To celebrate the release of three major action films in June, including Contraband, Man on a Ledge and Safe House on Blu‐ray and DVD, Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (USPHE) invited MAXIM to stunt training at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.
Under the close eye of seasoned stunt professional, Grant Page (stunt co‐ordinator from Mad Max), MAXIM Art Director, Luke Shaddock, completed hand to hand combat training, jumped 3 metre gaps from one building to another and went through various other green screen special effects. The training day gave us the opportunity to see and experience the preparation action hero actors undergo ahead of shooting. To see all the action yourself check out the videos below…
CONTRABAND STAR MARK WAHLBERG TALKS STUNTS
What was the hardest stunt for you to do on this film? Was it the scene where a van gets hit by a truck and rolls over?
The van was a pain in the butt when we were doing the shootout stuff, but I don’t remember the difficult stuff as much as I do the fun stuff, like beating up Giovanni [Ribisi] or beating up Ben [Foster] or beating up whoever else they put in front of me.
Baltasar Kormákur is a very physical director, especially because he rehearses everything himself. Did he inspire everybody on the set to give it their all?
Yeah. The only thing that’s unfortunate for him is he’s kind of clumsy, so when he showed Giovanni and I how to do the fight and fall down the stairs, he would whack his head on the cement or he’d crash into the side of the container.
