Outlander: Getting Fired Up
Well I promised you in a post several months back about a personal blooper I had on the set of "Outlander", the Weinstein's and Jim Caviezel's upcoming movie about a spaceship that crashes in viking times and has an unexpected visitor aboard. Ron Perlman, John Hurt, Jack Huston and Sophia Myles also star.
It involves fire. As background actors on the set, a few of us were chosen for our talent (more like our size lol) to carry torches into battle. I was one of them along with a friend I had made in the wardrobe / make-up tent. Essentially you are given a three foot stick that had linens and wire mesh around the tip of it. This was dipped in a bucket of kerosene just prior to use as they do not last long once lit. I would say perhaps 4 to 5 minutes then they flicker out. They had a pyrotechnics guy running around with these buckets making sure the flames in the campfires, elevated torches and actor torches remained lit for the shooting. He also made sure that the gas lines leading to pyro displays (like a roof on fire) were set to go too. Serious business. He had fire retardant gear on and the ever present extinguisher. He took his job seriously too as he should.
Do background (BG) actors take their job seriously? Well some do... but not many. We were there to learn and have some fun - after all we are vikings running around screaming and hacking our blades down on nearby victims all night long! Some trouble was brewing from the get-go. My friend (I will call him Erik here) had his lit first. He promptly got his long viking wig on fire. Well it wasn't all that bad - just a little - we put it out fast when we saw it lol. He was still raring to go though. We were told to run back and forth behind Caviezel's scene near the wheelbarrow where the young boy actor (Bailey Maughan) was told to "Get the hell out of here" and hold the torch aloft as we repeated the trip. There was about 20 of us. Erik took off running just ahead of me and I could see his hand drooping a bit as those things start to get heavy after the 50th trip. The Pyro guy saw that Erik had just barely missed hitting Caviezel's stunt double's head in the last run and promptly grabbed it from his hand. That was that for Eric.
My turn. I was much more serious about my fire wielding duties. However my downfall was not timing the director's calls to action and his subsequent resets (back to your original positions and start over again for continuity and editing). I studied when to best call for fire and was successful for most of the night, but I messed up at around 4am and the pyro guy looked like a pyromaniac running toward me to grab my torch. "That's it" he said. Guess he was developed a case of "dipping torches into bucket too often" syndrome.
A much more serious event took place though that I am glad the BG actor that was involved was not hurt. As we were running behind the action, this one fellow - short, gruff and full of Monty Python vigor - was highly animated and screaming at the top of his lungs while arching his neck backwards in some sort of beserker rage. He tripped. Not exactly an epic hero is he? Because of his sheer forward velocity his face planted about 5 feet ahead of a "long house illumination device" that was positioned at the base of one of the viking long houses (these were complete long houses by the way - inside and out - no facades; only the King's house was fake). These devices are used to dramatically show the roughly hewn building and cast a eerie fire type light on the walls. This guy slid right into it. These things are hot and he was screaming - he may have gotten burnt somewhat, but the flame eluded him (just the hot exposed metal may have hit him). He got up immediately like John Cleese would and dusted himself off. The BG crew chief came running over and I could hear over her radio a voice ringing out through the static "Is that guy alright?" (perhaps Howard McCain or Don Carmody? :-)
His reply to the girl was, and I swear this is exactly what he said: "Aye. I'm alright." Hahaaa. This guy probably brings his character home to his wife at night too - the difference is we don't get $10 million+ for practicing it! :-)
That's it for now. I will have more on Outlander soon. Nothing like getting fired from using fire!
Image courtesy of my friend over at http://outlander.solsector.net/.
BTW - Outlander is not a 3D movie.
