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Unless the vehicle in question is being driven by one of the stars who has
to be in shot, most vehicle driving scenes in the movies are regarded as
'stunts'; ergo movie union rules demand that the vehicle is driven by a
Stunt Man i.e a signed up member of the stunt union.
Most of these guys are nice friendly fellows who love their mothers and go
to church on Sunday but put the Stunt Man hat on and put them behind the
wheel of any wheeled vehicle, even if they are only on the way to the car
park or the canteen for lunch and they cannot resist identifying themselves
by setting off with a screech of burning rubber, the gnash of protesting
gears and the roar of a suffering engine. When they have accelerated to
Mach 1, they do the whole thing in reverse to bring the vehicle to a
standstill. This, regardless of the fact that the actual sounds in the
movie are generally put on by the sound department in post production. Have
you ever noticed how many vehicles travelling on grass or dirt roads still
pull up with that screech of rubber? We hired two unrestored half-tracks as
background vehicles to the Richard 111 movie. Regardless of the fact that
we had a damage and stunt clause in the contract, some enthusiastic special
effects person on shooting day still moved the Dante fire burners from the
agreed position outside the vehicles to under the dashboards where he
thought the fire would look more 'realistic'. I suppose it did look more
realistic as it fried the instruments and wiring looms but it certainly cost
the movie company more for the hire fee. Moral of story, insist on being
present whilst your vehicle is being used and write a no damage and no stunt
clause into the hire contract.
----- Original Message -----
From: Ian Wallace <iwallace@uswest.net>
To: Military Vehicles List <>
Sent: 14 January 2000 21:39
Subject: Re: [MV] Movie Time
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 21 2000 - 18:15:06 PST