Blades of Glory
August 24, 2006
Movie
L.A. Sports Arena 

Sometimes working background means working with dummies, and today, there were over 2100 dummies on location, most of them in the upper tiers, gazing lifelessly out over the large arena. They were not going anywhere because they had no legs, but given the total lack of brains, they really couldn't care less.

There were also over 400 background that were for a larger part, less brainless, though there is some room to argue. Near the end of the day, 6 background actors were sent home for spending working time in their cars, asleep. They had their vouchers ripped up and they will not be paid, and by the next day, Central Casting will have put them on a blacklist, preventing them the ability to get a background job via Central.

It is seldom, that an AD will lay down the law and follow through, but this one did, and I am told that over the 6 days of filming with this group of background, around 20 people were fired for sleeping on camera, in their cars, failing to follow instructions, and in one case flipping out and requiring a police presence. Really though, this is not the norm. It does happen, but not all the time.

Blades of Glory (a Will Farrell movie with Jon Heder of Napoleon Dynamite) is about two ice skaters that, in 2002, are striped of their Olympic gold medals and banned from men's singles competition, only to find a loophole that will allow them to compete as a pairs team. If you have seen any Will Farrell movie, you will know what to expect, and if not then I would say that the movie will likely be as funny as the premise is silly. In fact, the first scene shot was with wire work that put the two skaters in a position, on ice, that the 1^st AD referred to as “the 69 position”.

There was a fair amount of wire work today, both for the safety of the actors (or their doubles) and to allow shots and actions not possible otherwise. The dismount from the “69” position, was effectively, the actor skating pushing the other actor away so that he spun through the air, and landed on his feet, in perfect form. Stunt skaters were used for some of the work, while the actors themselves jumped in for close-up shots.

Will had one stunt double, who did all the competition skating, and the stunts that were too dangerous for the star, while Jon had two doubles, one for stunts (like the wire work) and one for the jumps and other “real” competition skating. This did not get the stars out of all the hard work, however. More on this in a minute.

There were two shots that were enlightening as regards the effects you often see in a skating movie. One is the shot of the skater, spinning in place, where the camera is always on their face, and the background is spinning around them. This was done by putting the actor on a platform (that was connected to the camera unit) in the center of a track that holds the camera. The camera, like a train, follows the track in a circle, keeping the actor always in frame. The actor spins in the circle, always facing the camera. There was no camera operator on the camera mount (remote control was used), and the camera platform was pushed in a circle around the track by the camera grip. Those people who needed to be near the camera, were squatting on the ice, below the level of the lens frame. As it was necessary to get many shots going at different speeds, the actors had ample time to get use to spinning in place, often in the afore mentioned “69” position.

The other shot is the one where it is from the skaters POV and the audience is seen spinning around the camera. This was done by taking the actor out of the picture and again, pushing the camera around the track. Same action, different effect.

Now, back to the wire work the actors couldn't get out of, and I must tell you, that having watched them, I felt pity.

One of the shots needed was of the two actors sliding 30 or 40 feet across the ice, to come to a stop in front of the camera. For some of these shots, the stunt skaters were used, and seeing the skater racing across the ice, then slideing toward the camera (no wires) was really entertaining. Grips were there with pads to protect the camera, in case the skater or camera platform grip misjudged and there was a collision. Never happened. Johnny, the camera grip was on skates and had two grips helping to push the camera away from the sliding skater, with perfect timing each take.

Both Will and Jon (and their doubles) had to be attached to wires (by way of a rig they wore) that could pull them in both directions along the length of the arena. One wire (both shown as green in image at left) was attached to a ring on the back of the rig (worn under the costume), and the other wire was attached to a ring at the point where the legs join. From a still position laying down on the ice (in those thin costumes), the actor would be pulled by the wire attached to the groin ring, and dragged to a high speed until he was in front of the camera. Then the wire attached to the back ring would bring him to a halt. There was no way the actors, or stunt skaters, could keep from folding up (bending at the waist) when those sudden stops occurred, and on more than one occasion, they were dumped face down onto the ice. These shots took quite a bit of time, and repetition. In each case, the actors were on the ice for about an hour each.

The actors were not the only ones keeping busy, as the background actors were needed to fill the seats of this arena that has a several thousand person capacity. Each time the camera changed view, we background, we desperate few, had to march off to another section and fill in. (Only on a few occasions did we mix in with the dummies). Think of it as a giant Stair Master, and all day, we went up one or two flights of steps, then moved over a section, then went down the steps, around the arena to climb more steps, only to go around it again, to fill more seats in some other spot. There were 30 sections, and by days end, I sat in, or near most of them. And you would think an arena filled with tons of ice, would be nice and cool, but you would be wrong (one must still count on the lights creating heat) and, of course, all the background was dressed in several layers of clothing to show the audience was trying to keep warm.

Now I must point out that normally, I do not know the name of the camera dolly grip, that being the guy who pushes and pulls the camera and the platform on which it rests, and usually a camera operator. Yet I did learn Johnny's name. Johnny had become something of a celebrity in his own right over the 6 day shoot (of which I was present only on this one day to replace some of the background actors who were not coming back). Johnny was a skater. Not just a guy who put on skates, but a trained skater, who does jumps and tricks and such. In between shots, Johnny would take to the ice, and his skills were put to use during shots, like the last ones of the day.

The shot involved the POV (point of view) of one of the skaters as he sped across the ice, going from one end of the arena to the other at high speed. Two crew would help Johnny get up to speed by helping to push the camera rig (letting go when they could no longer keep up - they didn't have skates) and then Johnny would continue to gain speed pushing the camera rig, racing across the ice. At the last minute, Johnny would turn on his skates and dig into the ice, bringing himself and several hundred pounds of camera and dolly to a stop,  inches from the wall at the edge of the ice. Each time he did the shot, I waited for him to crash into the wall at the end of his speed run, or let go of the camera dolly, and each time, he stopped with inches to spare. During the day, people hollered out his name and treated him like a star, and from where I was sitting, I could see why. In some ways, Johnny the camera dolly grip, stole the show from the stars. Clearly, the background saw him that way.