----- Original Message -----
From: "James Wiehe" <j.wiehe@sympatico.ca>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2000 11:56 AM
Subject: Re: [MV] Hollywood!
> I thought that Toronto was " Hollywood North" ?? [;-)
> Jim Wiehe , VA3JHW
>From what I gather, 'Hollywood North" was used as a euphemism for Vancouver
because it was in the same timezone as Los Angeles. The press has since
played it up to mean all things to everyone, and depending on the rag, the
term seems to be equally applicable to both Vancouver and Toronto, and
sometimes the entirety of Canada's motion-picture industry.
Obligatory mil-veh content.
We did two days on location in North Vancouver, B.C. with the UPN series
"Freedom" at a location doubling for some super-secret military facility.
This one was peculiarly signed as something like "Columbia Military Base"
(don't ask - never seen a sign like that on any U.S. bases, but hey, it's
make-believe), and we had three Humvees, one Land Rover 110, one Land Rover
110 FFR, one M109A3, one M151A2, one M35A2 and one M35A2C w/w.
We did a couple of cool things with them. I had to strip the rear doors off
of the M109A3 and fill it up with a few ammo boxes stacked in such a way as
to hide cast members inside the rear of the vehicle. A stunt was setup
whereby three stuntmen jumped from a cliff and landed atop the 109A3 before
the stuntwoman grabbed the rear sill above the no-longer-present doors and
somersaulted herself inside. Looked great.
The second stunt was done at this faux-military compound, and consisted of
the Humvee crashing through a chain-link fence (driven by stunts, of
course - who
found out exactly how wide a Humvee was by tagging the complex sign with the
mirror as he went by!) as it was being 'shot' by a number of guys with
automatic weapons. In case you've always wondered how that was done, they
either 'squib' the vehicle with small explosive charges and set them off in
a daisy-chain to coincide more-or-less with the automatic weapons fire
(makes a mess of most paintwork), or they use something called a "Zerk gun".
This second option utilizes a paintball-type gun that fires little darts
which, on impact, make a nifty, bright, highly-visible spark, but do not
normally travel at a velocity high enough to inflict damage to painted
surfaces.
So, we set the shot up, and the gate guards let loose with their automatic
weapons as the SFX guy fired the "Zerk gun" at the approaching Humvee, and
the sparks went a-flying everywhere. One problem. The unique shape of the
Humvee's hood and the fact that it's fibreglas and not metal meant that the
Zerk rounds bounced off of the hood unpredictably and went sailing into the
glass right in front of the stunt driver who was none-too-impressed to see
two fairly-realistic looking bullet wounds suddenly appear. Can't say I was
very happy either! Couldn't pause to change the glass, so we went ahead
anyway to finish the scene.
We did another fun bit with the main cast of 'Freedom' which involved
driving a 4-dr-soft top Humvee down a highway in North Vancouver (blocked
off selectively by the local detachment of the RCMP) with the camera rolling
inside looking through the windshield and at the driver and passenger on
successive takes. We had something like nine people in this thing from the
1st Assistant Director through to me, sound, camera, and cast - and got each
shot in one take. I drove for the second shot, which involved the camera
looking away from the driver at the wounded front-seat passenger, and we got
that one in a single take too. Should air sometime in January or early
Feb., I think.
One note if anyone should ask you whether or not they can use the Zerk to
'shoot up' your HMV. Have SFX test-fire at a range closer than that you'd
experience for the actual shot, and test on some part of the vehicle that
won't be too much of a hassle to touch up should things go south. Most
military vehicles of any age should have no problems whatsoever with the
average paint-finish, but certain newer cars made of the metallic equivalent
of cigarette foil tend to 'mark' quite readily. Not mentioning any names,
of course.
Andy Hill
MVPA 9211
Vancouver, B.C.
(though if I did, that name would be 'Chrysler'. Definitely 'Chrysler'.)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 23:13:24 PST