Brian Curtin is a talented video editor, but sometimes there’s no substitute for good, old-fashioned stunt work. One sequence from his film Beyond Black Mesa—featuring a massive explosion and a flying Curtin—took him right off his feet.
“Part of it was that we just wanted to use a ripcord, and that was a perfect time to do it,” Curtin recalls. “We hooked a rope to the front of my car and ran it through a carabiner on a metal shed off to the side. I would run about two feet, and then my friend would throw the car in reverse and yank me off the scene. And another friend had a wrestling pad to catch me.
“The first time we did it—which is the take we used—he didn’t catch me. Somebody was taking pictures, and there’s a picture of him laughing as I’m flying by. And then I hit the metal shed.
“On the first take, we said, ‘If we’re going to do it, let’s do it right.’ After that, it was more like: ‘Let’s tone it down a bit.’”