TBT: Career Highlight with a Fireball

Have I reached the pinnacle of my stunt career? I hope not. But this gag last year was definitely bragging rights for my future grandkids.

Ambulance Crash from Christmas Bloody Christmas.

See the movie if you must, but I recommend skipping the first half because of all the potty sex talk (exposition would be more interesting) leading up to the deed indeed (sweating while wearing undies). But once they get in the car to escape, the movie keeps its tension and the genre expectations of the trailer.

Speaking of exposition in an action movie, Garry Marshall's book Wake Me When It's Funny has a hilarious description; "You go there, I'll go here."

Christmas Bloody Christmas was my second movie for Joe Bezos and Josh Ethier. I do enjoy working for them. They are obviously opinionated about their stories and methods, and unapologetic about it. I appreciate that. They are also very generous and fair and run a safe, friendly, professional set.

We filmed in Placerville, CA, the original capital of California, nicknamed Hangtown for all the criminals they hanged. The locals had no idea of the movie being told on their quaint streets.

The challenges were many, especially due to the budget, from Special Effects and Transpo struggling to find and prep all the vehicles, to traction issues on a hilly, dirt road in snow and towing unmanned vehicles. But I got to work with two old friends, Special Effects Coordinator, Chris Bailey, and Stunt Coordinator, Tony Snegoff. It had been a while since I'd crashed a vehicle, and a much longer while since I'd been inside a fireball, so this career highlight was a combo. And the nice thing these days is everyone has a high quality video camera in their pocket, so I got to collect tons of coverage of my scene without asking.

After much thought about stopping a heavy vehicle on slippery flat steel (the gutted police car was chained to trench plate) before hitting the building and the cameras inside, all the prep (including a deceleration assist) and rehearsals (I could get the ambulance up to 25mph in the distance available, and stop in 15 ft with good traction) paid off. A week later, I parked the ambulance in front of a white wall so that the flashing lights would reflect onto me as I changed my wardrobe and yelled into the camera, so I could personalize the video. 

During the actual ambulance crash, I was actually wearing a Santa jacket and beard but the hat wouldn't stay on my helmet and I had to see. I also doubled Santa (Abe Benrubi) riding and climbing through the ambulance, up to another crash. Another time, I'll post about the other stunts, and give more credit where credit is due.

Ian Max Eyre