Halloween Set Visit Exclusive – Interview 5 of 9

Sitting outside the soundstage that serves as the house where Laurie is babysitting. [Photo: Tyler Mane and Kristina Klebe]

Staci Layne Wilson: I know the stunt coordinator is usually stressing out. But are you having fun on this show?

Rawn Hutchinson: Unbelievably. This has been a great show. Because usually in a movie you do there is always something, somewhere, someone along the line that causes a little problem or whatever. This entire shoot has been great. The crew has been great. The entire shoot has been fantastic.

Staci: So what kind of stunts have we got on this show? I understand there are a lot of interiors, but are there some chase scenes and stuff like that too? Car wrecks?

Rawn: Do you know, there's not a lot of car stuff. Although my forte is car action and I have a driving team — I have a stunt driving team that does driving for car commercials and movies and stuff — but this movie has been mainly physical type stuff. There is a little bit of driving but not much. Mostly making sure, that we do what we call in the industry a lot of babysitting. In other words, making sure the actors don't get hurt, padding them up, letting them kinda do most of their own physical stuff if they can.

Staci: Yeah, actors always say, "I want to do my own stunts!"

Rawn: They do!

Staci: How good are they here?

Rawn: You know, a lot of them are very, very good at it. The only reason we tend not to let them do their own stuff is because if they accidentally got hurt then we couldn't shoot. But if a stunt person accidentally gets hurt, we just go get another stunt person. So that's really the only reason why producers mainly don't let them do their own stunts because of that factor but everyone on this...I bring doubles in for all of them, but we try to shoot with the actor as much as we can. That gives Rob a lot better choice of camera angles and things like that, he can get a lot closer with them. But obviously we pad them up and make sure they're completely safe.

Staci: Of course. Now, is it true that a lot of actors have their own doubles that they work with regularly, or do you provide them, mostly?

Rawn: I wouldn't say most. I provided them all on this show. There are some actors that have their own double that actually... it goes in a couple of steps. There's actors that have their own double and they actually have them under contract.

And then there are other actors that have their own doubles that they like to use and when you first get hired as a coordinator, that actor will come to you and say, "Listen, this is the guy I like to use" and so then you try to accommodate them by using that person. If that person is available and you feel that person is right, you use them. If not, you go on to get someone else.

I like to try to provide a stunt double that's as absolutely close to the actor as possible. And it's always a good sign whenever like for example on this I had a stunt double for the little boy that played Michael at 10, and his mother actually came up to my stunt double and said, "Aren't you supposed to be in school?" [laughs] So when you have that happen, you know you've done a good job getting a double. But I wouldn't say most of them have their stunt doubles, I would say maybe a third of them do.

Staci: On this particular show, what is one of the more intricate stunts that you've done that you've really relished working on?

Rawn: We had a girl fall into a swimming pool that was empty, so that was kind of interesting to have her run out and fall into a waterless pool. Of course we put in that type of situation where it isn't real high fall. We use cardboard boxes and then we lay a three inch thick piece of foam padding over the boxes. It's just like falling into a stack of hay. We did that which was interesting, and we also take the double and drop them into the pool too, on the concrete. That's where the doubles earn their money. Because they can drop onto concrete like that and not get hurt.

Then we threw a guy through a window the other day. Took one of the security guards and picked him up and threw him through a window.

Staci: So when things like that are going on are you thinking about how it will look in the final product, or are you thinking more "Oh I hope he's going to be ok," …where is your mind going?

Rawn: My first concern is that it looks the way it's supposed to look. I make sure that the double is padded and he's experienced, I look at his resume before I even hire him, and if it's a real intricate type stunt I'll even call a coordinator that he's worked for before and make sure that he's very well qualified. But then when we actually... when I hire him, get him padded up and ready to go my main, main concern is that the shot looks the way it's supposed to look. It needs to look the most spectacular without getting anyone hurt.

Staci: How closely have you been working with Rob on the stunts? Does he give you a lot of input?

Rawn: Very close. One thing about Rob that I've especially enjoyed — and you never know with a director whether when you go on a shoot — whether a director is going to want your input. I've had one extreme to the other. I've had directors say, "Just go shoot it," and then I've had other directors say, "I'll tell you what I want and then you do it, and don't make any suggestions," and everything in between. Rob is kind of all that put together. He's really willing to listen to whatever you got and as a coordinator, but then you need to know when to back off. In other words, you can't be the director. There's only one director on the shoot. But you can suggest things and Rob takes the suggestions and we both work together very well when it comes to that. He does a lot of asking too, like, "What do you think we should do here?" and that's the way it should be, that's the way it works out best and you get your best shot.

Staci: So what's left? This is the final week of principal photography, so any big stunts that you're looking forward to still?

Rawn: I've rated this movie all along on not how many days we have to go yet, but how many people I have to kill yet. [laughter] We've got two police officers to kill and then one of the security guards, another security guard to kill. They're basically just getting stabbed. I think one of them falls through some glass, which will be candy glass and that's always interesting.

You know, in thinking back, we had Scout [Taylor Compton], the actress, go through a back door that was all glass. And we had her take a chair and throw it through the candy glass which was real spectacular, and then she jumped through and ran away. Stuff like that. And then a lot of physical beating and strangling and hanging and things. But no major car jumps or crashes or anything like that with cars, we had a few pass bys and that's about it.

Staci: I'm sure with your experience you're very much in demand, so what's the deciding factor when you take on a project? What made you decide to take Halloween?

Rawn: Well, a few things on Halloween. First of all, it's kind of like going back to my roots. The first movie I ever coordinated was a movie called Hunter's Blood, which was a horror film that took place out in the boonies and it was the same type of thing. Just a lot of killing and stuff like that. That was the first one I ever coordinated and I thought, "This is really neat to go back and do that," because I hadn't done any… well, maybe one or two over the years.

And a couple of my good friends were working on it which was always nice to be able to work with your friends on a movie... and, to work with Rob. You know, a lot of factors. It was a remake of the original one. There's a lot of things with this movie that makes it enticing to work on and interesting to work on. The horror films, they're films that live forever. You know some of these major blockbusters die out and go away, but the horror films seem to... they have a following.

[end]

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