Monday, June 27, 2011

KEATON


“This famous stunt in the movie was actually built around what went wrong with the original stunt. Keaton intended to leap from a board projecting from one building onto the roof of another building, but he fell short, smashing into the brick wall and falling into a net off-screen. He was injured badly enough to be laid up for three days. But when he saw the film (his camera operators were instructed to always keep filming, no matter what happened), he not only kept the mishap, he built on it, adding the fall through three awnings, the loose downspout that propels him into the firehouse, and the slide down the fire pole.”  Buster Keaton in The Three Ages, 1923 

1 comment:

squatlo said...

Balls like melons... First of all, I wouldn't walk out to the end of the damn board, nets or no nets. Then to lean out and take that face-first dive for the other building? For a movie?

Now it's all done with CG and we flock to the theaters to buy our two gallon buckets of corn syrup and popcorn?