Party Scene: Stunt Sequence

By Mike Martinez Stunt Coordinator



The party scene involved a fall from the balcony, when Ben Savage’s character is pushed while threatening to jump. While Ben was acting the scene, I had a wire on him so he could feel free to act out the scene, and the production didn’t have to worry that he would actually take the fall; this kept him safe, but made it difficult to climb over the railing, because it’s hard to climb over something with constant pressure at your waist. But Ben managed to get through it.

After that, we set up the crash pads, and had the stunt double, Tom Ficke, take the fall, over lapping the action of the character getting pushed and falling, backwards, from the balcony. I won’t get into how the crash pads
were set up, because there are too many “Jackass” moments out there already.

The scene also called for the character to hit a table to break his fall—(along with the table)—which Ben was going to perform himself. As a stunt coordinator, I have to be willing to be an irritant to the production company, in order to be sure nobody gets hurt, especially when the actor is performing the stunt himself. We were running out of time, extras were going to be released soon, but I still had to work with Ben to
be sure he knew how to hit the table properly.

We set up a crash pad, with a cardboard “cut-out” the same size as the table. Ben practiced falling from a platform, falling backwards, blindly onto the target. He caught on quickly, and we were ready to shoot.

It’s one thing to fall backwards onto a piece of cardboard lying on top of a big crash pad, and another, falling onto a small table, set to break under you. I told Ben that, this is where he needs to be totally confident with his skills, and do the stunt just like he did it on the pad. If you hesitate, or hit the table half-assed, that’s when it’s going to hurt. He understood this, and went for it full out, three times.

We finished the shot in time for the extras to be released on time. Good job Ben