$50 million special FX? Who needs 'em?

I mentioned this to my wife and she agrees with me: If Mr. Spielberg, Mr. Lucas, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Jackson (to name a few) want to save mucho bux on SFX on their next extravaganza, they should follow me around with a camera for a week and they’ll get some of the most fantastic physics-defying, no-trick-photography stunts ever imagined.

This morning’s example:

I tossed a tube of ointment onto the bed from about 5 feet away. It should have glided through the air and landed–Plop–on the mattress. Instead, the folded-over crimped end touched first, the tube flipped onto the cap end and bounced, end over crimped and capped end, six times and fell between the wall and the head of the bed. Could I have made that happen? Hell, no. If movie dudes had wanted that to happen, how much would it have cost in puppetry or CGI? Don’t know, don’t care.

Every one of you has a similar story and I’m not leaving until I hear them all.

You may begin. :wink:

I started a landslide once, way out in the desert. Pretty good.

Not as good as the avalanches in Dante’s Peak…but better than the rockslides in the Star Trek episode “Friday’s Child.”

I once slipped on a steep rocky trail, and was told my prattfall was better than anything Dick Van Dyke or Ken Berry ever did. (Dislocated my shoulder and had a small concussion, but apparently it looked really dramatic.)

I dropped a bottle once, reached out with my leg, and caught AND balanced the bottle on the toe of my shoe.

Years ago, my brother and I were playing darts in the club basement and he wings a dart and it sticks 3 microns from the bull’s-eye. I run up to check and announce Ha-ha, you just missed. Before I can get clear, the little demon wings another at the DB. I was pointing at Dart #1–my finger was less than 1/2 inch from it–when the second dart just missed my digit and stuck in the first dart like the winning archery shot in Robin Hood. Trying to look (and remain) cool, I pointed out Dart #2 was not a bull’s-eye, either.

Years ago, during a survey project in the Gulf of Mexico we needed to attend to a few tasks on a small, isolated islet. Our ‘kicker’ outboard was out of commission so we needed to row the tin skiff into the beach. As the ‘party chief’, I got to ride shotgun in the stern while the two assistants each manned an oar. Even though there was a bit of a swell, all seemed routine…until one of the rarely-used oars broke just as a swell was approaching. The skiff lurched sideways as the stern lifted. Somehow I kept my balance enough to take two steps toward the bow and one onto the steep sandy beach while the two oarsmen went port and starboard into the briny deep and the swash from the wave took the skiff back out to them.

Luckily, I kept my cool and was able to yell to my floundering mates (while standing high and dry on the beach) “Guys, come on - we got work to do and no time for fun and games”. :smiley:

Doing cleanup in the canning factory. Almost done, I just had to grease a couple of machines.

Walking quickly, attempt to make a left turn. Lose all traction, both legs go up and I land flat on back. People watching said it looked just like a cartoon fall.

I did something like that once. I was walking in a hall with three other people, hit a patch of some liquid and slipped/fell so fast that people kept walking and chattering for several steps before they realized I wasn’t with them any more.

I did a comedic one after an ice storm. Arms & legs flailing about trying to regain balance until I fell on my ass.