Hollywood Reporter: Richard Kobak, a stunt performer on Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark, is the latest to claim injury from high-flying stunts for the Broadway production. Kobak is the first to take his claims to court, filing a petition in New York Supreme Court that seeks documents relating to the computer system that was supposed to control the aerial rigging.
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Stuntman in 'Spider-Man' Musical Exploring Legal Action Over Injuries
Hollywood Reporter: Richard Kobak, a stunt performer on Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark, is the latest to claim injury from high-flying stunts for the Broadway production. Kobak is the first to take his claims to court, filing a petition in New York Supreme Court that seeks documents relating to the computer system that was supposed to control the aerial rigging.
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3 comments:
I'm trying to go through the Navigator front-end in my mind and figure out if there's a setting that you can adjust to compensate for weight of a performer OR if you even need to in the first place. I'm leaning towards the latter; that regardless of the weight of the object being flown the motion profiles will be the same. As long as the stuntmen's weights were comparable, I don't think it should matter. A significant height distance could matter - my knees are going to take a lot more pressure on a landing than Keeboch's.
I can't imagine something like this can't be fixed within Navigator. And they should be looking into solutions if it can't. There will only be more difficulties if it goes on the road or continues to run and the casts/stuntman change.
But part of me wants to be cynical and think maybe he just didn't have enough time to rehearse the stunts - in the railing case this seems to be so - and he is now suing because that's what people who are associated with Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark do.
This just seems like a case of producer/actor miscommunication and not enough initiative by both parties. If a performer asks you to do something, you better do it for them or give them an explanation. If you ask a producer to do something and they don't compensate for your health or safety, why keep doing it? Its up to people to protect your health and safety when you ask if it should be covered, but its ultimately up to you to decide if you put yourself in a situation that is compromising. Maybe some adjustments could be made or should have been made for new stuntman, but that requires time and commitment on both parties. It won't just happen overnight magically. I feel that sometimes people don't take initiative nowadays. We always feel we can hide behind something, we all do it. The only thing we can do is to try and not let that be the case.
I would have to agree with AJ C. on this. There was a real communications breakdown on both ends of the spectrum here. The fact that the producer did not notice issues going on with the actor, and did not correct them when the actor brought them up is a serious concern because they are supposed to be responsible for the health of the actor in this particular circumstance, when it's relating to equipment that the actor does not have control over. It seem that (based on the article), the actor pursued his grievances and issues with the rigging system very aggressively with the producers. While I can understand that sometimes the expectation is that people just take it, and deal with the consequences later, this actor needed to make it clear that this was an issue for him, and if the producers were not going to do anything about it, he needed to either see if he could find someone else who would, or get out, and make sure he doesn't get hurt further.
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