When I was writing Sins of Man originally it was a stand alone movie and originally I wanted to do what I call the Stephen King / Wes Craven cameo with my character Victor Barclay who was the Crime Scene photographer at the beginning of the movie and be done with it .
I shot my cameo on the first weekend of shooting so it would be done and I could focus on directing the rest of the movie of course as things usually do on a film set things happened that were beyond our control and Victor Barclay morphed into a much larger role in the movie .
I want to be clear that the changes that were made were not to make myself a bigger part of the movie that couldn't be further from the truth. I was happy to do my cameo and be done with it . I made the choice to take the Victor character and change him into a character with a bigger backstory and a bigger part of the over all story .
Once I took on that role I knew there were stunts involved in the movie and I took over that part of it as well . I wrestled for 25 years so I know all about the abuse that happens so I was prepared to handle the stunts . Did I enjoy the stunt work, of course I did . Was I prepared for all the action in the fights scenes yes and no . I knew I could handle anything that we put into the fight scenes because of my wrestling background .
I will tell you that there were a few things that happen in the movie that were put into the scenes specifically because of my background in wrestling. Doing your own stunts is painful but fun, I'm not saying flying through the air hitting a blunt metal object at full speed is fun by an stretch of the imagination but if it makes the scene better and helps the movie I'm willing to do it !
if I didn't have the wrestling background I would have been really scared about doing some (most) of the stunts that you see in the movie . I was still scared doing them because I hadn't been wrestling in about two years at the time the movie was made but I knew I had the skill set to make this work and hopefully make the scenes look good.
Everyone I worked with in the fight /action scenes was amazing we all took care of each other for sure and I would like to get in better shape (round isn't the best shape for doing stunts) and do more stunt work in future Wicked Carnival Productions projects and since I'm the boss I guess I can do that haha .
I'm not saying people without athletics in their background shouldn't do their own stunts all I'm saying is that it helps if you have those skills in your back pocket . There is a scene towards the end of Rise of Mortis where a real gun is shot and I was a few feet away from the "target area" and nothing really prepares you for that but it all worked out great and looked amazing on camera and really put the desired effect into that scene for sure .
Now in Sins of Man II : Vengeance my character Victor is is a much different place but there were a few spots where things get rough and I had to encourage the actress who was acting in the scene with me to get alittle rough, and I told her that "you're not going to hurt me, I've been trained for this type of thing" so that helped that situation .
I have to say the biggest thing you need to do your own stunts in any movie is TRUST in your costars to always take care of you and to always take care of them and as weird as that sounds when guns, knives, handcuffs. dustpans and tools are involved you have to trust your scene partner 100% or the likelyhood of something going horribly wrong goes up drastically . I completely trust every single person I do a fight / action scene with because I'm trained fpr this stuff and I help them get ready for each scene as the fight coordinator we go over erverythng step by step and make sure everyone involved is 100% on board with every thing that is going to happen during that sequence .
In closing I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who reads my blogs and comes to the site as well as who listen to my show The Maine Morgue (uploaded EVERY Wednesday here on the site) You are all amazing people to me and this site, my movies and my show wouldn't be possible without each and every one of you, THANK YOU .
May The Force Be With You, Always .