On Set Disasters

Interesting article today on cracked:
http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_1...s-huge-movies/

I'll link the first image here so you can get a feel for the article.



They are missing a lot of tragedies as well. For example, on the directors commentary of platoon it's revealed someone died trying to build the vietkong tunnels under ground. After that they used fake tunnels in a set instead of on location.

I would hate for something bad to happen on one of my projects, but a part of me also feels that certain kinds of risk are part of the entertainment business. In the circus people willing endanger their lives to put on a show every single day.

One of the more infamous onset disasters was on the set of John Landis' Twilight Zone: The Movie, in which actor Vic Morrow and two children were killed when a helicopter crashed into the water on top of them, decapitating Morrow. You can find the footage online, though thankfully it's far enough away you don't see anything gruesome.

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Yes that made it into the article.

I'd always heard about this during the filming of The Abyss (1989):

During underwater filming, Ed Harris almost drowned. While filming a scene where he had to hold his own breath at the bottom of the submerged set, Harris ran out of air and gave the signal for oxygen. Harris' safety diver got hung up on a cable and could not get to him. Another crew member gave Harris a regulator, but it was upside down and caused him to suck in water. A camera man came over, ripped the upside down regulator, and gave him one in the correct orientation. Later that evening, Ed broke down and cried.

I'd also heard at the time that James Cameron had sabotaged a valve that Harris, while underwater, was supposed to be able to turn and enter back into the underwater station. Cameron allegedly wanted to catch the panic on Harris' face. Needless to say, Harris was beyond pissed. I remember reading this in Premiere magazine after the movie was released, but I can't find it on Google or anyplace else now. At least I got the first story above from IMDb. I know that Ed Harris will not talk about the making of The Abyss now, so something bad definitely happened.

The link to numerous gripes about conditions on The Abyss is here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096754/trivia

Then there's the tragedy on the set of The Crow, starring Brandon Lee, which took his life. I think most everyone knows that tale, but it's easy to look up if you Google it, or use whatever search engine you have.

Then there's the movie about the life of rocker Greg Allman, where a woman was killed by a train because the crew was illegally filming on a railroad track. Here's the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Rider_%28film%29

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Here's a list of just 6 near-fatal accidents from 2013 alone: most of these I'd never heard of:

http://whatculture.com/film/6-actors...est-movies.php

Yeah this has given the industry a much needed shake up, as the people in charge of the film were all charged with manslaughter.

Sending the signal it's not okay to lie to people and put them in danger!
Should be common sense but hey this is the human race we're talking about.

Really interesting stuff here...the only ones I knew about prior to reading this were the Vic Morrow incident, the Jackie Cooper incident, and Buddy Ebsen's reaction to the Tin Man makeup.