Twilight "Eclipse"
(feature film)

Velocity Stunts high-speed winches were used on Twilight for performer and camera flying. Second Unit Director E.J. Foerster, Stunt Coordinator John Stoneham Jr. and Key Stunt Rigger Monte Thompson were tasked with making the action on the third instalment of the Twilight franchise “Eclipse” bigger, better and faster! To help meet their challenges E.J., John and Monte asked Dave Lane from Velocity Stunts to join their deep talent pool of stunt riggers, performers and fight coordinators. Dave added technical and creative value to the team through the use of Velocity Stunts’ technologically advanced high-speed winches for performer and camera flying.

The first challenge to Dave from E.J., Second Unit Director of Photography Roger Vernon and Visual Effects’ James Tichenor, Second Unit Visual Effects Supervisor, was to fly their camera at high speed for live action and visual effects plates. Two separate heavily forested locations were used and had to be shot back-to-back. To meet the quick turnaround times from one location to the next Dave installed a complete 2D Vectorcam cable cam flying rig at each location. This allowed Second Unit First Assistant Director Jack Hardy to freely schedule his days without having to take into account re-rig times for the cable camera. The two rig set up was possible due to the modular nature and large inventory of Velocity’s motion control flying systems.

Velocity’s Vectorcam rig proved to be the right tool for the demanding shots and the compressed time lines. The shooting schedule demanded that multiple shots be designed and shot on each day that were not only at high speed but also required hard accelerations and decelerations with the utmost control over the camera.

It was no surprise to E.J. that on the day the Velocity team and the Vectorcam rig performed to his expectations as he had had previous success with Velocity and Vectorcam on Fantastic Four: “Rise of the Silver Surfer”. E.J. was appreciative of the hustle on the part of Dave and the whole Velocity team to help make his days successful. For Roger and James it was a first time experience using the Vectorcam rig and working with Dave and his team. The smiles on their faces told the story of their appreciation of having a world-class cable cam team and rig at their disposal. An ever present challenge for a First AD is to get through the day’s call sheet as quickly and efficiently as possible. Dave’s and his team’s professionalism and efficiency definitely helped Jack with this daily challenge.

From John and Monte the challenges were handed out to Velocity in the form of high energy, high speed stunt performer flying. Monte knew from working with Dave on numerous occasions over the past years that he had the best skills and technology to create the right look and ability to inject energy into the scenes for E.J.

Dave split off a small team of riggers and installed Velocity’s Pathfinder high speed performer flying winches on the green screen stage. Working in close co-operation with Grip/Electrics, Dave and his team was able to install a 3D vector rig that had little or no impact on Roger’s lighting plan.

One of the most exciting sequences for its shear high velocity was entirely programmed offline with specs supplied by Visual Effects Designer Kevin Haug. Velocity’s state of the art software allowed for complete offline programming and visualization of the performer’s flight path. The value of this feature was fully realized as no rehearsal was required prior to shooting the scene. On the day, in the time it took to set camera, a bag test was completed and a few passes were run with stunt performer Atlin Mitchell to let her adjust her performance to the scene’s intense acceleration, speed and deceleration. Seeing the quality of Atlin’s performance and the reaction on the crew’s faces as she flew across the stage at 12m/sec was very rewarding.

The most technically demanding and exciting scene to accomplish was a complex combination of running, jumping and flying with radical changes in direction in 3D and all at 7m/sec! Adding to the challenge, the sequence was to be shot without cuts. E.J. had high expectations for this action beat and Dave was determined to exceed his expectations. Following E.J.’s edict of ‘bigger, better, faster’, the technical specs and the previs for the scene were tweaked heavily by Dave and his team to inject further energy and impact.

One of the best possible reactions you can get from your director when showing your rehearsal footage for the first time is: ‘just shoot it no changes’ and that’s the reaction we got from E.J.

On the day Robin Hackl from visual effects (Image Engine) asked Dave if he could add a further jump at the beginning of the sequence. With a nod of approval from Jack and Assistant Stunt Co-ordinator Layton Morrison, Dave quickly reprogrammed the sequence stretching the start to allow for the added jump and completed a rehearsal with Atlin before camera was ready to go.

A quick look back to video village after the first take told Dave all he needed to know, big success, smiles all around! Once again Velocity’s consistent and repeatable stunt performer flying winches allowed Atlin to invest all her energy and talent into yet another stellar performance.

It was the best possible outcome for Dave, his team, Atlin, Monte, Layton and John to have provided E.J. with a creative and technical solution that allowed him to so successfully realize his vision.

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