creedy can't shoot him. And he says, "You can't kill me because an idea cannot be killed."

1:55:24 · jump to transcript →

This is a ridiculous scene. Yeah, like all that drama and now hijinks. Crazy hijinks. This was so hard to shoot this fight sequence, wasn't it? Yeah. We had a stunt coordinator. Yeah, a stunt coordinator showing us how to throw a punch. And I kept trying to throw myself on Jay and kiss him some more. Manny was our fight coordinator who was infinitely patient with all of us. It's as hard to shoot a fight as it is to shoot sex. It's harder. Harder.

1:08:22 · jump to transcript →

Here, the use of a helicopter... - The flying cam. A mini helicopter. It's a mini helicopter because it wasn't possible to shoot with a normal one, having in mind that the environment doesn't allow that. And we used this mini helicopter to shoot, especially because we wanted to shoot really close to Robert Carlyle and to see how this man is feeling the guilt of abandoning his wife in the cottage. We used this tool previously in Intacto, our first movie, and, uh... I think it's very effective. Even if there is only four or five shots, they are very, very effective. This is another sequence that Danny Boyle helped us to shoot, especially this stuff in the boat when Don is trying to escape and he is surrounded by the infected. And Jacob tries to reach the boat, but it's not possible because the infected are really fast and they attack before he can reach the boat. That was great work from the stunts. This sequence was shot in November in England, so imagine how cold was the water.

9:12 · jump to transcript →

This is fine. There's a gas tank. That's an actual practical explosion and things being pulled with wires. And that's not a real person. Yeah. I like that bit there. Yeah. And that's surprisingly, like, stunts usually suck the first time you do them, and that was the first time. That was actually kind of nice, that whole explosion and Will in the foreground. You just said splosion. Explosion? Explosion. Boy, he's fast. Yes.

1:23:31 · jump to transcript →