Michael Bay just posted something insanely dangerous on his Instagram and nobody is talking about it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CLpHdzWpjFh/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Michael Bay just posted a video of a stunt gone wrong that nearly killed several people from his latest movie set. The post had been up for over a day and I couldn't find anybody reporting on it except a few foreign language websites.

I don't want to out myself, but I've worked in film stunts for almost a decade. Yes, stunts are dangerous and there is always a calculated risk but what he shows in this video is unnecessarily dangerous and clearly a symptom of Bay's unchecked ego.

Let me break it down for you:

When doing car stunts, flips, cannons, etc, you will often use something called a "catch-car" as safety measure. These are cars designed to (you guessed it) "catch" another car during a stunt to either protect the crew or prevent damaging streets, buildings, or other property. NEVER do you put stuntmen in between the car-in-action and the catch-car. The stuntman has nowhere to escape to and you will end with a human/car sandwich.

Also, there is no reason to have have a human-operated dolly (which Michael Bay makes sure to point out he was on, to show how badass he is) that close to the stunt. The same move could be achieved with a robotic arm or dolly and there would be no need to put a human being right next to the catch car (which everyone knows will move when hit!).

There are a few things that went wrong with the stung. It looks to me like the flipped police car was wound too tight (a technique used to create flips) causing it to have way more momentum than anticipated. Also, the ambulance was either meant to stop or keep going forward, but when hitting the ramp that flipped the police car, it got some air and its front wheels (which brake the car) had no traction. Regardless, this is why you don't put people that close to the action. The stuntmen are at least trained, but a dolly grip doesn't have any training to deal with that kind of danger.

There has a been a big anti-bullying push in the film industry lately. A lot of people roll their eyes at this, thinking that this is a "cry-baby liberals who don't like there feelings hurt" mentality. But this stunt is exactly why anti-bullying measures are necessary. I would bet money that the stunt coordinator or other safety expert was too afraid to tell Bay that placing a dolly track that close was dangerous, or if he/she did bring it up, was shouted into submission by the notoriously hot-tempered Michael Bay.

This could have killed someone and the only reason the media is not talking about it, is because they got lucky and no one did. Let me make this clear: Nobody should ever die making a movie. It's not worth it. I'm a big proponent of practical effects and using VFX sparingly, but this is a perfect example of where more care and thought should have been put into how to do this stunt with less risk to human life.

EDIT: Thanks to -Sneaky Snake- for pointing this out.

Submitted February 25, 2021 at 03:54AM by Matanishu https://ift.tt/3qTHmuS