BACKGROUND

How did you become involved in film stunts?

Chad: By accident. I was pretty heavily into martial arts and was competing in kickboxing, and went to an audition with a friend. It was a low budget movie being run by a pretty high level stunt coordinator, and we just got along, and he asked me if I would like to pursue a career in stunts. He pointed me in the right direction, setting me up with a few people with stunt training; it's gymnastics, trampoline, motorcycles and cars.

Was it something that had interested you prior?

Chad: Yeah, it's something that when it's mentioned you just think, oh, it's not for me but it'd be really fun and a great thing to do. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do at 22, 23, and it just seemed like a good thing, so I tried it and I ended up really liking it.

What were your first projects?

Chad: The first dozen, because of my background in martial arts and a little acrobatics and gymnastics, were pretty much all low budget martial arts movies. Bloodsport, Bloodfist, anything with blood in the title I think we worked on.

How did you move from Bloodsport to high profile films like V For Vendetta?

Chad: Back in the early '90s when we got started there were a lot of low budget films with PM Entertainment and FM Entertainment, so we were always doing these martial arts movies. There was a particular stunt coordinator with a heavy martial arts background, Jeff Imada, who worked out of the same martial art gym that me and a few other guys here [on Vendetta] actually worked out of, and he ended up being the stunt advisor on The Crow. After the accident with Brandon Lee they brought me in to be his body slash stunt double and fight double for the remainder of the show. It was my first bigger budget show, a higher profile show, and I was the guy that one of the first face replacements was done on for Brandon.

That introduced me to the right people - I had known Jeff for a while but that was the first time I'd worked with him. After that he really started helping me along, and that broke me into more of the mainstream stunt community, which really helped, and through Jeff I met a few other people. Grant Hill [producer on Vendetta] was a producer on The Crow who remembered my name, and Jeff pushed me along, introducing me to other stunt coordinators, including R.A. Rondell, Ernie Orsatti, his son Noon Orsatti, and Max Kleven, some of the bigger name guys who kept bringing me up as assistant stunt coordinator.

V For Vendetta is my 8th full stunt coordinating gig. I've coordinated a lot of TV shows and TV episodics, and probably over a dozen low budget martial arts movies. Recently I've been an assistant coordinator to R.A. Rondell, who does some of the biggest shows out there; he has been a real pleasure to work for, a real learning experience.

Could you name some other films you've stunt coordinated?

Chad: Serenity, on the two Matrix sequels [Reloaded, Revolutions] I was the martial arts stunt coordinator, still working under R.A. but we had our own department. Constantine, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Killing Zone and Van Helsing are the others.

How did you become involved in V For Vendetta?

Chad: James McTeigue, and Larry and Andy Wachowski. James called up about November [2004] or so, maybe even earlier than that, and said he was going to be directing his first film; he said it's about this guy who fights with knives and swords, what do I think? Would I like to be part of it? Or at least choreograph the fights? Eventually Grant [Hill] called and asked if I would like to be the stunt coordinator too. It was not even two weeks before I was supposed to leave for Australia to be one of the Superman doubles, and I was like, James is awesome, he's a good friend and a great guy, and I was so impressed by him in all three Matrix films as first AD.

I called R.A. Rondell [stunt coordinator on Superman Returns], who is my mentor, and explained the situation as that's something you really shouldn't do - you shouldn't bail on your word - but as soon as it was explained he was like, you gotta go. The impression James makes on people is pretty overpowering, and then Grant Hill is a great producer, and Larry and Andy [Wachowski] I would step in front of a bus for.

VICTORIA STATION

What was the process once you became involved?

Chad: James was nice enough to send me one of the original scripts and some of his early storyboards, which, the first time you look at storyboards you're like, there's a guy in a mask and a big hat; what are we going to do with this guy? He doesn't kick, he doesn't punch, he doesn't flip, he doesn't do all these Matrix-type things like we're expecting. It's more about character in this movie: the action supports the character, the action supports the story, whether you see it as vengeance or rebellion. The action is more of a supplement or complement on this film, you don't just see the big action scene. It's about story and the action backs that up - it's kind of neat - we're toned down on this one, with good reason, I think.

The action in this show is more visual. Having James, Larry and Andy again, they crave visual excitement. So it's not just about the moves that V is doing, it's how we can choreograph to fit the shot, which is a different way to choreograph. Most of the time we'll choreograph a fight with big, elaborate moves, and then when the directors or DP go in there we figure out how to shoot it. For this we already had a pretty good idea of how sequences would be shot and what was wanted.

When we went to our warehouse and worked with our stunt teams choreographing sequences we choreographed not so much a beginning, middle and end, we did that, but it's like we choreographed a menu. It's like a buffet where we choreograph everything. For instance, the fight scene we do is probably three times too long for what we need in the movie, and it'll contain everything from the rated G version to the rated R, hardcore, blood and slashing. We put everything from different styles of martial arts to our own compilation of extremely violent to extremely evasive to big dramatic moves. We film the fight, then let them see the tape and pick what they want and give feedback, and then we re-invent the story.

Each tape we present gets more involved because of the feedback from the one before. We edit the fight to what we think it's going to be, slow motion or at speed, and usually by the third or fourth tape, James and maybe Larry and Andy are in the warehouse with us shooting the video rehearsals. That's to help them understand what they want, and to help point us in the right direction for when they're not there. The participation involved is probably 200%, 300% more than we get on any other show. Usually we present to the director saying, this is what you get, how do you want to shoot it?

For the final V fight in Victoria Station, we were told that at a certain point it all had to be in slow motion. So we're like… hmmmm. We were also told they wanted knife trails and visual effects and the blood to be a certain way… so we created a certain kind of blood pack. V had to move in a very distinct way… we wanted V to take out all the Fingermen before they reloaded, so they're very conceptual. There was a lot of planning to work that into the choreography and reverse engineer moves to get their concepts involved. It's like having someone present you with a puzzle, not telling you how it goes together, and then giving you the pieces telling you to make it a certain way. It's very challenging and it's fun.

When you're choreographing a sequence do you have an idea of the size of the set?

Chad: We have a rough idea from the art department; they'll give us blueprints. Usually, wherever we go, we find a big warehouse or an empty soundstage and we basically, out of cardboard, stunt pads and tape, make the set. We'll pace off certain things. It's very easy to go into a big open room and take your little video camera and shoot this amazing fight scene. What we try to do is understand that on set we have big area of cameras, and there are set walls that have to move, so we try to restrict ourselves to what we know the set is going to be on the day. If we start doing this with a video camera, we know that the camera operator or Steadicam guy is probably not going to duplicate what we do, so we try and make it how it's going to be. We know that if we can get it in a smooth move that the dolly grip and camera operator can get that shot. We try to keep it somewhat realistic, with props as well, it's like arts and crafts at our rehearsals, we make stuff as we need it.

How challenging is the fact that so much was shot in slow motion?

Chad: It's a little trickier; the obvious problem is timing. At 22 frames or 24 frames the hit, or the reaction to the hit, or the stunt, can be a little off because of motion blurring, and because of the frame rates you may not see the minute inflections of motions. At 60 frames [slow motion] if I'm off by half a second you'll see a big gaping hole between the reactions and the hit. Timing has to be much tighter.

A fight sequence in a script won't give you a sense of time; how do you work that out?

Chad: That's one of the first questions I'll ask, after character and input from the immediate creative force, director, producer, writer, or whatever. He'll ask for a 13 second fight and I have a very realistic sense of what that is in screen time, and it's probably not what they're looking for. James and the brothers have a very distinct sense of what they want, so when they ask for a minute and a half fight scene you know right off the bat what that's going to take. If you have 3 Fingermen and you want a minute and a half fight, that's what we call an interactive fight. You can't just kill three guys because we can kill three guys in 8 seconds and the fight is over. The actual Victoria Station fight is probably less than a minute because it was shot at 60 frames or greater. Onscreen it takes almost a minute and 45 seconds with the visual effects stuff. The whole theory of Victoria Station is that they shoot their guns and V is so quick that by the time they reload, he's managed to wipe out a dozen Fingermen. So we've used slow motion to compress time instead of expand it.

How do you do the beats for something that's in slow motion?

Chad: For Victoria Station we played around with different tests, and even though we shot in slow mo, or 60 frames per second or greater, the stuntmen actually moved in slow motion. In real action they moved a little slower than they normally would, probably half of what their normal motion would be. Whereas Dave [playing V] moved as fast as he could, so even in slow motion, Dave looks like he's moving quicker than the other guys. That again compresses time, it doesn't look like everybody's moving at the same speed. A very cool way of making V look faster. We could have sped everybody up, but we didn't want to do the visual effect of shooting V against plates and then putting the guys in, so we just had them act in slow motion to give the appearance that V is moving at a slightly faster rate. Camera trick! However, when Dave hits them, they go back into fast motion. They actually go as fast as they can when he hits them and they react fast so it gives you that explosiveness. Tricky, but with good guys it's all easy.

Do you cheat a lot with camera angles?

Chad: Yes, a lot of camera angles, a lot of cheating, and it's also skill level. Stunt men are just like physicians or mechanics; everybody has a specialty. Some stunt men are very good car guys, some are very good fight guys, some are very good fall guys. Most of the top stunt performers are pretty good all around, and then they have their specialties. A good horse guy can usually do a lot of other things, but that's his thing, horses. There are some very good stunt people here in Germany, and they do good jobs, but for what we want and the expectations of James and Larry and Andy, and because of the difficulties of that, we went out and found the best possible people that specialize in martial arts choreography. Even though they don't have to punch, kick or flip, their timing and their ability to see where the camera is and know the angles, without speaking English or anything else, is very, very important. The stunt men we have in Victoria Station are the best we found in the country.

On top of that we have David Leitch [from the USA], who is a good friend, and has done more than 100 onscreen fights. He's a great martial arts guy. Because V always wears the mask, David is V in every action sequence. So the timing is there, the guys are good, they don't have to speak about it, and they know how to adjust the camera. The knives are dull - they're aluminum daggers - and we have put oversized blood packs with a special mix of blood on black and spray painted so you don't see them against the wardrobe. Dave actually makes knife contact with the special vest we made for the stunt men, so when you see the bags going off in Victoria Station, Dave's actually doing a really clean cut line with a dull knife across a prepared stunt bag. It is very safe, but it takes a lot of precision, especially at 60 frames. The guys rehearsed in an incredibly small amount of time, and within 6 takes of any sequence we were getting the shots. I have a great stunt team.

Do you coordinate with the wardrobe department on things like the blood packs and safety requirements?

Chad: Oh yeah. One of the greatest things about the stunt department, as a coordinator, is that we have to coordinate and work with every other department. There isn't a department we don't work with. Wardrobe, we have to because of the wires and because of the mobility of the costume and for things like blood packs. In Fingermen Alley we used props: the belt and the tie and the hat. We not only use what our stunt people wear, but what the actors wear as well. We use clothing almost as props sometimes, or for gimmicks.

For motion, if a guy is in a cape like V, you'll see Dave always do some kind of weird knife slash because it shows off the cape. If he was in a leather jacket we would choreograph the motions a little differently. We work with special effects for bags, wires and squibs. We work with makeup and hair to wig our doubles, for blood wounds and bullet holes. With transport we work with them for the cars that we ride in the movie. The director, DP, dollies and grips help us build all the stuff that we put up. Our riggers put up our wires… we have the best of both worlds. We have the working class kind of thing where we actually have to do the nuts and bolts of it, nails, drills, hammers and heavy lifting, and then we have the creative side, where we get to choreograph, we get to edit, and we're in with the camera men. We're also performers and we have both on camera and off camera abilities, which opens so many doors for a learning experience. I think it's the best department… next to craft service!

How did you get inside the character of V: a guy in a mask carrying knives who doesn't do things you'd expect?

Chad: At first you put a bunch of motion down. We brought old rehearsal tapes from Los Angeles that we'd thrown together with a stunt team there. If you watched the dozen versions of Fingermen Alley, or the dozen versions of Victoria Station, from all the way back in 2004 you'd see it's like watching the difference between jazz and ballet. You see whole ideas behind the motions change quite a bit. As James and the brothers locked in what their sense was, that helped us lock in our sense. They'd say V doesn't really do that, he's more this. Then we'd watch scenes, and we'd watch the actors perform V, and we'd watch what they wanted out of V. Then we'd watch the lighting, how they were lighting in and out of shadows, and by the time we get to the Shadow Gallery and see V fencing with the suit of armor, you realize he's a little bit mad. He may have a good idea of what's going on, but he's a little nuts.

You take part of it, like when he doesn't want to hurt Evey he proves a point, and he proves a point when he wants vengeance. I guess we could say it's a violent kind of vengeance, but it's very swift and to the point. It's not what we would call chop sake, it's single or very accented beats in the fight. Also, V is very theatrical, he has almost what you would see in a stage performer. So if you took stage combat, added a blur of motion with really heavy vindictive emotional content, that's kind of what you get with V and Hugo Weaving, who is V. Hugo really helped us out, especially with Victoria Station, because it took him awhile to get into what V was. We had a few talks, about how we think he moves, and showed how we thought V would fight, and it's starting to gel. It's very collaborative.

Dave, one of the better stunt actors from LA is very well trained in acting as well as stunts. We selected Dave because of that and because he has a little theatricality to him, I guess you could say. I choreograph what I think a sequence should be and then it's molded by what the director and producers think it should be… and then you have the guy that performs it, and he interprets it his own way. You can direct his performance, but you can't just say “No! That's not it!”, you have to embrace what he does and how he moves. Any good choreographer will take a performer - whether it's a dancer, a martial artist or an actor - and mold him, but never mess up what his essence is, if that doesn't sound too metaphysical. Sometimes you have self discovery, what you feel and what you do, then you perform and you have a collaborative discovery, and that's so much more than just me and the stunt performer.

My specialty is action and what may look cool, how to shoot it cooler and suggestions like that. Then you have our second unit with Harvey Harrison [DOP & director] and everyone and they've all got acting bits and their experience in lighting, and you see it all come together. Maybe you see the way he comes out of the shadow, so maybe the move I had in mind is not the best one for that spot, so you have his turned head with the hat and all of a sudden it works with the lighting. You never want to lock yourself down, it's like freeform dance expression. You have the idea, you have the moves, that's what you do in rehearsals, as well as safety. For the bigger shots, for the CG shots, you have to somewhat lock yourself down, however you also have that ability to shoot from the hip. The lighting, the props, maybe they didn't work out, then all of a sudden the guy will move a certain way, usually by mistake, and you realize that would work. Everybody on this crew, luckily, is pretty down with that. It generates more ideas and it generates a better show.

Does James know the language of the stunt world?

Chad: He's very well versed in the basics or the broader strokes of action. Maybe he doesn't know the vocabulary or the right term for a certain block or a punch or a kick. Maybe he doesn't know whether he wants this really high roundhouse kick, or a spinning sweep, or a backflip with a full twist, but he does know aesthetically that this is the shot he wants. He wants the guy to go up and maybe something with a twist and something with a really strong accented kick, but a wide shot because we want to see the flexibility of the performer. I think James and Larry Andy are versed 200% or 300% more than just about any other director in the States just because they've taken the time and educated themselves. They went out, they rented the movies, they knew who Wu Ping was, they knew who the bigger Asian fight coordinators were, and they held enough auditions to find the doubles, including myself, to know this guy's good, this guy's not, this is what we want, this guy has a little style, this guy is physically better, but this guy has more of an acting ability, this guy is more theatrical. They've worked with some of the best in stunt teams, both from Hong Kong and from America. I shot a rehearsal tape 4 weeks ago for Victoria Station and was asked for certain things, which you'd never get from most directors. James will say he didn't like something, so can we do this, this and this, and you lose yourself because you forget this is the director talking to you.

VENDETTA STUNT DEPARTMENT

Who is in the V For Vendetta stunt department?

Chad: From America we brought in Dave Leitch. James and the Wachowski brothers are very comfortable with him; they know his skill level, and his acting ability is what secured him the job because we needed more than a stunt double for this show, we needed a performer, a real performer that could take the action and really bridge that gap between actor and stunt double. Actors meet us as much as they can, but we also have to meet them; if we don't get it from the stunt side, it's never going to mesh. We also have Antje Rau, a German Stunt Coordinator, who logistically is a force to be reckoned with, she's great.

The German stunt team has all been very, very helpful, we just had to find the right click of guys. I don't think they've quite experienced the finickiness of myself and the director and everybody else. We couldn't bring our US teams who are used to the kind of pace we have, our timing, the way we do things, the intensity and the exactness that's required for working with the people we are. I like to call them martial art nerd guys, stunt guys that just live for this. Once we found those guys here, we had the enthusiasm… we put everybody through a pretty hellacious audition to get on this show and they all passed with flying colors.

What kind of process did they go through?

Chad: Most times people will just submit a demo tape or a resume, which is not good enough for myself, so we'll have them do a stunt audition. Most auditions are, “Hey, OK, hi Bob, how you doin'? Let me see what you can do”, and they'll punch and kick in the air. Or “OK Bob, that's great, let me see you do a flip. Let me see you do a reaction. Let me see you do a double twist, let me see you do a backflip to your head”, or something. That's good when they're by themselves, but we want our guys to work as a team. So I believe the best way, if you don't know the stunt team you're trying to get, is to choreograph a fight that is probably a notch above what we'll be asking our stunt performers to do.

For V, Dave and I choreographed a piece ahead of time, then showed them. It included half beats and a rhythm that is not 'punch, block, punch, block'. We purposely left dead spots in the fight scene where the guy has to have what we call 'egg on your face'. Even if we planned to try to hide that either with camera or a cutaway or something like that, we purposely left that to see what the guys will do. Instead of just going you and I in a two man fight, where you always have something to focus on, we'd make it a minimum of Dave versus two guys. So at some point there's going to be a dead spot, “What do I do? OK, I just took a punch, but I have to be right back in the fight, but I can't,” so we want to see if they can act. A good martial artist can fill up that beat. He'll take a bigger reaction, he'll fall down, he'll make up something to kill the beat, and at the same time make it back in a split second to be there. He never seems like he's waiting and he never seems like he's late. Perfect.

Your tactile reflex is the most important thing. You can get a guy that kicks beautifully, does the splits and he flips, but as soon as he interacts with someone, it's terrible. It's like dancing, you can have a great solo performer but as soon as you put him in somebody else's arms, they trip over each other's feet. That's what fights are about. Sometimes the guys that don't kick the best are the most amazing fight guys, they have that sense of rhythm, they have that sense of timing, they have that sense of tactile reflex.

So we put Dave in it and choreographed the fight, which was about a ten second fight, which is about 15 beats and constantly kept the guys in perpetual motion. A lot of it was Dave dragging, pulling, feeling; they had to have that little reflex without tripping Dave up. We made it somewhat difficult and then we showed them… your physical aptitude is your ability to pick up and process new motion. We showed them 3 times and that's all they got, then they did it and then we asked them to do it left handed and we reversed, did a reflection on the whole fight without showing them to see if they could pick it up. The guys that we have in Victoria Station did it with flying colors, however we went through a lot of people.

I wouldn't do that on every show. On some things you know who can do what and you can place them. But with James and the Wachowskis you have to shoot from the hip because they expect such a high level. They also expect if somebody changes or a problem occurs, or if they have this inspirational idea to do something differently, you can adapt and grow to that level with them. If they can come up with the better shot, you have to be able to perform for the better shot. So we go in anticipating that, knowing that, we just don't need a guy that falls down, we need a guy that can do this, this and this. Auditioners say, “But he only has to fall down in this script”, we say, “Trust me, it's better to have more, so when he falls down, he falls down better than anybody, but we can also do anything else we want.” It's happened over a dozen times already in this show.

As V, Dave is in a mask where he has no peripheral, and no upper or lower vision, so he needs help from his guys. They have to hit their marks because most of the time when he's swinging a real knife, a dull real knife, a steel knife, they have to be in their plots to hit a 4-inch blood bag on a precision stroke at 60 frames, they have to help him. Dave is an amazing performer but he has to be supported by his guys. Victoria Station is our biggest overall scene, our biggest action… we still have some driving stunts to do but they're pretty straightforward.

LARKHILL

What went into the preparation & execution of the Larkhill explosion scene?

Chad: It's essentially V's birth into his current state; V is released into the world from the Larkhill experiment center explosion. As per the graphic novel, we needed V coming out of his cell through the fire, and because of visual effects and the shot that they wanted we couldn't use our standard equipment, such as fire suits or protective clothing, so we started playing around with different things. We honed it down from different materials to water based gels, which are protective gels that stunt performers use for fire stunts. We came up with a more viscous mixture that would last longer under the heat.

Uli Nefzer, our special effects supervisor, built a pretty good array of propane mortars and propane bars so we could layer the fire a little bit, and we put little hidden fans inside of the cell that I walk out of. That would dissipate the heat a little bit from when I got in there. We just gelled me up as much as we could without anything but my g string on, having already played with the different mixtures and thicknesses of the gel. In testing we would put it on and do a bunch of tests until we came up with something where you could easily walk in and out without feeling too much heat.

Did the fact that it was extremely cold that night help?

Chad: Yes, that was actually a good thing. I think it was about 3 below zero that night, which was good! What we tried to do is lower my body temperature… when I say lower, I don't mean by a whole lot, really just my surface temperature. It's like sticking your hand in a bucket of ice, you numb your hand up so if you did stick it over a flame you can take the heat. You don't want to burn your flesh or actually damage your skin, but you do want to numb it so you don't feel the heat, and so the skin doesn't react or doesn't blister.

Probably 15 minutes before I knew I was going to go into the fire, I got down to my knickers there - everyone has a different way of doing it, this is the way we did it for this particular one - we had ice cold towels and ice cold water waiting, and ice cold Nomex [flame resistant] clothes that I put on. I put those on, which chilled me up a bit, got my surface temperature down just a little bit, and then we'd iced the gel all night so it was right above freezing and then that was put on.

Inside the fire, just because you're not on fire, doesn't mean there's not a whole lot of heat. There's an incredible amount of heat, even in the cell I went into, the little set piece. You could be 25 ft away from the fire and still get burned by the heat. People think it's just the flame part, but heat actually travels quite a bit. The cameramen were in fire suits and they were thirty feet away from me and they felt it. A lot of those guys got sunburns on their faces. So every little increment I could get, to buy me even a second to stand in the fire and give the scream and give the acting beats James wanted and then walk away, was good.

Do you remember how many takes you did?

Chad: I think we did 6 or 7 takes, something like that. It just shows that I have a really good team. Dave and I did a lot of prep work into it, and we have a really good support team of people back in LA that we conferred with. It's all about everyone helping. We had some ideas of how to layer the flames, so it wasn't just one big wall of flame that would get captured inside the set piece. Owen Paterson [production designer] helped by opening up the set piece up and lowering his ceiling. Uli Nefzer helped when we had the idea of the little fans, and he came up with the really neat idea to layer the flames so it's all little flames instead of one big one, which can keep the temperature down a little bit. The camera guys also helped; they decided to pull back and shoot in a particular way so it looked like I was deeper in the flame than I really was. Dave, myself, and our friends Tim Trella, R.A. Rondell, and our Brand X members would call and ask if anyone had done something like that who could give us a good direction to go and say this is what you need. It's very collaborative, so if you have a good support team and a lot of prep time, you can pretty much do anything.

What is Brand X?

Chad: Brand X is a stunt group. There are three or four main ones in Los Angeles. There's Stunts Unlimited, Stuntmen's Association, International Stunt Association and Brand X. It's a group of stunt performers and coordinators who all got together, and have the same kind of vision or direction they would like to take the business and uphold a level of professionalism. I would say it's fraternal. There are no obligations to hire or include the other people in the group. They try to get people who are either up and coming or who have established themselves through some specialty or some level of performance. All four organizations are fraternal in nature. And I belong to Smash Cut, which is a stunt company that specializes in motion capture and martial art choreography as well.

Actually Dave was slated for the Larkhill explosion scene until the day of. They decided conceptually that V in Larkhill should be a little bit more traumatized by the experience, meaning thinner, more anorexic, look more like he had been caged and not well fed and well bred. Dave had been really working out hard to fill the V costume, to be able to be a little bit more, I guess, superhero-y. We had done the original fire tests with Dave, way back in February [2005], where we actually worked out the levels of gel; all the logistics of this particular event we worked out with Dave being the performer. I'm a skinny guy, so it was easier for me to drop down in weight because I wouldn't have to perform again on camera… if we'd asked Dave to drop the weight and then be skinny V in the costume for the days that came after. So we decided to divide up the work: I'd do Larkhill and Dave could stay at the hero V look.

You very casually talk about dropping weight and bulking up; do you really have that kind of control in such short time?

Chad: I won't say it's the healthiest way to do things. Dave and I both come from a very heavy competition background in kickboxing and boxing, and sometimes you have to make weight or drop a weight class, which can be a matter of 10 to 15 pounds. We had some really good trainers and coaches in our day, so we know there are certain tricks with water retention and what we eat. We're both pretty disciplined with our diet and in our work out routines, so given the right amount of time and the right situation, we can definitely mold our bodies to a certain extent, in the spectrum. Not that we enjoy it or anything, but it is possible.

Within two weeks we can make a pretty substantial difference, although we can't hold it for long we can drop body fat a couple of percent, through diet. If we're just trying to lose, we do a lot of aerobic workout and diet. It's definitely diet. You also have to do it when you're not killing yourself either because we do still have to perform. We pretty much know what we can get and what's achievable. So we will abstain from certain delights and treats and midnight snacks. At the end it's two weeks, or a film that's going to be around awhile. It is our job and that's our tool.

LITTLE GLASSES GIRL

How are you preparing for the Little Glasses Girl sequence?

Chad: In London we have Little Glasses Girl who is wearing her V mask and her glasses on her V mask. She spray paints the V sign on the Strength Through Unity poster, and one of Creedy's Fingermen, a thuggy kind of cop, is going to shoot her. It's a pretty bold statement of violence, so we're trying to do it in a way that's not going to make it look like we shot a little girl for laughs.

How old is the little girl who is playing her?

Chad: I have met the actress, she's a great girl who's 11. Because of the nature of the violence we've talked to her parents and we have a stunt double that will do the actual squib. We have a front and back, in and out squib, like an exit wound. Again, it's collaboration and figuring things out, reverse engineering. This is what we want, how can we get it? We're going to put the stunt performer on a wire to give her that extra little violent yank. It's s not a fun ride, it's going to be more of a harsh pull, to accentuate the violence of the shot. That's going to be done mostly with the stunt performer. We have an adult female stunt performer in England that will take the little girl's place. The character is in a mask and cape, so that makes it a little easier for us to double someone so young and so small.

I spoke to the director with my concerns… you can always tell the best creative people by their ability to shoot around and still get what they want using camera. I mean, it is a visual art, the audience sees what we want them to see. That's the magic of movies, you don't go out and shoot a little girl in one shot, you think creatively. How can I most accent this beat through camera and editing, and you can usually find a way to do it.

It is easy to see in this film where the stunt crew has been involved, as there are squibs or knives; what have your crew been a part of that is not immediately apparent?

Chad:Good stunt guys are like ninjas, you only know we're there when we mess up. But you know, we're always there. Action is a very broad description of what we do. Anything from Hugo and Natalie standing in the rain, to Natalie climbing out Detrich's window, we kind of supervise. On this film our AD department is fantastic, our special effects department, our prop department… everybody is looking out for one another. “Actor climbs through rooftop, pouring rain, dialogue,” most people read that and say to take the stunt guys off the call sheet. Here everybody knows to have some rubber matting, to make sure the shoes have rubber soles, that they're going to need umbrellas, to make sure we have a good staircase built to get off the set, to make sure the floor is not built with a tile surface.

At this level everybody is really heads up about things like that, so it's not like you go on set saying “OK! I'm the stunt coordinator, what are we doing?!” You mention that and by that time the problem has already been solved. All the other departments have done their job and if they've done them well, your job is minimal. You're the liaison with the actors, letting them know if something is a little slippery, or suggesting or acting out a good way to climb out a window and getting a hand hold, and working with the actor if something feels more natural for them.

Everybody knows the job so well that they've done a little pre-thought into it and safety precautions are there. I mean, it's just common sense a lot of time. Wet floor, be careful. Girl climbs out window, safety pads, set piece down. You don't have to tell Owen Paterson that you're going to need a set piece here or that you're going to need a solid piece to hook up a piece of rigging to.

DEITRICH WINDOW FALL

You were very conscious of the comfort of the stunt Evey who had to hang outside the window.

Chad: People forget sometimes when we're hanging up there, I've been the guy on the wire - probably more than most men will ever hang around, so I know what the pain tolerances are. It may look comfortable but it's far from comfortable. It kind of sucks, actually, but no one asked us to be in stunts, we chose it, and that's part of the job. Movies are their own animal, and you know what the time frames are, set ups can take a long time. You know if you put someone out on an edge, they're going to be there for a while. And that's not that the camera guys or the lighting guys aren't doing their thing, you need a body over there so they can light it. The stunt performer wants the shot to be good, and everything looking good is just part of it. A stunt scene or a stunt shot is not about us, it is about the film and how that shot fits into the film.

If you are a good stunt performer, you realize the last thing you want is the rest of the crew concerned about what you are doing, like hanging from a ledge as they do what they need to. You know what you're going to get so you try and time it and feel the rhythm or the pace of the crew. You know when might be a good time to put a second line on her to make it a little bit more comfortable, or to give a different kind of strap for rehearsal so she can be lit. And aside from all that, the buck in my department stops with me. So if she's comfortable and if she's happy, at the end of the day I have to say she was ready to do the fall. She wasn't too tired, her legs weren't asleep, she was ready to perform this stunt. If something were to happen, it's no one's fault but mine, because I didn't think to ask or I didn't think I should have given her five minutes rest. When you're working in different countries, you don't know different stunt performers. Back home I use only my team, or people who are recommended through my team. Otherwise the penalties and the stress are too great.

Even though that was not a high, high fall, there are still things that can happen. I've seen a simple little prep fall go bad before. I've seen something as silly as shooting a squib go horribly wrong. So with that in the back of my head, I never underestimate anything. Never underestimate just walking on a flight of stairs in the rain, that can tweak an actor's ankle or hit him on the chin, and you're done for the day. At a million dollar a day production, you can't afford that. Morally, you can't afford it. Financially, you can't afford it. Logistically, you can't afford it. So logistically, if you look in someone's eyes and ask, “Are you ready?” and she gives you the deer in the headlights look, let's pull her back inside, have a little talk, or let's think of something else. Or let's have the crew walk away and do a rehearsal.

Have you brought all of your equipment with you?

Chad: We have Ralph Güthler here as a rigger, someone I've been recommended to that I got to meet over here and he's done a great job for me, he's fantastic. Most rigging companies have their own harnesses; we're just a little more ahead with prototypes back home. We use a company called Climbing Sutra, the guys who originally started with Cirque du Soleil, for very low key harnesses with the ultimate custom fit and performance. When you're just getting yanked straight back or hanging off a bridge, the performance of the harness, or the flexibility of the harness, is negligible because you're just hanging, you're not doing anything. But for our guys that acrobatically perform, like Cirque du Soleil, the harness has to be a performance harness. That usually means it's less comfortable and smaller, but allows you a greater range of motion. Climbing Sutra is who we used on the tail end of The Matrix films, Van Helsing, Constantine, Serenity, and now V. We did bring two prototype harnesses with us just to try out with Dave, and they've worked out great.

THE FUTURE

Looking forward, what are your expectations of London?

Chad: We have a logistically huge scene at Parliament in Whitehall, with all the Vs coming out, I think that will be fun. That's more helping out the other departments, making sure the extras and all our stunt people are all interacting correctly, and a lot of people wrangling. We have some driving sequences with Stephen Rea and Rupert Graves, who play Finch and Dominic. Again, pretty straightforward driving, but sliding cars is always fun. Then we also get to hang Guy Fawkes. They used to make the prisoner walk up the ladder and jump off himself, not really to break his neck or asphyxiate him, but get him to that point where he's pretty messed up then they draw and quarter him.

What are you moving onto after V?

Chad: A few things. We're very fortunate to be in the position that I'm in, that Dave's in, that a few of our other friends are in, that we can be a little more selective on our jobs. I think our biggest interest is working with people that - I'd like to say challenge us, but we're always challenged - we like working with people that are fun, we love big crews. There's no reason to make movies and be yelled at all day, and there's no reason to do a 15 hour day with people you don't like. So it's just a matter of finding good people and good crews. I've had the incredible fortune of having 6 great crews in a row where I've never had a disagreement with a single department head in six shows. I'm going to try and keep that up and if we can do some chop sake in the middle of it, that'd be great!

Have martial arts films plateaued, or are they still on the rise?

Chad: We'll never plateau! We're always growing. People love to see people kick each other in the head. Martial arts stunt men, I think, have the luxury of being on camera more than any other kind of stunt guy. I love being a fight double and I love choreographing, it gives us the most collaboration, so the experience you're getting is times ten. I think martial arts is still growing up, I think it's becoming more accepted. Since the earliest of time there's always been confrontation. Whether you hit 'em with a chair, hit' em with a pie, slip on a banana peel, or jump spin hook to the head, there's always confrontation. When Bruce Lee was coming out in the early '70s, martial arts were very secretive; it was an Asian thing. Every movie now has martial arts… what are martial arts anymore? Where does martial arts stop and the cowboy brawl start? Clint Eastwood, A Fistful of Dollars, hitting guys with a karate chop, that's a '70s white guy doing a karate chop.

What we do in film I wouldn't really call martial arts, we're choreographers. We do aesthetically pleasing moves. Could they work if you hit somebody with them? Yes, but you're not going to hit somebody in the nose and not hurt your hand, that's why you hit him with a chair! We do things that look good, we do things that people perceive as real. We do things that make people go wow! You know, Buster Keaton, you can't really hang off a clock tower, 82 stories up, you just can't, but he did things that made people go wow! You could do the coolest moves in the world with the fastest hands, and people think that's neat, then you kick a guy real hard in the neck and watch him get hit by a car and people are like, wow! For some reason that entertains people. We just take pride in finding different ways of making people go wow!

These are real people doing real stunts. The first line of defense and the first line of creativity for us is human talent. We have computers, we have CG, we have camera angles, we have camera tricks, we have wires, we have harnesses, we have pads, we've got an array of toys that you cannot possibly believe, most of which the public has never seen. You can go into any theater and watch Star Wars and be blown away by the CG effects, and you can watch a guy get hit by a car and still hear the audience go wow! That's because you know it's a real person, and people can relate to that. That's why people watch the Olympics and sporting events. Our first thing is to have real athletes doing real stunts, and if we can't achieve that, then we start digging into our bag of tricks. You always want to see a great performer do a great thing, so you try and highlight that with whatever you can and build from there.

Do you think visual effects are ever going to get good enough to lessen the use of a stunt person?

Chad: I hope so, that's evolution. You can sit around and bitch about it all you want, but look at the visual effect person we have here, Dan Glass. Brilliant guy. He gets how his department fits in the film, he's not some guy trying to put a stunt guy out of business. He's trying to make his craft better. He's an artist. He's as much a creative person as a director or as a choreographer. He's choreographing his own things, and I hope he gets better! Do I hope he takes my job, no, but he's not trying to, that's not the purpose of visual effects. I mean, do you know how many times he's probably saved someone's life? Do you know how many times he's probably saved my life? Dozens. That's the way it's going.

Where do you draw the line? I fall into an air bag, he wears a protective suit, we use gel to walk through fire… does that mean we didn't really walk through fire? We're entertainers, the real magician work is trying to fool you into thinking something can really happen. You too can be the prince of a kingdom. You too can be a princess. Or you can be a pirate.

If VFX gets better, we better get better and evolve. We love doing motion capture. Do you know how many more things I can do now? Seven years ago you couldn't use a wire because people were scared of wire removal, it was too expensive. A pre-viz guy who does pre-visualization for films, someone who's making a CG person, or someone that's choreographing a fight—their inspiration is a human being. At some point in their lives to do what they're doing, they've seen an Olympic gymnast, they've seen an Olympic boxing match. Humans are our best and our worst inspirations. As a choreographer, VFX will always have to come to us or get inspired by us at some point. Maybe it won't be in the film realm, but it'll be somewhere else.

The best choreographers are not the guys spending their whole day in the gym. They're the guys perfecting their art in the gym and their art is what there is. These days if you're a choreographer and you don't have a video camera and an editing system right next to you, you are only one-dimensional. We work in a multi dimensional industry: sight, sound and actual aesthetics. When I choreograph a fight, I'm making the sound effects in my head. I can show you a straight video cut of this, and I'll show you the same one with sound effects, and I'll show you the same one with sound effects and a soundtrack of some techno-trance, and you'll be mildly impressed to very impressed.

When you show tapes, do you always lay a soundtrack down?

Chad: Always. On this show there hasn't been one thing I've pitched without at least low level soundtrack and sound effects. My job is not to educate anyone else around me in the stunt world, my job is to deliver a visual product that they can relate to that they can have or will want to have in their movie. I don't want to sit there and go, “ This is where this happens and this is where this happens.” A picture is 1000 words, so here you go. This is what it is, this is what it looks like. They may think it's cheesy, they may think it's the wrong sound effect. But they're hearing it and creating ideas in their head. You always get as close a product as you can and give it to them. What you conceive as real martial arts is different than my real martial arts. We both may talk about the same story, but I guarantee you two minutes later, if we both had to choreograph a fight, they'd be very different. Show them everything that you think and then go from there, then you're on the same page.

Thanks Chad.