What was his plan?
So how is he not just like snapping his ribs in that shot?
Hi, welcome to the first episode of Stuntmen React.
I'm not a professional stuntman, Clint isn't
so we're actually joined here by a longtime friend and
Incredible stunt professional here Eric Linden. He's both a stunt man, a stunt coordinator, as we like to call him a stunt lord
Stunt commander.
Eric, tell us a little about yourself.
Been in the business now for 14 years
Do things like crash cars, and wire works, fight Daredevil
As a Punisher stunt double, coordinated Punisher season two.
We're gonna sit down here
We're gonna take a look at some awesome stunt shots,
some stunts perhaps gone wrong, and hopefully learn a little bit about like, the magic behind the stunts
How is this illusion of people hurting each other achieved without people significantly damaging their bodies?
All right, why don't we jump into one?
Yeah, M.I. 6 .
Sweet!
Tom Cruise takes some knocks for being 56 years old
Got him with that laptop so hard. That's great. Oh so sick
Dude just kills it right there! The move... the move where he like twists himself in midair is my favorite.
Right there!
And then the throw!
Yeah it just-
-gets him! Duuude
Yeah, that was a miss.
Dead! He bounced off of his back- oh!
I'm guessing this scene, when it cuts to this close-up
-Just some dude like, throwing some mirror bits on him who like, falls over.
- 100%
So, how is he not just like snapping his ribs in that shot?
I- you know, he's rehearsed it
Probably a hundred times with no mirror, not to mention
he's padded up where he's gonna hit, and then also I'm guessing that that thing is
rubberized. A lot of times what they're gonna do in a big scene like this is that they literally make like
Insulite which is a very thin but dense foam and they'll cover the entire ground
And make it look like tile so that when, you know, Henry Cavill hits the ground
Not only does he have pads on, sometimes they're even sown into his clothing
But literally the floor is completely padded.
But there's a part where Tom Cruise collapses on to the urinals
I'm wondering if you can see an indent where his knee pushes down on it. Can you see it?
Oh, yeah!
Do you see it push down a little on his knee?
No, the pad! Look at this, look at this.
Look at that knee. Poonk!
Yeah, yeah it squishes right there yeah, it's just a nerf bathroom!
Almost every single thing in there is more than likely padded. I love that, man. I love how Cruise is like, I need a break
You think Cruise took that hit there? He did
What a cool breakaway wall too. On to a pad like the hidden floor like you were talking about. -Exactly
Yeah, I got a lot of respect for how much Tom Cruise throws himself into the action scenes
Tom Cruise has always wanted to do his own stuff
And so I think that happened maybe on M.I. 3 the producers
Wouldn't let him him do any of his own stunts. Basically what he did he was like well then I'm gonna produce it. Hmm
So he became the producer on all the M.I. movies. Since he's the boss, he can just say, I'm doing it
Wow, so you're like hyper-aware of any time somebody's like punches are off by a couple inches and stuff. -Yeah, right
here's a miss, doesn't connect right here
They're like we'll put the sound in, you'll never know
I mean, I think Cavill missed a punch when he was throwing a stray or two.
When Cavill reloads his freaking biceps. I mean, I-
That is action gold
You hear like a [imitating reloading sounds] Sounds
Regardless of whether their timing is on or off, you need to, like, adjust to them
The guy they're fighting here is- he's a stuntman as well as an actor
He can kind of help these guys. Part of the stuntman job is to help the actor look good
So how do you sell a punch?
Because the camera is seeing something that's in 2D, as long as you're stacking it kind of past the person's head, the camera can't tell
depth. You can be this far away from Clint's face. So if you're gonna punch me in the head right now, yeah
Yeah, that's right. I'd probably go in front and you would match it as I go across
With the help of sound and editing, sometimes like on this right here as he starts to move,
We're gonna cut to the other side which is him whipping his head towards camera
Okay
ugh, god. I hate this
Ooooh that was cool, that was cool. They turned him into red ribbons.
Yeah, they are well aware of who Kylo Ren is
And they're all super cocky still! -And you're treating it like this, come on I will do a kata behind you
What a move! I saw Arya Stark do that move
What's he doing? What was his plan? Yeah
How do you guys feel about the scene?
To be honest I haven't seen this movie.
You haven't seen this movie?
who's this guy
Is he all big? Is he a big guy?
Eric, you need to get Clint straightened out because every VFX react episode Clint's like "I haven't seen this movie!"
I take it that you're not a huge fan of the scene
No, I really am NOT, but let it be known that I'm like a HUGE Star Wars fan
So that's why when like I see something like this, it really truly hurts my soul
*pain*
I've never seen this movie before. I'm viewing this for the first time just now. It's kind of average. It was just like an average
Fight scene like nothing special. But what makes it bad? Like what's so bad about it?
Well, go to the beginning.
I mean look at the guy in the far back left. He just like spins- he does like a 360
He's just like, all right. Fight time 360! Let's go.
If you watch them, in between each move, the stunt guys, who I'm sure
Are phenomenal and probably super on it, realize Daisy and Kylo Ren there, they're late
So every time they spin backwards into their move
they're just pausing in their little pose and waiting for them to be ready and then
Coming in and attacking on time. Now they all spin away instead of going into it an additional attack
She kicks one of them, they all spin away!
Look at- what's this cat doing? He's just waiting.
There's just a ton of waiting and pausing. Clearly, you're disappointed in this scene. What would you have done to make this better?
I certainly would have used some force powers in there. In the new the new trailer,
You see, you know Rey flipping over a TIE fighter- like none of them leave the ground
She certainly could have like, made it to the other side of somebody. Maybe boxed them into a circle.
This fight seems to actually lack tactics in its entirety. When Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are fighting the droids,
What is awesome about that is none of the droids are there, so they're not looking at what the next droid is,
They're just there and they're killing the droid.
It truly looks like the force is guiding them where to go, and they do none of this
Like Daisy needs to look at who's coming next. Uhhhh, are they late? Are they on?
Okay, I'm gonna block it. -So it needs to feel effortless
But it doesn't. -They do get a couple of points back for this move here. Yeah, I mean, that was great
This is- this is one
I really wanted to get Eric Linden's response on.
I know Jackie Chan's cites Buster Keaton a lot as one of his biggest inspirations
Yeah, the thing I love about old black and white movies is there's zero CG like, you know
They are doing this for real with the camera on the train
Trains are like the most dangerous thing to work with. -For sure.
The important thing to keep in mind is like, if you slip, you die.
Like you get run over, chopped up by a train.
Yes like this! This is insane. Oh
Ooh! Wait
Oh no, it's pointed right at him. Ooh!
He hits it!
-Oh my god. -This is nuts.
This right here is one of my favorite stunts that Buster Keaton has ever done. -Oh no. No way.
Oh stop it.
*Clint freaking out*
It's so fun- I like-
The difficulty level is very high, you know. It's not like, it's not huge
Yeah, but if he would have hit that- -WOW! -Yeah, that hits him in the face! -If he didn't pull it off
He could actually derail the Train. -Yeah, that was good.
See Buster Keaton is like a D&D character who has like a 20 for his agility.
It's time to start talking
I'm not the one who's gonna be talking.
What we're about to watch right here is a fight scene from The Punisher and it's from season two
Now you were the stunt coordinator on it.
Yes. -Which, if I'm not mistaken,
That means that you're basically responsible for kind of directing the stunts, doing the choreography
As well as figuring out how it's all going to be shot
So something that we'll do is create a previz where we literally sometimes go to the location, have a bunch of stunt guys
Just kind of in their sweatpants, we lay down pads, but we shoot all of the action and work out the choreography
So that then you can show the director and the producers
to make sure that you're getting as close to what they want as possible.
A lot of times if they stick to that road map, I find the scenes come out great
As you can see we didn't have all the necessary personnel there so we made boxes for a character.
-Oh my god. -Man, for a pre-viz, this sure looks great.
H A
That dude just- that would murder somebody.
-Oh yeah! -Oooh!
-In the teeth! -Ping~ -Oh dude, broken leg!
Man, a stunt scene shot by stunt guys. It's been choreographed by stunt guys like, it looks so good
-The pre-viz still hurts a little harder. -Yeah, I know. -This is very close
And I think that it's- they did a phenomenal job with it. -There it is!
Oh that guy took it even better in this one. Yeah, so they didn't bring the prop leg. Ooh
Dude this is bruutal, man.
OOO!
He's selling the punches really well.
I just kind of wanted John to get his ass kicked a little bit.
Because I mean, you always see him just ripping through everybody. Bernthal is doing a great job of doing the fighting.
He did all of it. The whole thing. Jon Bernthal is an absolute savage
Oh, oh, oh, this is so good. Oh my god.
Why am I laughing so much? These men are just like hurting themselves.
-I love that, ugh. -It's so much fun!
-Are they on blades? -I like how the one guys like, I'm staying on my bike
He's got his helmet- they've all got their helmets
This is definitely the best way. -Yeah
I'm the safest on this bike. -Dude did you see that guy die?
Did you see that guy just die?
Look at this guy. DOOSH- AUUUGH GAH
Nah, but this is nuts. -How sketchy is that, dude? Would you do that? Would you just go for that like, I got this.
How the fff[un]...
I don't even know how he did that. Did he really do that? -I think he did it! -He must've. -Yeah, I think he just did it!
It looks like they really did that.
Yeah, that's insane.
Are these guys just taking full-contact hits in the scene?
Like when he kicked him in the head, like that guy-
He really did kick him in the head. You know, he's pulling it a little bit
There's some advantage in knowing that it's gonna happen. So as soon as he makes contact, you're moving with it
-Yeah. -But that's what's so great about these fight scenes in these type of movies
They are very real and these stunt guys are really just going for it.
Dude got a frickin' ATV comes in?
I got four wheels.
There are doors, guys! It's-
This is crazy. It's like, one wrong move and your skull gets broken. -Jeez!
Dude this move.
(Incoherent Freaking Out Ensues)
So siiick! -He's like, ahh!
There it goes!
I mean, that was awesome. -It was sick! -That effects guy
Had to pop that, like as soon as his foot left the glass
You don't think they just drove an ATV through it to break it? -Wait, let's rewind it
See if it breaks before the thing hits it.
So when you have to break tempered glass in a movie
Usually you'll have a special effects guy actually rig it up
Basically, they're like little hammers that go on each side of the glass. -You hit that and that'll actually shatter
The glass, because tempered glass is super super hard. So he's on real glass the moment his foot leaves
You're like you have like ten frames. Yeah the ATV hasn't hit it yet
Oh, it does break before it hit it! The whole thing breaks like it doesn't break like right there and then shatter the
Rest of it the whole thing
Cracks. There was like 15 frames where his foot comes off the glass and then the ATV plows right through it
Yeah, like the effects guy had to wait for his foot to leave the glass before he could even hit it
I mean that was rad
R.I.P. ATV dude
Hope you've all enjoyed getting an insight into the world of stunts, choreography, and all these crazy
Risks and I guess dangers and odd skill sets that these people have.
I think Eric you've opened up a window here that we otherwise wouldn't have and I really thank you for coming out here and
Sharing that all with us. Oh, yeah
thank you for having me is a lot of fun to break this stuff down with you guys if you're interested in seeing what I'm
Up to pretty much everything I have on
Social media and websites and everything's all Eric Linden if you guys want to see any other stunts in any of these future videos
Please leave a comment down below we read them all
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We've been doing a lot of cool projects not only stunt related or visual effects related but a whole bunch of interesting experiments