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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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