CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Zombie movie accident hurts 17 in Toronto

CBC News: The collapse of a platform during a shoot for a zombie movie in west Toronto has injured 17 people, police say. Eleven of the 17 were taken to hospital after falling from a platform while they were working on a scene from the film Resident Evil: Retribution at the Cinespace Film Studios at 777 Kipling Ave. north of the Queensway Tuesday morning.

7 comments:

Jess Bertollo said...

As terrible as this story is, having actors injured on a set, I think it's a large compliment to the make-up artists. If the professionals who were trained in the medical field couldn't tell the difference between the fake blood and the real blood, the make-up artists must be doing a really good job.

Matt said...

I'm a terrible person. I saw the title and the location of the news story and thought this was evidence that Pittsburgh-native George Romero was shooting a new zombie movie. (His films all all set in Pittsburgh though has since chosen to shoot the last 3 in Toronto for financial reasons.)

And it is kind of funny in a macabre way to think that medical response members couldn't identify the actual wounds from the make-up wounds. There was a similiar story last year around this time of a car crash full of people dressed as zombies on their way to a halloween party. Make you wonder, if stagehands develop a safer culture of climate around construction of temporary installations and the zombie apocalypse does happen, will we be smart enough to know?

Tom Strong said...

We had a similar issue with the paramedics at the haunted house I was working with, we had an actor who was covered in fake blood hit his head and need stitches. He was taken out to the front of the building to wait for the ambulance, and while waiting there several patrons came by offering to help (including a veterinarian), and then when the paramedics arrived they reacted to what they originally saw, we had to point out where the actual blood was as opposed to the makeup.

Anonymous said...

I keep hearing more and more stories about stage collapses and accidents on movie sets. This leaves me wondering whether there shouldn't be more standard practices in place for these temporary constructions, and whether it might be a good idea for these structures to be cleared by some sort an inspector before they can be put into use. Making a movie or playing a concert is not worth risking a life. On another note, these make-up artists should win an award! I can only imagine how awful the whole situation must have been for the paramedics and I don't think the situation should be taken lightly, but it would rude not to give the make-up artists a nod for their convincing work. That aside, it would be nice to see more regulations put into place to prevent these situations in the first place.

JaredGerbig said...

And Here it is another addition to the long list of people (and i knew Matt would be one of those)that found a certain dark humor to the fact that the scene was with a group of Zombies and that the medics were confused about wh was actually injured or not , its tragic but its also really quite funny and to an extent , you have to be able to laugh at stuff like that.. or what else will you do, start the finger pointing game again.

Daniel L said...

Shouldn't we be able to prevent a wheeled platform from moving pretty easily? This is a failure on at least two counts: the platform moving, and the opportunity for the actors to fall from that height on to a hard surface.

Regarding the use of blood makeup, while it is a compliment to the makeup artists, it is something about which to think; were there a disaster at a haunted attraction, the use of fake blood could seriously impede triage efforts.

Wyatt said...

ya I am going to hell for laughing at the fact that they couldn’t tell the zombie makeup from the real injuries. My question is how big was this moving platform? If 17 people fell off of it my guess is that it would be a huge platform and if its that big why did it move so suddenly? It seems like someone did something wrong...