Movies

HOLLYWOOD — Producer Terence Chang said it was the wind that caused the horrific fatal fire on the set of John Woo's latest epic, Red Cliff. The production, Asia's most expensive movie ever, was re-creating a major battle from third century China on the outskirts of Beijing in June. Small ships, set ablaze, were purposely torpedoed into a group of large warships that had been chained together.

"It was an outdoor shoot, and the wind was so strong, the fire began blowing in the direction of the stuntmen, who were stationed on a larger ship getting rammed by a fireboat," said Chang, who has produced dozens of films, including Mission Impossible 2 and Face/Off. A 23-year-old stuntman was burned to death. Three other stuntmen were burned but will recover. Two more hurt their legs when they jumped off the stunt ship into the water to escape. Red Cliff isn't the only would-be blockbuster beset by accidents and tragedy.

Two stuntmen were burned while making the Adam Sandler comedy You Don't Mess With the Zohan. And visual effects technician Conway Wickliffe was killed while prepping the Batmobile for the upcoming The Dark Knight.

And then there is the upcoming James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, which has been so riddled with accidents big and small that the English papers have begun talking of "The Bond Curse."

Anecdotally, it all sounds like a lot of accidents, but almost everyone involved in safety issues in Hollywood says that in fact sets have gotten much safer over the last five to 10 years, primarily because of technological advances. For instance, because of computer graphics, stunt people can freely wear wires — which are erased by a computer afterward — during high-flying scenes. It's hard for audiences to tell exactly how Spider-Man swings from tall buildings or Jason Bourne survives brutal car crashes; these heroes just do, courtesy the magic of high-tech moviemaking.

"In the last 10 years, and particularly in the last five years, CGI has kept the risk assessment down on most stunts," said Sony's president of physical production, Gary Martin. "We have alternatives. We have safe ways to plan the stunts and keep people out of harm's way."

According to the latest numbers available (for the year 2006), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports five occupational fatalities (four because of transportation accidents) in the motion-picture business.

Injuries are harder to calculate. The government reports 1,190 occupational injuries in the motion picture industry for 2006. There were 270 actor injuries. Stunt performers are listed in another category, which includes circus performers and magicians; the group sustained 230 injuries in 2006.

Still, these statistics present only part of the picture because the U.S. government doesn't calculate deaths or injuries that happen outside the United States.

Stunt people say many injuries are never made public, mostly because they don't want to hurt their own reputations and, possibly, further employment.

Kent Jorgensen, the chairman of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees' safety committee, said: "It seems like it's getting safer. Because of the awareness of safety and corporatization of the industry, there's a lot more emphasis on safety."

Jorgensen dates the steady improvement to a tragic accident 13 years ago, when a grip fell from the rafters and died during the making of The Indian in the Cupboard.

This said, he points out that it's much easier for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to institute safety regulations for set construction than for stunts, which can be inherently dangerous. "OSHA has a hard time covering stunts because of what they're doing," Jorgensen said. "It's like trying to cover a circus act. How do you do a rule for jumping off a building into an air bag? They're trusting the professionalism of the people to be an adequate form of doing things safely."