Movie Showtime and Jackie Chan My Stunts

April 14, 2003

As I watched the movie, Showtime, and the True Life Stories channel that featured Jackie Chan, My Stunts, I thought about the camera man.

In Showtime, there are two, hilarious, even if brief scenes of the camera man.  First, there’s the time when he runs into the fire hydrant because he is looking into his camera as he follows Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro.  Second, there’s the time when he keeps backing up to shoot a scene and ends up falling into the pool, again a result of the fact that he was simply doing his job of looking into the camera which made him oblivious to everything else.

In Jackie Chan, My Stunts, which shows Chan, the artist, stunt inventor, actor and martial arts expert, it shows what can be the hazardous lives of a camera man.  While shooting a BMW car to fall down a tall building, the camera man is placed in what looks like a wooden box, with a mattress on top for protection.  Also, when Chan is explaining “low-tech” techniques for action movies, he displays a “blood bag” that must be squirted out by the stunt man.  You know what happens next.  The camera man also gets squirted all over with the pretend blood.  Not only that, the camera man has glass shatter in front of him, he must avoid “accidental” kicks, and must be careful he doesn’t get hit by shattering, wooden chairs.  But some of the payoffs are of course, the camera man is not only employed, he also has the chance to admire Chan in action.  This is evidenced by the gleamy-eye of one camera man who couldn’t believe Chan’s physical abilities.

Moreover, the camera man gets to hear Chan’s last words of wisdom that ends the segment.  Chan talks to the camera, as if he were talking to a young man like himself when he, too, was a young man.  He says to that young man to create his own style by using his imagination as Chan has shown.  Chan says the young man should copy some of his style, but give it a new twist, like Chan has done with his martial arts and action stunts.  So Chan encourages and challenges anyone watching to rise up to a future of invention that is fueled by imagination.

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