We look at the legacy of horror movie director George Romero and the work he left behind; veteran stunt coordinator Conrad Palmisano talks about how safety has improved on TV and film sets; real-life married couple Francesa Delbanco and Nick Stoller collaborated on the new Netflix series, "Friends From College.”
Paying respect to zombie maestro George Romero
When horror director George Romero died on Sunday at the age of 77, fans and friends issued heartfelt tributes on social media.
Matt Birman, a second unit director on Romero's last three films who was working on Romero's next film, "Road of the Dead," was with Romero the night before he died of lung cancer.
"We were sort of waiting, for lack of a better word," said Birman. "The most shocking thing for us has been the speed that this happened between the diagnosis and now."
Romero is best known for his 1968 horror film "Night of the Living Dead," which is considered the first modern zombie film. The film established the idea of a “zombie apocalypse,” where hordes of the dead lumber the earth in search of human flesh.
The film spawned the "Dead" series with films like "Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead." Romero collaborated with horror writer Stephen King on films like "Creepshow" and "The Dark Half."
Romero's films were cult classics that inspired many filmmakers including Jordan Peele ("Get Out"), James Gunn ("Guardians of the Galaxy") and Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead").
When Birman spoke with The Frame, he remembered meeting Romero for the first time early in his career.
I was brought in to interview for the stunt coordinating position on "Land of the Dead." It's the first time I met George. Of course I knew who he was but not a huge horror genre fan at the time. [It] wasn't really my cup of tea and that's the first thing I said to him and he loved that. And we sort of hit it out of the park right away.
Romero is known for political commentary in his films. But when asked whether Romero spoke about using film genre metaphors for political satire, Birman says he rarely addressed them:
He didn't talk about it too much. I think he took some joy, or some pleasure I should say, in sliding it in there, as he used to say. And not beating you over the head with it. ... It was open to interpretation. Some people will call Night an anti-racist film or an anti-violence film, all sorts of things. But it's not something he talked a lot about in terms of pushing the story through some kind of comment.
Romero is credited with inventing the modern zombie movie, a horror film genre that has seen a surge in recent years with films like "28 Days Later," "World War Z" and "Shaun of the Dead."
While he wasn't completely unhappy with all zombie films, Birman says that Romero felt like each film had its own set of unique issues:
As his fans know, he didn't believe that zombies could run. In fact, I think he ducked "28 Days Later" because they weren't zombies. It's more of a virus. And he allowed that. But in "World War Z" they're like bullets and he hated it. As interesting as the "Dawn of the Dead" remake zombies were ... he just hated that they were fast. He just felt that there wasn't any room anymore for his type of film.
But there are some zombie films that Romero appreciated, like "Shaun of the Dead" by Edgar Wright, director films such as "Baby Driver." Birman says:
[Romero] absolutely adored "Shaun of the Dead." A big, big favorite of his. And Edgar wrote some very moving stuff yesterday. It's all a bit much to take right now. It's a little overwhelming because it's fast. I'm speaking to you for some kind of therapy but when we hang up I'll go back to my trance.
To hear John Horn's full interview with Mark Birman, click on the player above.
Veteran stuntman discusses industry safety following fatal accident on 'The Walking Dead'
Last week on the set of the AMC television show, "The Walking Dead," stunt performer John Bernecker was reportedly doing a fall from a 22-foot high balcony when he missed the landing pads.
The result was a fatal head injury.
Production was temporarily halted following the incident, but resumed today according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Screen Actors Guild and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are reportedly investigating what happened.
To find out more about on-set procedures for ensuring stunt safety, The Frame spoke with Conrad Palmisano, a veteran stuntman and stunt coordinator with more than 47 years of experience in the industry. Palmisano is also a member of the SAG-AFTRA Stunt and Safety Committee and the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures.
Interview highlights:
On the changes in stunt work since the 1970s:
When I started, it was basically "pad up and hit the ground" kind of stunt work. There was no CGI or anything like that, so most of the things we had to do live and in-reel. If you were falling off a two-story building, you were falling off a two-story building. There was no wire to attach to slow you down or belay your weight or anything like that. We just did it.
Stunts today are safer than they were 20 years ago and we anticipate that they're going to be safer 20 years from now because it's an evolutionary process.
On the difference between stunt performers and stunt coordinators:
A stuntman or stuntwoman is a performer and they live between the words action and cut. All the prep stuff is done in advance. A stunt coordinator's job is to take the written word from the page and put it on screen ... The stunt coordinator always looks at the written word and then at the location and at the time allotted to shoot the sequence and then tries to make suggestions in order to say, I can deliver this for you in this way, or, I can't do it like that, but I can do it like this, or this, or this. Which is your choice?
Our goal is to make everything safe for the performer, for the crew and the cast that's involved in it, as well as to protect their production company from having something bad happen and then end up in lawsuits.
On the difference in stunt coordination in film and television:
Few people, in my experience, want to cross that boundary [to] put your foot down. Part of the problem is some people don't put their foot down because they're afraid of repercussions or next season they won't be brought back.
And it's different between feature films and television. Feature films you have a lot more time for rehearsal, for setting up, for shooting what's going on. Television, you have to work very, very fast and things can change very quickly and so there's a lot more pressure in TV than there is in features.
On whether stuntmen or stuntwomen are able to back away from a stunt if they feel unsafe or nervous:
I've brought stuntmen out, in one particular case, to look at a high fall. And we looked at it during the daytime, a three-story fall off a building [in] downtown L.A. into an alley. And it was going to be done at night, but we looked at it in the daytime. When we got there that night and [the stunt performer] looked at it, he says, I'm sorry. I can't do this. I said, Well, you looked at it and you said you could. And he said, Yeah, but I just don't feel good, I can't do it like that. Well, there was a payphone down there, [so I said], Call somebody to replace you who's comfortable doing it. And he did. And we went on working together for years after that. I'd rather have him step up and say this isn't good than have something go wrong. And any stunt coordinator would feel the same way.
To hear John Horn's interview with Conrad Palmisano, click on the player above.
The creators of 'Friends from College' explain why the show may be 'an acquired taste'
The new Netflix show, "Friends from College," explores marriage and friendship through the dysfunctional dynamics of a close-knit group of — appropriately enough — friends from college.
The series was created by real-life married couple Francesca Delbanco and Nick Stoller (director of "Neighbors," "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"). Delbanco is a writer, Stoller directs, and they are both executive producers.
The two didn't exactly start out as friends from college — they met after graduating from Harvard, but they drew upon some of their own experiences to create the series. It's about a group of friends from Harvard who are now in their 40s, and not doing the best job of balancing their adult lives with their nostalgia for the past.
The actors playing the friends in the show include Keegan Michael Key, Fred Savage and Cobie Smulders. The characters they play, Delbanco admits, are not the best people.
"The characters are snobs, they are doing bad things, they are getting away with the bad things that they're doing, they're not necessarily being nice to each other or to the people in their lives who deserve kindness and compassion," Delbanco says. "It may be an acquired taste."
So was there a concern that the characters would be too unlikable?
"When I hear someone say the word 'unlikable,' I'm just like, No, I don't hear that word," Stoller says. "[The show] has to be 'relatable.' Some of my favorite movies at the center of them have technically unlikable characters, but they're super relatable ... so we hope that that is true of our show."
To hear John Horn's full interview with Francesca Delbanco and Nick Stoller, click the blue player above.