Emmerdale is a British soap opera which profiles village life in the English countryside. I was brought in for this stunt by Stunt Coordinator Stuart St.Paul, to double Mark Charnock, who plays one of the 'Dingle brothers'. It was filmed in January of 1997 during a particularly cold Winter. The scene involves one brother, Butch, daring the other brother (played by Mark Charnock) to climb a ladder in order to spy on a secret rocket being stored in a barn. Butch walks away from the ladder and it slides away, throwing his unfortunate brother face first into a pig sty! For this stunt, we buried a standard crash mat with a 6 inch layer of soft peat. The ladder was then pushed from off camera which sent me flying through the air. The stunt was a little tricky as I had to jump clear of the ladder, clear a steel gate and land completely flat on my face from about 15ft. The peat had to be hosed down with cold water to make the sty look authentic, personally I thought they acheived this when they let 2 real pigs in to the sty!!! My memory of this stunt is a cold one. You see, the actor had to replace me after I had taken the fall, so having fallen face down in icy cold wet peat, I had to hold my breath with my head submerged for about 30 seconds. This was to allow for poloroid photos to be taken so the actor could quite literally 'step in to my shoes'! With the air temperature below zero, that 30 seconds felt like 300! The finished result had a nice comic touch, I was pleased as was the Stunt co-ordinator and Director. It had been a cold day but I had enjoyed it thoroughly. I was invited back to double Mark Charnock the following year. This time under the watchful eye of stunt co-ordinator, Dave Holland. All I had to do for this job was to sit in the passenger seat of a car which bursts through some steel gates. The car was driven by veteran stuntman Frank Henson. It was great fun to work with Dave and Frank who have been around film sets forever! They looked after me and kept me entertained with their tall stories for hours!! |
