Had an Amazing Experience Doing Stunt Work On A Movie- Here's Why

I had an incredible experience doing a stunt on a feature film. And so in this video, I'm going to be sharing with you how the stunt came about, what I did, how I prepared, about the meeting I had with the stunt coordinator, so that you will really know what you're doing if you were ever asked to do this type of stunt on a set. Okay, let's get started. Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tip channel. And if you haven't done this yet, don't forget, hit the subscribe button, click the bell, the notification button, so that way every time I upload a new video, you will be notified. And if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up. That's very helpful. This was An amazing experience. And look, there are certain details I can't give out because the film was shot pretty recently, won't be coming out for a little while. But here's what I can tell you. So I auditioned for a feature film, got booked, which is always exciting, and I had a stunt double for my scene. And the stunt double wore the exact same Wardrobe is me. I wouldn't say looked identical to me, close enough. Hair color was the same, same type of build, so that when this actor does the stunt, it looks like me. So we're working outside, and the only thing— I'll tell you what I can say. There's a fall involved. Now, it's not falling from the top of a building. You know, it was probably, let's see, Probably about an 8-foot fall. And, and by the way, when— at least this is what my stunt double told me, so I'm assuming it's true— when you are measuring a stunt, it's from the top of your head to where you land. So if you're falling, like for me, I'm 6 feet tall, if I was falling 1 foot, it'd be a 7-foot fall. That's what they can— that's how they measure it. So once again, I think that's true. Um, So I had probably, I don't know, or at least the stunt double had probably had about a, I don't know, like a 10-foot fall, something like that. So did the scene, the guy falls. This guy was great. He was really good. He just landed so perfectly. It looked so natural. And so watched him do it, and he only had to do it twice, and they had it. And then what happened was it was later in the day, and the first AD, first assistant director, walks over and asks me, he said, hey, are you comfortable doing this stunt? And I've never done a stunt before in my life, and I didn't really think about it that much. I just said, sure, yeah, I'd love to do it. And so I wasn't, I wasn't afraid at this point. What I did was I immediately sat down with the stunt coordinator, and we were talking about how to do the stunt properly. And my stunt double got involved in the conversation, and there was another stunt performer who was there who also was helping with last-minute quick training for me. And here— so here's, here, here's some of the information that I got. Number one, I had to be able to walk out to a certain point, to a ledge, and then fall over. So what I immediately started practicing was starting at my number one point, walking, looking straight ahead, because you can't look down. It wouldn't— at least for my particular scene, it doesn't make any sense. And I knew about how many steps it was, and then I had to go by feel. And when my foot hit the edge, I knew that was the spot to stop, and that's where my fall would take place. So yeah, I mean, it was potentially, you know, a very dangerous thing to do. I felt pretty good that I'd be able to pull it off. I'm pretty athletic and stuff, so I thought I'd be able to do it. And, and the people who were helping me, all the stunt folks, they were just wonderful, and they really filled me in. Here's, here's my guess, by the way, and look, I guess we'll, we'll see if they keep the scene, whether they keep me falling, who knows. But my guess is the reason why they asked me to do it is it would make it so much easier with editing. I mean, they would just have me walk over, fall, you know, that's it. Instead of having to cut and then you have the stunt double in there and stuff. I'm guessing that's, that's what took place. So, so first I had to get really comfortable walking and hitting my spot without looking down at all, just looking straight ahead. Once I had that, uh, there were 2 Stunt doubles— I'm sorry, there were 2 stunts. One was a stunt coordinator, the other was my stunt double, who— they were standing by the padding because I'm falling down. It was probably about, I want to say, about an 8-foot, 9-foot fall, something like that. And so there's a lot of force going down, and they, they do have padding because if, if I didn't hit that padding, it would have been really bad. So, so there were asking me, and we just looked at it a few times, where, where do I want to land? Where's a good spot for me? And I pointed to where it would be a good spot. And so once again, just practice. I didn't practice falling because one time it was funny, the first AD said, hey, you want to, you want to just try it, uh, one time and see? I said, no, let's, let's just shoot it. Because I didn't, I didn't want to take a chance and having it be perfect and then say, okay, so now we're gonna, now we're gonna shoot. So, walked out, and 2 other things that they gave me that were really helpful. They gave me knee pads, just because at the end of the scene, I am helped up, and there was gravel on the ground and stuff. So they said, yeah, you absolutely need knee pads so you don't scrape up your knees. And they also gave me shin pads, which was really helpful as well. They're just little gel thin pads, but it was really good. And so, So here was probably one of the most important things that I had to learn. I had no idea. When you do the fall onto the padding, what I was told was you've got to be really careful. You don't want to go straight down. You don't want to go nose first. You have to land on the side of your face. So essentially, as I'm falling, I'm going down like that, and I crash on the left side of my face. They said, that's exactly what you need to do. So actually, prior to shooting it, I was just sitting there kind of slapping my face a little just to kind of, I don't know, toughen it up a little, get it prepared for, you know, a real shot. I mean, there's a lot of force when you go straight down like that. And what they were saying was that, yeah, if you go straight down on your nose, you're probably gonna break your nose. If you go chin first, I mean, you could really do a lot of serious damage to your neck. So you had to be really, really careful. And on a side note, let me just tell you this too. If you are ever asked to do something on a set that you are not 100% comfortable with, you just say no. And I can tell you, if it was something that concerned me, something I didn't think that I could do, if I didn't feel like I had the knowledge and the capability of doing it, I would say no. Doing it, I would have said no. There's no question about it. And don't let anybody try to force you into doing something you're not comfortable with. And I remember, this is— this was years ago, where I was asked to do— I really wouldn't even consider— I don't even know if it was a stunt. It was like more precision driving kind of stuff. I wasn't spinning around doing 360s or anything. There was some precision driving, and I was very comfortable doing that. But once again, if it was something I just— I felt that I could do some damage to my body because I didn't think I could handle it, I would have said no. And it doesn't matter if they try to put pressure on you. Hey, look, you know, we expect you to— if it's not something you agreed to ahead of time— Like, I'll give you a perfect example. There's— and I'm just talking about a still shot. It was a commercial model. And one of the reasons why this woman got the job is because she said she could ride horses. And so she got cast. They rented out a horse farm, and the whole concept of this shot was she is going to be galloping on this horse. Her hair is flying back. That's the shot. So she shows up on the set— or on the set— at this farm. It was a horse farm that they rented out. And the photographer said, I'll tell you what. Why don't you just get on the horse, trot around a little bit, and when you're feeling ready, do a full gallop and just go flying by the camera? Well, as it turns out, this woman really wasn't telling the truth, and she said, yeah, of course, yeah, I can ride horses. As it turns out, when she was a little kid, I think she was on a pony, and she was ridden around with someone holding A rope going around in a circle. She— this woman had never ridden a horse, and she was expected to gallop. That's fast. And she was so scared because the horse was big. Horses are big animals. She couldn't even get on the horse. They fired her immediately. Fortunately, the second choice for the job was in the area and still available. They quickly hired her. She came in, and the woman, the model's agent, released her and stopped working with her and said, I just can't work with somebody who's not being honest. So anyhow, getting back to, to my stunt, just, just be honest with yourself, and if it's not something you're comfortable with, just, just say no. So, uh, ready to shoot. And we walk out there, and here's what was going on in my head originally. Initially, it was almost like— and I've never done this, I've never jumped out of an airplane— but that's what it kind of reminded me of, where you're standing, uh, on, on, you know, by the open door, and at some point you just have to jump. You just have to let loose. It's hard. It's hard. And the, the other thing that the stunt folks said, I said, don't have both your hands like on your chest because you might land on it. You could crack a rib. It's— or you could break a wrist. So, so I just said to myself, I'm just gonna let it go. And I felt Pretty good about it, walked out, did what I needed to do, and then I just fell over and boom, landed on the mats. Everybody, you know, came running over. Are you okay? Is everything— Yeah, everything was fine. Felt— I didn't feel anything. And then we did it, I think, 2, maybe 3 times, something like that. And each time it felt okay. I had no idea what it looked like. Because, you know, I'm not looking at the camera. I'm certainly not asking for a replay or anything like that. You know, one of the things you can always— you always know, if the director doesn't ask for a change or ask to do something different, then the director likes what you did, you know. And so I never, I never heard anything about a change. And so did it a couple times and we finished. And then as it turns out, later in the day, it was a very long day. I think we had a little over 12 hours of shooting that day. At the very end of the day, they had different camera angles set up. They said, hey, would you mind doing it just a couple more times with this new angle? I said, sure. So I did it and it was interesting. Once again, I felt fine. Later that night, my I felt a little stiffness in my neck. Nothing painful. It's not like I couldn't turn. I just felt a little something. And I also, I noticed my ankle was just a little bit puffy. Once again, I could walk on it fine, but there was something there. And within a couple of days, I mean, everything went back to normal for me. So I was really, really very fortunate. Everything worked out. But man, what a wonderful experience, uh, to be able to do that. It's not something that I would be searching for again. I mean, you can really hurt yourself, you know, and that's not something I'm interested in doing. I'd consider it, you know, if I was asked, but I'm not selling myself as a stunt person. I mean, the stories that some of these guys were telling me that they had to do and, and, and The injuries. There's one guy broke something in his neck. He's still working, but yeah, he was doing a rodeo thing in a feature film and got gored by a bull, which was part of the scene, which he was prepared for, but he got slammed up against the ring and the bull, with all the bull's weight, just landed on him. And he could feel something cracking, and he was really very, very lucky. So anyhow, on a brighter note, it was an amazing experience. And if the film comes out, which I'm sure it will just because there's a very famous actor in it. So yeah, I'm sure it's going to come out. But I'll give you a heads up and let you know. More details once, you know, everything's out and they're publicizing it and things like that. And, um, yeah, I hope, uh, I hope I make it in the final edits for that, for that scene. Uh, hey, really quickly again, uh, hey, if you've ever done anything with stunt work or, you know, precision driving or any kind of experience or been asked to do it, please leave a comment below. Um, look, the reason why I've got this channel is for actors to help each other. You know, we're not competing with each other. At least I'm not competing with anybody, and I hope you guys aren't competing. Let's just try to share information so we can help each other. It's just a much nicer way to run your business. For me, it's a much nicer way to live. So please leave a comment if you've ever done any kind of stunt work, been asked to do stunt work, or if you've had any kind of experience in that area of the industry? Leave a comment below. And also, once again, if you haven't done this yet, please click the subscribe button, notification bell, and if you liked the video, give it a thumbs up. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you guys again soon. See ya.