Finally, the last shooting day of the ten day straight night shift dawns. The location itself couldn’t be easier for me: it’s just downstairs of my hotel, at a shopping mall, which we have closed down for the night and are about to ride some motorbikes through it!
One team I really want to praise here is our special stunt motorbike team. These guys come from South Korea, and the stuff I’ve seen them doing is just crazy: falling on a bike at high speeds, riding up the escalators, jumping off huge ramps or flying across the air with wires, sliding under a truck, you name it, these guys can do it. Their approach is pragmatic and pretty amazing indeed, you just tell them what you want and they’ll design and deliver it right there on the spot.
Now, this added with our crazy drone team, we have a killer combo to kick some serious ass on the screen!
All in all, the day is loads of fun to shoot – riding and jumping in and out of the mall, zipping past stunts and extras like bikes are absolutely not supposed to do in closed spaces and crashing through shelves and tables… What more can you ask? We are also relatively quick on this day, and manage to do all we need to do in the location, and as I said, we are just under my hotel, so for lunch I can order a burger from the room service, which is probably the only time in my career that’s gonna happen.
By the time we’re done with everything, the day is already dawning, but I’m happy to call it a night and get ready for two days of chilling. Unfortunately, the production doesn’t really believe in turnaround days for the crew, so they have one more night to shoot some b-unit stuff and pickups, but me and Mika, we are off the hook… for now.
Also, this concludes the most intensive stunts phase for the production. There’s still some complex wire works coming up, but for now, the hard stuff with real vehicles is done. Next up, I’ll be shooting only with the cast, and next week many of our key cast members are joining me on the set for the first time.
I have to say, I’m looking forward for that. Like I’ve said, shooting action is like watching paint dry; it takes forever and progress is slow. With actors, you get to feel you’re really doing the job you’re paid to do!
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