Vic Armstrong honoured by Stuntmen’s Association in USA
By: Anders Frejdh
Published: 2017-11-28
FSWL contributor Jon Auty reports that the Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures in USA has awarded legendary stuntman, stunt coordinator and 2nd Unit director Vic Armstrong with an honorary membership of the association.
FSWL would like to extend our thanks to Vic who has always been very supportive of this website, and congratulate him on the special honour from Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures.
Vic Armstrong on directing the 2nd Unit for Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
"We did the major sequences the traditional way - including the boat, ski and helicopter sequences. It's by far the most economical way of doing it, otherwise there's so much time and energy wasted - especially if you've got the actors there for a limited time. But there were times when we would go off and shoot whole sequences and then put the actors into them. In those situations, [the director's] first unit became the good old insert unit!
The thing about the James Bond films is that the spectacular footage is all real stuff. On The World Is Not Enough (1999), we used digital effects very sparingly. I think that's the hallmark of the franchise: it is dangerous, and people do the stunts. It is truly man against man, or man against nature, and I think it shows. It takes a hell of a long time to shoot those kinds of scenes, which is why I had a 2nd unit that was running the whole time I was."