I’m watching Stagecoach, and I’m wondering: how were arrow-shot effects done in 1939? In the trailer for Stagecoach (haven’t gotten to the relevant scene yet) there was a shot of a woman looking out the window of the stage at an Apache attack, when two arrows struck and stuck in the bulkhead next to her window…just inches away from her face.
I can think of many ways this would be achieved today: double exposure, split screen, CGI, invisible glass protecting the actress…and I don’t think any of those would have been available or affordable in 1939.
Very accurate stunt co-ordinators. Sometimes for very brief shots they would fire the arrow down a wire and remove the wire during processing and editing.
Not sure if they actually used this method, but one way they did it was with an established stage effect: a concealed arrow on a spring. It would spring up from a panel in the wall or behind a beam, super-fast. That also guaranteed that distinctive vibration that usually accompanies a hit.
Picture a spring-loaded hinge. Attach an arrow to one side of the hinge, so that when the spring is extended it looks like the arrow is sticking out of the wood. Fold the arrow flat against the wall. When you want an arrow strike, trip the spring. The arrow snaps upright, and to the naked eye from the audience, it appears to have been shot there.
The arrow comes out of the stagecoach, not into it. It’s concealed in the wood and springs out so quickly that the mind just assumes it was fired into the wood from far away.
Well, here’s the trailer. If that’s how they did it, they did an excellent job making-up the wood of the bulkhead so I couldn’t tell they did it that way.
That was probably silenus’s first guess, being shot by careful stunt archers. In this case, they were probably fired only a short distance off camera, to ensure accuracy.
silenus pretty much nailed it. Special expert shots with bow and arrows were used, and they would stand just feet away from the target area so it would be hard to miss. In addition. camera angles and lenses would be used to make it seem even closer.
guano lad could have been correct too, because it was not unknown at the time to use the arrow (or knife) on a spring hidden within the target area, but the film was directed by John Ford who preferred the use of the expert bowmen.
Another popular method was the quick cut with sound effect. Have the woman (wasn’t it Claire Trevor?) look out. Stop the film place the arrows in the target start the camera have the actress react, and over lay the sound effect of arrows hitting wood. The theory behind this is that the human eye could not see an arrow arrive because they were so fast. The problem, however, tends to be the actress being able to stay in exactly the same position to make it look real. To remedy this, the second camera shot is usually done from a different point of view.
But as I said expert shots were regulary used. It was also done with guns. On occasion with bad results. James Cagney almost lost an eye from flying glass while doing a scene where real bullets were shot through a window and he was supposedly out of the line of fire.
These guys were exceptionally good. Invaribly they would give demonstrations before the day’s shooting and their acuracy was incredible. I saw them hit tagets the size of quarters held by an assistant 25 feet away. After their demonstrations most actors or actresses would trust them. The guys I always respected were the ones who were shot by arrows. A couple of inches off and the effect was real. Most of the time you see it, it is the cut and place the arrow, but on occasion you will see the padded guy who takes the arrow.
One of my favorite is the flying knife hitting a person. Their balance and relative slowness of flight makes this especially hard to fake.
I’d really like a cite on this. I’ve heard the same claim made with respect to use of tommy guns in old gangster movies. Why would film makers prefer to use a more dangerous method when there were established stage effects?
Look at the trailer linked by Fiver. The arrow strikes occur at around the 2:57-2:58 mark, immediately following the forward fall of the tripwired horse. Even with the poor resolution of the postage-stamp video file, the arrows are clearly coming from offscreen right. In fact, they’re striking the center panel of the coach, behind which the performer is sitting, so there’d be no space behind the post from which the shafts could be ejected (presuming a “shoot out” method vs a “hinge down” method of faking the strikes). More importantly, note also that the coach is not actually moving, that its motion is being suggested with rear projection and camera effects. Note further that the arrows don’t strike particularly hard; they appear to sink an inch or so into soft wood. Thus, for this shot, you have a large stationary object, a target eight or ten inches across, a performer who is not in direct line with that target, and a medium closeup with plenty of space for an arrow delivery system to be placed just off camera to the right. Based on all of this, I think it’s safe to conclude that the most likely setup has an archer a couple of yards away, making a very light draw, or possibly some sort of crossbow-type mechanism, and a big fat target with the performer sitting next to it.
I’ve seen special effects specials (I’m a special effects freak) that demonstrated a number of ways of shooting arrows into objects. The three most popular were wire-guided, sharpshooters and hidden spring (either fold-up or “shoot-out”,which is basically popping something out from the back.) The problem with wire-guided is that the arrow wouldn’t quiver after the strike. This was used almost exclusively when shooting arrows into people – the padding was a clay-like substance that the point of the arrow stuck into.
Pop-up and pop-out arrows worked great for the vibration effect, and were always used when an arrow (or knife) was supposed to hit very close to an actor’s face or body. They had to be staged in front of something like a tree or a building, so there would be a place to hide the arrow before it popped out or up.
Sharpshooters were used the rest of the time, and I’d concur that the scene in “Stagecoach” was done this way. The actress isn’t really all that close, and there doesn’t appear to be enough space on her side of the panel to hide two arrows. The design of the wood panels makes it pretty hard for a hinged arrow to work. Notice that, no matter how slowly you roll the video, you can’t see the side of the coach before the arrows hit. Good editing was essential to make these things look realistic.
It’s clearly the use of a sharpshooter. Note where the arrows hit: a flat square area probably about 6 x 6 inches. A perfect target. You just put some cork (it can be much deeper than you would assume) with a steel backing. The archer should be able to hit that square pretty consistently, especially since he’d probably be only a short distance from the target (he only has to be off camera; the arrow probably only has to travel 6 feet or so).
Note also that the stagecoach isn’t rocking when the shots were made, and you don’t see any background. The stagecoach body was used on a soundstage for the interior shots (moving scenery was probably some sort of scenery on interior shots). Stage hands moved it up and down to give the impression of motion. For the arrow shot, though, the coach is not shaking to make the process safer. It’s such a short cut that you don’t realize it’s not showing any sign of motion – and the arrows make sure you’re not noticing.
Finally, if you stop the trailer at the right moment, you can see the arrows in the air.
None of this is what I’d call a cite. Mostly, it’s been how you (collectively) interpret what you think you see in the clip. See the Zapruder film for why I won’t accept individual interpretation as fact.