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Jul 30
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Cameraman collides with Batman’s motorcycle, filming halted

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by Jeremy Mathai from https://www.slashfilm.com

‘The Flash’ movie Production Halted Following Accident on Set.

The long, arduous journey to get The Flash into development and finally begin production has unfortunately met another setback, this time interrupting the actual filming of the movie. Reports out of the UK indicate that an accident has occurred on the set of The Flash while shooting on location in Glasgow, causing the apparent hospitalization of a member of the camera crew.

Glasgow Live is reporting that a camera operator was involved in a collision with a stunt man in full Batman garb who was riding atop the Batcycle in the Andy Muschietti-directed production. Eyewitnesses claim that the cameraman, on a motorcycle of his own, accidentally collided with the Batcycle from the rear while racing down one of the city streets in an attempt to capture the action up close. There has been no official word from Warner Bros. just yet, but filming immediately paused while the crew member had to be extricated from underneath the vehicle and subsequently received medical attention. All indications are that the injured party was then treated at a local hospital, while an ambulance was seen leaving the site. However, no other details or updates are known at this time.

We recently reported on pictures taken from the UK set that showed off the newly-redesigned Batcycle that will appear in the multiverse-spanning crossover film, with the stuntman’s Batman outfit pointing towards an appearance by Ben Affleck‘s costumed crime-fighter. Michael Keaton is also set to make his grand return to the DC universe, having seemingly hung up the cowl for good in Batman Returns nearly 30 years ago.

Somewhere in the middle of all this action, presumably, will be Ezra Miller‘s Barry Allen. The Flashpoint-inspired film will recount the complications that spring up as a result of some serious timeline shenanigans on Barry’s part. In the famous comic series, the Flash travels back in time to prevent the death of his mother, but these actions only create another splintered universe and alternate timeline.

As of yet, it is unknown just how much of a setback this will cause production. Obviously, the health and safety of the injured crewmember are of paramount importance and we can only hope for his full recovery. Blockbuster film sets are notoriously dangerous places to work, which is why the director and producers work overtime with all involved parties on multiple levels of production to ensure a safe working environment. We’ll provide more updates as they come in.

Oct 18
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Insane No Time To Die Stunt

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by Jessica Rawden from https://www.cinemablend.com

Insane No Time To Die Stunt Created By Daniel Craig Needed James Bond, A Motorcycle, and 8,400 Gallons Of Cola

At this point we’ve heard so much about James Bond’s upcoming 25th outing on the big screen No Time To Die, it may feel like we know everything about the movie already, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Case in point: We recently learned there will be a major sequence involving a sticky street doused with Cola James Bond will need to navigate …and it was outgoing Bond actor Daniel Craig’s idea.

Thanks to a profile in Total Film, we learned about yet another No Time To Die stunt sequence (it should not be a spoiler that there will be several) and how it was accomplished for the big screen. Apparently, at one point, as James Bond is chasing down a lead on a motorbike, Daniel Craig figured out a way to get his stunt double, a man named Paul Edwards, to hit a ramp and land on cobblestones.

Cobblestones are apparently pretty slippery generally, so the film crew had to device a way to make them stickier. Enter: Coca-Cola, which for a price did the trick. Apparently, the production spent €60,000 or more than 70K in U.S. dollars to pull off the one quick stunt, with stunt head Lee Morrison revealing that 8,400 gallons of the brown stuff was also used.

“I spent nearly €60,000 spraying Coca-Cola around Matera. I’ve been spraying Coca-Cola on slippery surfaces for a very long time.”

The James Bond franchise has been a fan of product placement in the Daniel Craig era, including some memorable shots in Skyfall of Craig drinking a Heineken instead of his usual martini, shaken not stirred. This time around it seems as if it is Coke getting the shoutout – and also worked as a cleaning agent on the cobblestones to boot.

Still, motorcycle stunts in general can be the most difficult portions of a movie to film, so it’s great the team on 007’s latest had a trick up their sleeves. Though it is helping me understand how the latest Bond film may be the most expensive to date.

There are a ton of YouTube videos devoted to Coca-Cola’s alternate purposes, so none of this comes as a huge surprise, but now when No Time To Die hits theaters, finally, you’ll be able to spot the cool motorcycle moment and already know more about its origins during filming.

In fact, I think we’ve already seen this amazing leap in the early footage for No Time To Die. James Bond’s on a motorcycle and he’s scaling some wall and clearly looking to land on what seems to be cobblestones. You can take a look at the moment in the early trailer for the movie, below.

Bond 25, aka No Time To Die was initially expected to hit theaters in the spring. Its release was pushed several times, at one point landing in November and now more likely to come in April of 2021 – nearly one whole year after it was initially expected to hit theaters. Anticipation for the film is still high, but as we move closer and closer to 2021, we’ll have to keep an eye on how crowded the theatrical schedule for next year is getting.

Sep 19
Love0

Here’s How You Make History With a Headstand on a Motorcycle Doing 76 MPH

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by Elena Gorgan from https://www.autoevolution.com

Daredevils love to do daredeviling stuff, that’s a fact. It doesn’t make any of these impressive feats less impressive.

It’s that time of the year again, when the Guinness Book of World Records comes out. The 2021 edition was announced the other day and, with the announcement came a brief presentation of some of the new record holders. All of them are amazing in their own right, but not a single one is more relevant to us than one Marco George from the UK, a 31-year-old man who currently holds the record for the fastest speed on a motorcycle while performing a headstand or handstand.

To be clear, Marco set this record last year, on August 17, in Elvington, the UK. He hails from Hampshire and is a stuntman by profession, having done work on TV and movies, and even put in an appearance on ITV’s hit televised competition Britain’s Got Talent. Marco has been stunt riding since 2014, so he has plenty of experience.

However, training for the Guinness record was an entirely different kettle of fish, as the Brits like to say. He got the idea for it when he was young, reading the Guinness books. Like most kids, he too dreamed of one day being the fastest or toughest or generally bestest, so he could have his name jotted down in the history books.

In 2017, Marco added headstands to his stunt competition routines, and this is how he came up with the idea of trying for a record. It would be nearly three years of planning and working hard, and seven full months of intensive training before he was able to set the record, breaking the previous one by double the speed.

Even for someone like Marco, who defies death on the regular as a profession, this was no easy achievement. He trained with his father (stunt riding runs in their blood, and both his father and grandfather were in the business), focusing on the record attempt with such dedication that everything else faded into the background. He worked on getting a strong core, so his body could stand upright on the bike against strong winds, on balance and timing.

Marco’s attempt was possible through his partnership with Straightliners, which helps facilitate land speed records.

On the day of the attempt, it seemed like the odds were against him. He had to get a new helmet, because the one he had didn’t meet safety regulations, and this resulted in a few failed runs. The wind was heavier than they’d expected, so that too posed challenges.

Then, as Marco just went with it, he topped 76 mph (122.3 kph) on his Honda, even though he’d promised his mother he wouldn’t dare go over 70 or else she’d kill him. His exact speed was 76.17 mph (122.59 kph) and this landed him his own chapter in the Guinness Book.

Now that he doubled the previous record of a headstand on a speeding motorcycle, Marco is looking for new challenges. He tells Guinness he’d be open to the idea of a contender to the title, so they could go against one another and top that speed. He’s also thinking about attempting to break Dave Coates’ record of fastest speed while riding a motorcycle backwards 151.7 mph (244.1 kph) and Gary Rothwell’s record for the fastest speed dragged behind a motorcycle, but has no concrete plans in this direction right now. If he does, he’s not disclosing them just yet.

Guinness notes that, during lockdown this year, Marco has been giving his body some well-deserved rest. Meanwhile, he’s promoting fellow stunt riders on his YouTube channel: for instance, on August 15, 2020, Jonny Davies set a new World Record for the fastest High Chair Wheelie at 109.2 mph (175.7 kph).

Here is the video with Marco’s record-breaking headstand and a bit more from him on what it means to have been able to turn a childhood dream into reality with it.

 

Aug 26
Love0

Tom Cruise Returns to Mission: Impossible 7 Set with Insane Motorcycle Stunt

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by Neeraj Chand from https://movieweb.com

Hollywood is slowly and cautiously restarting production on big-budget film and television projects. Leading the charge is Tom Cruise, who has restarted production on the upcoming Christopher McQuarrie-helmed Mission: Impossible 7 in the UK. Photos from the set were recently shared, which showed Cruise partaking in yet another death-defying stunt involving a motorcycle and a very high vantage point.

The stunt in question had the actor on a speeding motorcycle as it hurtled off a ramp 500ft in the air. Fans of the Mission Impossible franchise will remember plenty of bike-themed stunts from previous movies, but none have taken place so high up the air. While safety wires ensured Tom Cruise was not launched into the stratosphere, fans were still amazed to see the 58-year-old actor partaking in such a sequence. Previously, McQuarrie had teased that the stunts in the upcoming movie will make the ones in the previous installments seem tame by comparison.

The storylines in Mission Impossible films have always taken a back seat to the stunts showcased by Cruise. In fact, every movie in the franchise follows the same basic path, where government operative Ethan Hunt, played by Cruise, embarks on a dangerous mission to recover a dangerous MacGuffin, gets betrayed, and races to retrieve the MacGuffin before time runs out.

This well-worn formula continues to strike gold at the box-office because Cruise offers something different through the franchise, a return to old-school filmmaking where hair-raising stunts are filmed for real instead of putting the actors in front of a green screen. Over the years, audiences have watched Ethan Hunt climb steep mountains without any gear, hang from the side of a plane, scale the highest building in the world, and now, apparently, perform a bike stunt at 500 feet.

Still, as good as Cruise is, even the megastar cannot stop the march of time, and it is rumored that he is planning to hang up his action boots before his 60th birthday. That would give him time to complete the two final Mission Impossible movies, Top Gun: Maverick, and the untitled space movie that he intends to make with NASA and Elon Musk which will be filmed in the upper atmosphere.

For now, the residents of the town in Oxfordshire where Mission Impossible 7 is filming have grown accustomed to seeing Cruise performing one action-packed stunt after another, all in service of making the upcoming film bigger and better than previous installments in the franchise. The actor is said to enjoy going for 5k runs in London’s parks and frequents Soho Farmhouse, an exclusive members’ club in Oxfordshire, with co-star Simon Pegg, who plays Benji Dunn in the film. It remains to be seen whether the social distancing precautions being taken by the film’s crew will allow production to be completed without any cases of infection among the cast and crew. This was first reported at Daily Mail.

May 08
Love0

Deadpool 2 Production Company Hit Big With Fine After Death Of Stuntwoman Joi Harris

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by Dirk Libbey from https://www.cinemablend.com

In the summer of 2017 while Deadpool 2 was in production, Joi Walker, a professional motorcycle racer who was working as a stunt performer for the first time, was killed when she was ejected from her bike and went through the plate glass window of a building. Now, the Vancouver-based production company, TCF Vancouver Productions LTD, has been fined nearly $300,000 by WorkSafeBC, the British Colombia equivalent of OSHA in the U.S.

The exact fine comes to $289,562 and is due to the finding that the production of Deadpool 2 was in violation of five requirements of Canada’s Workers Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation. The finding of WorkSafe BC, is that, among other things, the production failed to identify the hazards involved in the stunt or control the risks. The stunt performer was not only not wearing appropriate safety gear, but according to Deadline, she was actually instructed by the production not to do so.

Joi Walker was working as a stunt performer in place of Zazie Beats as Domino. The motorcycle stunt was Joi Walker’s first stunt performance on the film. This may have something to do with the fact that one of the other violations listed is the fact that the production failed to provide a new worker orientation for Walker.

Joi Walker’s death is not only not the only significant stunt accident in recent years, it’s not even the only significant one that took place on a motorcycle. Two years before the Deadpool 2 accident, a motorcycle crash on the set of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter left stuntwoman Olivia Jackson in a medically induced coma. And while Jackson ultimately survived her injuries, she was left with permanent damage, including an amputated arm. Jackson was recently awarded damages in a lawsuit against the film’s South African production company.

A stuntman on The Walking Dead fell to his death a month before the accident on the set of Deadpool 2.

More recently a stuntman on the set of F9 sustained a serious head injury in a fall. While this most recent injury is from this past summer, it appears that we’ve seen fewer serious injuries to stunt people more recently, which hopefully indicates that extra care is being taken to ensure safety of all involved.

Stunt people have, without question, the most dangerous job on any film set. They’re trained to be able to do these stunts safely, but there is always going to be risk. Considering the great amount of respect that many in Hollywood clearly do have for stunt performers, there’s little argument that nothing is more important than their safety.

WorkSafe BC says the purpose of the fine is to motivate the employer, and other employers, to comply with health and safety requirements. Deadpool 2 was ultimately dedicated to Joi Walker.

Jan 09
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Police Aim To Stop Reckless Motorcycle Groups Before They Start Dangerous Stunt Rides

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by Todd Feurer from https://chicago.cbslocal.com/

CHICAGO (CBS) — Responding to growing complaints about packs of reckless motorcycle riders, Chicago police told aldermen they taking a more proactive approach to reining in swarms of bikers who speed down streets and expressways, performing dangerous stunts that put themselves and others at risk.

Stunt rider motorcycle groups have become more popular in recent years, Chicago Police Cmdr. Sean Loughran, who heads the department’s Special Functions Division, said at a City Council Public Safety Committee meeting on the problem.

Office of Emergency Management and Communications executive director Rich Guidice said there were approximately 1,100 calls to 911 last year complaining about dangerous motorcycle groups.

Rather than trying to stop the groups after they’ve started speeding through the city, police said they plan to keep track of the groups on social media, in an effort to stop large stunt rides before they start.

CBS 2’s Jim Williams has previously reported the stunt biker groups, which frequently post social media videos of themselves popping wheelies, speeding down sidewalks, and blowing through red lights and stop signs, sometimes coming within inches of hitting pedestrians crossing the street.

Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd), who called on the Chicago Police Department and OEMC to detail their plans to address the dangerous motorcycle groups, said they often ride in groups of 200 to 300 people, speeding down expressways, Lake Shore Drive, and even side streets, ignoring all traffic laws, and putting other motorists and pedestrians in danger.

Loughran said part of the challenge in cracking down on the groups is that chasing them isn’t worth the risk, because it would only put more lives in danger, and actually give the stunt riders what they want – a chance at making a viral video of a police chase.

“These individuals, the worst bad actors, they’re not stopping. In fact, they want you to chase them,” he said. “Many of the riders actively intend to goad law enforcement, on camera, into chases during these drag races, which only heightens the potential danger.”

Police said they plan to focus on using social media to find out when the groups are planning a ride event, and either putting a stop to dangerous motorcycle rallies before they start, or using helicopters to track the groups until they stop, and then handing out tickets, or making arrests if necessary.

“The key to this is when they’re at the rallying points, and swarming with a task force approach,” Loughran said. “We want to flood that area, and get them off their bikes while they’re revving their bikes.”

Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd), who said the stunt riders are a frequent problem on Lower Wacker Drive, said police should also rely on a new ordinance the City Council passed last summer, increasing the penalties for street racing.

Racing drivers now face fines of $5,000 to $10,000 for each offense.

“Lean on that section of the code. Write those violations, because I’ll tell you, a $5,000 ticket, that gets some attention real quick,” Reilly said.

Loughran said police also can sometimes seize a rider’s motorcycle, if they’re arrested for committing a misdemeanor or felony, or if they don’t have the proper license or registration.

“A lot of the motorcycle riders will intentionally never have license plates affixed on their vehicle, or will bend the plates up, or will remove them when going on these rides,” he said.

Police said riders also often outfit their bikes with illegally modified exhaust systems, or simply remove their mufflers, to create more noise. Those violations carry a $500 fine per day.

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) introduced an ordinance last year that would have required the city to install six noise monitors along Lake Shore Drive to help document the extent of the problem of noisy motorcycle groups.

However, Hopkins said the city already is authorized to install those monitors under a 2017 state law, and he said the mayor’s office has agreed to install them along Lake Shore Drive this year.

The alderman said the data from the noise monitors not only will help police investigating the motorcycle groups, but provide the City Council with data to determine if any laws need to be changed to improve enforcement.