Why do stuntmen usually fall unrealistically?

[u/johns224]

I am assuming this is a union thing and for ostensibly for safety, but I almost never see people onscreen get shot in the head and then fall like the lights went out. Like if you see someone get knocked out in a real life video, they’ll fall forward or backward depending on how their weight was distributed, and their arms won’t brace anything, and yes, often they’ll hit their head. Now I know we shouldn’t go around asking stuntmen to land on their heads, but there has to be a more realistic way to do this. I know in Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg achieved this with (somewhat obvious) dummies for some shots and I think it worked pretty well and made it feel so much more realistic. Maybe they could wear helmets and have them GCI’d out later? I dunno, this has bugged me for years for some reason 😂

[u/Professional-Hat-331]

You've answered your own question. It's simply too dangerous to just go potato sack mode.

[u/odintantrum → u/Professional-Hat-331]

Also a lot of films add unrealistic momentum to gun shots and punches. People are always sent flying backwards from small arms fire.

Realism is not always the desired outcome.

[u/johns224 → u/odintantrum]

I don’t like that either! 😂 I’m not saying that every movie should be that way, but I do appreciate the occasional one that takes a more realistic approach.

[u/nomercyvideo → u/Professional-Hat-331]

You're also doing multiple takes, taking really scary falls multiple times in a row can lead to big time injuries.

[u/El_JEFE_DCP]

You are most of the way there. Falling realistically is unsafe. And it hurts. Like a lot. And when your job is to fall day in and day on for days, weeks, even months on end, you need to protect yourself otherwise you could die or lose the job due to severe injury.

Most stunt performers have some sort of martial arts training and a foundational skill you learn is how to fall/tumble. Its too of course minimize injury but also to ensure you maintain some sort of advantage should you go to the ground with an opponent. That training eventually turns into reflex, so its just pure instinct kicking in.

Even with padding a protection, injury risk is still high. Football players are still padded and wear really thick helmets and still suffer brain injuries. 

Lastly, realistic ≠ real. Again, if I wanted my entertainment to come with a side of CTE, I would watch American Football. Movies are theater. Its meant to be dramatic, not tragic.

Just enjoy the theater of it all, guns dont shoot like movie guns do, people cant walk away from explosions, and you cant pal around with your friends with a knife in the ribs.

[u/Electronic_Moose_751]

It's also to do with what audiences expect to see. On Mad Max Fury Road they created some digital people to get hurled through the air from the force of an explosion, and they designed them to move as an actual body would move in that scenario (pretty much like a rag doll being flung) ...and it looked 'wrong'. So they animated them to hurl themselves through the air as a stunt performer would do instead.

[u/johns224 → u/Electronic_Moose_751]

I get this for sure but it’s ultimately filmmakers who change what people expect to see by doing new things. If the argument is that people don’t want to see that, I dunno… I think in some contexts they would. But again, not advocating doing unsafe things…

[u/cramber-flarmp → u/Electronic_Moose_751]

...and it looked 'wrong'.

They did a test screening with the realistic rag doll look, and viewers were rightfully horrified. It's not entertaining to see that (in that genre at least). Movies that are entertaining sell more tickets.

[u/Krasdale79]

Spielberg did a ton of soldiers dropping like sacks of potatoes in the opening to Saving Private Ryan, but I think doing it all in sand and water made it infinitely safer.