Bruce Law: Most of the time we design an action scene tailor made to each film, by studying stunts from films from all around the world, we might take an idea and then put a new twist on it to create something new. In addition to having the imagination to come up with an idea for a stunt, you need to have the professional skills to make it a reality. You also have to be well prepared both mentally and physically.
When designing an impressive or classic stunt for a film, you have to calculate not only the potential danger but also the difficulty of the execution of the stunt, combining that with computer techniques to enhance the stunt and last but by no means least, making it acceptable to the audience.
Quite a lot of my idea for stunts come to be by instinct, I can be driving my car or jogging, and suddenly I get an idea for a stunt or action sequence. I’m a person, who is always thinking, maybe about the storyboard, sometimes about the stunt, sometimes the script, just not all at the same time; I’m a bit uncoordinated sometimes. (Laughing)
I can do the majority of stunts myself such as Car stunts, pyrotechnic effects, fire stunts, explosions, body burns, martial arts and fight choreography and so on. You might not believe this but most of the latest explosive designs in Hong Kong films are my designs. Traditionally stunt teams would estimate how big an explosion should be and how much explosive material should be used, just by using their hands and their eyes. But me and my team, we use a special electronic weighing machine so we can calculate the exact amount of pyrotechnic material to use.
When we were filming Gunmen for Kirk Wong, I was in charge of my first fire scene and it was also the first one to have 5 separate people on fire in one scene in Hong Kong. I was the pioneer for using the LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) for fireballs and also using a single remote control to conduct the fire in the whole scene.
Gunmen
In the past it was impossible to work out the computer techniques before shooting, but now some of the companies are using the computers to design the fire stunts. I think that in the future it will become quite commonplace to use computer effects when shooting, so I have to understand both the traditional and new ways of doing a stunt so I can tie the two of them together synchronizing the virtual effect and the real person. I think that working with both computer and human effects is the best way to achieve the best results, taking the best of both worlds and combining them for the best final result.
I pay a lot of attention to computer techniques, when working on a bigger movie I will work out a lot of the action design and choreography using computers and storyboards. It is important to have a solid blueprint for the way you want the action to look including: the graph of effects, floor plan, iconography, action analysis before you begin shooting so we can compare and arrange the time slots and angles. This allows us to be able to work out everything at the same time. |