A stunt is an unusual, difficult, dramatic physical feat that may require a special skill, performed for artistic purposes usually for a public audience, as on television or in theaters or cinema. Stunts are a feature of many action films. Before computer-generated imageryspecial effects, these depictions were limited to the use of models, false perspective and other in-camera effects, unless the creator could find someone willing to carry them out, even such dangerous acts as jumping from car to car in motion or hanging from the edge of a skyscraper: the stunt performer or stunt double.
One of the most-frequently used practical stunts is stage combat. Although contact is normally avoided, many elements of stage combat, such as sword fighting, martial arts, and acrobatics required contact between performers in order to facilitate the creation of a particular effect, such as noise or physical interaction. Stunt performances are highly choreographed and may be rigorously rehearsed for hours, days and sometimes weeks before a performance. Seasoned professionals will commonly treat a performance as if they have never done it before,[citation needed] since the risks in stunt work are high, every move and position must be correct to reduce risk of injury from accidents. Examples of practical effects include tripping and falling down, high jumps, extreme sporting moves, acrobatics and high diving, spins, gainer falls, "suicide backflips," and other martial arts stunts.[citation needed] Stunt airbags (or "stunt mats"), large deep airbags that may be the size of a small swimming pool, are typically used by professional stunt performers to cushion their landings from staged falls from heights.[citation needed]
Freestyle & Stunt Show 2007 in Landrévarzec, France
Mechanical effects
A physical stunt is usually performed with help of mechanics. For example, if the plot requires the hero to jump to a high place, the film crew could put the actor in a special harness, and use aircraft high tension wire to pull them up. Piano wire is sometimes used to fly objects, but an actor is never suspended from it as it is brittle and can break under shock impacts. Hero (2003) and House of Flying Daggers (2004) are examples of wuxia films that use kung-fu and are heavily reliant on wire stunts.[1]The Matrix is an example of extensive wire and rigging work in Western cinema.[2]
Vehicular stunts
Performers of vehicular stunts require extensive training and may employ specially adapted vehicles. Stunts can be as simple as a handbrake turn, also known as the bootleg turn, or as advanced as car chases, jumps and crashes involving dozens of vehicles. Rémy Julienne is a well known pioneering automotive stunt performer and coordinator. A Guinness Book of World Records holder stunt driver, Bobby Ore, performed in numerous movies and events and holds a world record for longest distance driven on two wheels in a London double decker bus (810 feet).[3]
On 1 June 1919, Ormer Locklear waited on one biplane for a second one trailing a rope ladder.
Aviation stunts go back to those performed in balloons in the 18th century. After the advent of powered aircraft in 1903, barnstorming and aerobatics came into existence. Ormer Locklear invented or helped develop many of the basic tricks of stunt flying, which included wing walking and transferring between airplanes in mid-air. Hollywood and the public's fascination with aviation made great demands on stunt pilots, resulting in many injuries and fatalities.
Computer-generated effects
In the late 20th century stunt men were often placed in dangerous situations less and less as filmmakers turned to relatively inexpensive (and much safer) computer graphics effects using harnesses, fans, blue- or green screens, and a huge array of other devices and digital effects. The Matrix (1999) is an example of a film that extensively enhanced real stunts through CGI post production.[2] The Lord of the Rings film series and the Star Wars prequel films often display stunts that are entirely computer generated. Examples of computer-generated effects include face replacement and wire removal.
In 1982, Jackie Chan began experimenting with elaborate stunt action sequences in Dragon Lord,[4] which featured a pyramid fight scene that holds the record for the most takes required for a single scene, with 2900 takes,[5] and the final fight scene where he performs various stunts, including one where he does a back flip off a loft and falls to the lower ground.[6] In 1983, Project A saw the official formation of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team and added elaborate, dangerous stunts to the fights and slapstick humor (at one point, Chan falls from the top of a clock tower through a series of fabric canopies).
Police Story (1985) contained many large-scale action scenes, including an opening sequence featuring a car chase through a shanty town, Chan stopping a double-decker bus with his service revolver and a climactic fight scene in a shopping mall. This final scene earned the film the nickname "Glass Story" by the crew, due to the huge number of panes of sugar glass that were broken. During a stunt in this last scene, in which Chan slides down a pole from several stories up, the lights covering the pole had heated it considerably, resulting in Chan suffering second-degree burns, particularly to his hands, as well as a back injury and dislocation of his pelvis upon landing.[7] Chan performed similarly elaborate stunts in numerous other films, such as several Police Story sequels, Project A Part II, the Armor of God series, Dragons Forever, Drunken Master II, and Rumble in the Bronx among others.
Two motorbikes jump a car at a country fair, England
Films such as Hooper and The Stunt Man and the 1980s television show The Fall Guy sought to raise the profile of the stunt performer and debunk the myth that film stars perform all their own stunts. Noted stunt coordinators Hal Needham, Craig R. Baxley, and Vic Armstrong went on to direct the action films The Cannonball Run, Action Jackson, and Joshua Tree. Vic Armstrong became the first stuntman to win both an Academy Award (for developing a descender rig as a safe alternative to airbags) and a BAFTA award (for lifetime achievement in film). But the status of stuntmen in Hollywood is still low;[9] despite the fact that few films of any genre or type could be made without them, stunt performers are still perceived as working mainly in action films.[10] Repeated campaigns for a "Best Stunts" Academy Award have been rejected.[11][12][13][9]
In 2001, the first "World Stunt Awards" were presented in Los Angeles by actor Alec Baldwin. The event had A-list stars presenting the statues to Hollywood's unsung heroes. Arnold Schwarzenegger was presented with the first "Lifetime Achievement" award. He presented the awards in 2001.[14] The awards show hands out eight awards: Best Fight, Best Fire Stunt, Best High Work, Best Overall Stunt by a Stunt Man, Best Overall Stunt by a Stunt Woman, Best Speciality Stunt, Best Work with a Vehicle and Best Stunt Coordinator or 2nd Unit Director.
Equality in stunts
In past Hollywood films it was common for men to double for women and white American stunt performers to double for African American performers, in a practice known as "wigging".[15] Veteran stunt man Dave Sharpe, a man of shorter than average height, often doubled for women in film serials of the 1930s and '40s. Veteran stunt performer Jeannie Epper, who doubled for Lynda Carter in Wonder Woman, explained that the situation improved in the 1970s as actresses did not want to be doubled by men, and could be more convincingly doubled by a woman.[16]SAG-AFTRA union rules for stunt performers say that to double an actor of a different gender or race the stunt must be so dangerous that there are no volunteers available of the appropriate gender or race.[15] For example, in A View to a Kill, stuntman B.J. Worth doubled for the black Jamaican actress Grace Jones whose character parachuted off the Eiffel Tower.[17]
The future of stunt work
A backlash against dangerous stunts followed the fatal 42-foot backward fall of Sonja Davis off a building on the set of Vampire in Brooklyn.[18] Despite speculation that developments in computer-generated imagery (CGI) would make stunts unnecessary and reduce stunt performers to the status of body doubles, stunt work has increasingly been made safer and enhanced by CGI effects; nevertheless, stunt performers remain essential to provide a human quality to the action.[19][20]
↑ Verini, Bob (24 January 2008). "SAG recognizes stunts for first time". Variety. some have found irony in recognizing a community at the exact moment when CGI advances seem destined to render that community irrelevant — or at best secondary — to creating thrilling action on film.
Gene Scott Freese, 2014, Hollywood Stunt Performers, 1910s-1970s: A Biographical Dictionary, 2nd ed. illustr. rev., McFarland, ISBN0786476435, see , accessed 16 April 2015.
Martial arts films are a subgenre of action films that feature martial arts combat between characters. These combats are usually the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often are a method of storytelling and character expression and development. Martial arts are frequently featured in training scenes and other sequences in addition to fights. Martial arts films commonly include hand-to-hand combat along with other types of action, such as stuntwork, chases, and gunfights. Sub-genres of martial arts films include kung fu films, wuxia, karate films, and martial arts action comedy films, while related genres include gun fu, jidaigeki and samurai films.
Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life-threatening situations, a indestructible villain, or a pursuit which usually concludes in victory for the hero.
Jackie Chan is a Hong Kong actor, filmmaker, martial artist, and stuntman known for his slapstick acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and innovative stunts, which he typically performs himself. Before entering the film industry, he was one of the Seven Little Fortunes from the China Drama Academy at the Peking Opera School, where he studied acrobatics, martial arts, and acting. Chan has been acting since the 1960s, performing in more than 150 films. He is one of the most popular action film stars of all time.
A stunt performer, often called a stuntman or stuntwoman and occasionally stuntperson or stunt-person, is a trained professional who performs daring acts, often as a career. Stunt performers usually appear in films or on television, as opposed to a daredevil, who performs for a live audience. When they take the place of another actor, they are known as stunt doubles.
In filmmaking, a double is a person who substitutes for another actor such that the person's face is not shown. There are various terms associated with a double based on the specific body part or ability they serve as a double for, such as stunt double, "dance double", "butt double" and "hand double".
Project A is a 1983 Hong Kong martial arts action comedy film starring and directed by Jackie Chan, who also wrote the screenplay with Edward Tang, who produced with Leonard Ho and Raymond Chow. The film co-stars Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. Project A was released theatrically in Hong Kong on December 22, 1983.
Police Story is a 1985 Hong Kong action comedy film directed by and starring Jackie Chan, who co-wrote the screenplay with Edward Tang. It is the first film in the Police Story franchise. It features Chan as Hong Kong police detective "Kevin" Chan Ka-Kui, alongside Brigitte Lin and Maggie Cheung. In the film, Ka-Kui helps arrest a drug lord, but must clear his own name after being accused of murder.
Yuen Wah is a Hong Kong action film actor, action choreographer, stuntman and martial artist who has appeared in over 160 films and over 20 television series.
Hong Kong action cinema is the principal source of the Hong Kong film industry's global fame. Action films from Hong Kong have roots in Chinese and Hong Kong cultures including Chinese opera, storytelling and aesthetic traditions, which Hong Kong filmmakers combined with elements from Hollywood and Japanese cinema along with new action choreography and filmmaking techniques, to create a culturally distinctive form that went on to have wide transcultural appeal. In turn, Hollywood action films have been heavily influenced by Hong Kong genre conventions, from the 1970s onwards.
Dragon Lord is a 1982 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film starring and directed by Jackie Chan, who also wrote the screenplay with Edward Tang and Barry Wong. It was originally supposed to be a sequel to The Young Master and even had the name Young Master in Love until it was changed to Dragon Lord. The film was experimented by Chan with various elaborate stunt action sequences in a period setting, serving as a transition between Chan's earlier kung fu comedy period films and his later stunt-oriented modern action films.
Richard Norton is an Australian martial artist, actor, stunt performer, stunt coordinator, security consultant, and fight choreographer. He holds a 5th dan black belt in Gōjū-ryū karate, a 5th dan black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, an 8th dan black belt in Chun Kuk Do, and a level 6 ranking in American kickboxing. After high school, Norton worked as a bodyguard in the entertainment business before pursuing an acting career.
Heart of Dragon, released in the United Kingdom as Heart of the Dragon, is a 1985 Hong Kong action drama film directed by Sammo Hung, who also starred in the lead role. The film co-stars Jackie Chan, Emily Chu and Mang Hoi. Yuen Biao served as the action director for the film.
Jackie Chan began his film career as an extra child actor in the 1962 film Big and Little Wong Tin Bar. Ten years later, he was a stuntman opposite Bruce Lee in 1972's Fist of Fury and 1973's Enter the Dragon. He then had starring roles in several kung fu films, such as 1973's Little Tiger of Canton and 1976's New Fist of Fury. His first major breakthrough was the 1978 kung fu action comedy film Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, which was shot while he was loaned to Seasonal Film Corporation under a two-picture deal. He then enjoyed huge success with similar kung fu action comedy films such as 1978's Drunken Master and 1980's The Young Master. Jackie Chan began experimenting with elaborate stunt action sequences in The Young Master and especially Dragon Lord (1982).
The Taurus World Stunt Awards is a yearly award ceremony held midyear that honors stunt performers in movies. It is held each year in Los Angeles. The first awards were given out in 2001. The deciding committee has been around since the year 2000. The awards were created by Dietrich Mateschitz, the founder of Red Bull. The awards statue was sculpted by Austrian artist Jos Pirkner, and is a figure in the form of a winged bull.
Scott Leva is a stuntman and stunt coordinator who entered stuntwork in the 1970s.
Bradley James Allan was an Australian martial artist, action choreographer, actor, and stunt performer. He worked in the Hong Kong film industry as a member of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team and choreographed action scenes in Hollywood films. He is best known for his role as Alan on Gorgeous (1999).
CZ12 , also known as Chinese Zodiac, is a 2012 Hong Kong action-adventure comedy film co-written, co-produced and directed by Jackie Chan, who also starred as the main character in the film. CZ12 is the third film of a franchise that began with Armour of God (1986) and its sequel, Armour of God II: Operation Condor (1991). The film co-stars Kwon Sang-woo, Liao Fan, Zoe Zhang, Anna Yao and Laura Weissbecker.
Roger Winston Yuan is an American martial arts fight trainer, stunt coordinator / performer, and actor who has trained many actors and actresses in many Hollywood films. As an actor himself, he also appeared in Shanghai Noon (2000) opposite Jackie Chan, Bulletproof Monk (2003) alongside Chow Yun-fat, the technician in Batman Begins (2005), and as Sévérine's bodyguard in Skyfall (2012). He is a well-recognized choreographer in Hollywood.
Antony Szeto (司徒永華), is a film director and martial artist.
Michael G. “Mic” Rodgers is an American film and commercial director, second unit director, stunt coordinator, and stunt performer. As a stunt performer, he is known for serving
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