The Change Mariner

The New Digital World of Film Stunts

newsobserver.com:

"I'm very concerned about the sort of career my son is going to have," said Leonard, as he picked over a plate of biscuits and gravy at a restaurant near his ranch home in Agua Dulce. "There could be a time when all the stunt work is done on computers."

Leonard is no Luddite. He knows that the growing use of digital technology is a boon to the industry, drawing audiences with the kind of death-defying scenes that no stuntman could ever perform. But at the same time, the ability to create stunts on a computer screen clouds the future of a community already struggling from the effects of runaway movie production and fierce competition for jobs. If that's not enough, makers of movies such as "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" and the "Lord of the Rings" series increasingly are turning to actors to perform tasks that traditionally were handled by stuntmen.