I was working on a TV show for Netflix/Marvel called Luke Cage. They wanted a stunt actor to get pushed back by the main actor, who super strong and send him flying back then sliding on the ground. This gag comes up a lot on these Marvel shows. Their are a few different ways to achieve this effect using wires. Trying the find the perfect one is the hard part. Thier is a lot that goes into deciding witch way to go. Fighting he laws of physics, directors need, locations limitations, and then there is always the budget to deal with. How much is this all going to cost and how many man days is it going to take.
I get together with my team about once a week and we go over ideas and test out gags. On this day they are helping me test a pull back where a large man over 300 lbs goes flying back and hits the ground all in one take. As I am a big man just under 300 lbs. I got the privilege of strapping on the vest and getting rigged and yanked.
As you can see we started with the 10” inch crash mats. Then we move onto using some obstacles that represented tables and chairs in a nightclub trying to recreate the actual location settings. The final clip you see that there is only a small 2” panel mat. Once we feel that we tested the rig and everyone know what they are responsible for. We ready to take it to the set and rig it. On the day the stunt performer will pad up using mostly motorcycle protective gear under their costume and go for it.
This was a preliminary test; the real test happened onset with the stunt performer that was going to perform the actual stunt.
