John Wick 2's Stunt Coordinator Breaks Down the Opening Car Chase

(tires screeching) (John grunting)

My name's Darrin Prescott

and I was the second unit director for John Wick 2.

I'm gonna do a one scene breakdown of the opening car chase

where John Wick comes back to get his car

and takes out a bunch of assassins.

So this shot, Keanu's a great driver,

probably the best actor-driver in the business,

but this particular shot,

a lot of times if we're not tying the actor

into the exterior driving,

there's actually a thing that sits on the top of the car

like this and Robert Nagle drives from up here

and steers the car all through,

so we went all through the warehouse, outside the warehouse,

around the parking lot with Nagle on top driving

so everybody's safe,

so Keanu didn't have to worry about it.

This garage, this warehouse actually had a proper ramp here

but it wasn't quite enough to get the lift we wanted

so we brought in steel plates and laid them out like this

and welded them together to make a steeper jump.

This area here is just a little bit wider

than the actual car.

And to make this shot work the car had to be sideways,

or in a drift, as it's going up the ramp,

coupled with the fact that the floor was wet and snotty,

so his traction was horrible.

So when he went to take off he got a ton of wheel spin.

(engine revving)

(tires screeching)

So this is the reverse of that jump shot.

The steel ramp is on the other side here.

Doesn't look that narrow from here

but it's amazing how tight this distance here was.

We also had an Edge arm is out here,

which is basically a Mercedes with a camera arm on the top,

a crane like this, and it's got a camera here like this.

So not only is he trying to figure out how to drift

through this small space

and when he lands we wanna keep the drift going

and keep the car running,

but he also can't slam into this car.

I think we had two stunt cars,

a pod car and then I think we had a hero car,

which are always useless to us

'cause they tell us we can't touch the hero car.

The very first take we did of this

we hit this side of the warehouse here

and crushed one of the Mustangs on the very first take.

It fell into that category of risk versus reward.

So we decided that the shot was gonna be so cool.

We did this, I wanna say this was like seven or eight takes,

to get this shot and the car, every time, would die.

And I think at one point it no longer had reverse

so we'd have to pull it in and then push him back

to get enough space to start.

It was such a cool moment on set

because when we finally got this shot

everybody was so invested it was like we won the Super Bowl.

It was really, really, cool.

Yeah, this taxi, it's basically a straightforward jump,

stuntman just hitting a small jump and launching this car.

The funny thing is,

you can see this taxi hasn't been in any crashes yet,

but it's already missing this, it's all smashed here,

because we probably shot something first

before we did this jump,

and then repurposed this taxi,

and this shot was fast enough that nobody really notices.

(engine revving) (tires screeching)

The idea behind this, we labeled it the Car Gang-Bang,

the plate trailer is basically,

you're trying to shoot the background plate

of this shot, right?

So you have the hood of the car out here,

you come in one day and you frame up on Keanu,

and say this is your frame,

and you write down the lens size whatever it is,

and the height from the hood of the car,

where he is from the window, the whole deal,

and then you recreate this on a trailer

at the same exact height.

So if this is two feet, and this is, whatever, a foot,

and you're on, I dunno, say you're on a 40 mill,

you put this on a trailer in the exact same spot.

So you've got your trailer here like this,

and you mount the camera on it here,

recreating this exact position,

and then you smash into the trailer on location.

So it gives you all the background that you need

on the practical location.

Then you go on green screen.

You put a green screen all back here.

You put your lead actor in the car

and then we'll ratchet the car,

meaning we'll put the actual hero car, the Mustang,

on green screen, we tie a cable to it,

and we'll give it a little bit of a pull

so that it helps motivate the actor as if he got hit,

then they just put the two pieces together,

they comp them together

and you end up with something like that.

(engine revs)

(glass shatters)

This is just a practical in-camera shot.

This is Keanu actually driving back and slamming into a car.

Keanu had a bunch of driver training.

He had a ton on the first Wick,

and he had a bunch on the second Wick,

and he's really good on a motorcycle.

And for him, this is a simple shot.

(engine revving)

(tires screeching)

The first take we did of this Keanu drove,

we just didn't get the action

out of the bike and the dummy we were hoping for.

This is a dummy now.

There was a arm off the front of the car like this

that went back to the motorcycle

and towed the motorcycle here.

The dummy's mounted to it.

And because these dummies

are actual size and weight of human,

they're like 5'10, 175 pounds,

with the weight of this dummy

helped it look a lot more authentic.

There's also a thing called a cannon

mounted to the motorcycle,

'cause we wanted the motorcycle to flip,

which is basically a cylinder with a pipe in it,

and they put an explosive in it,

and when we get to a certain speed they hit a button

which fires the explosive,

which drives the cannon down into the ground

and flips the motorcycle.

So we put a little bit of plexiglass in here

to protect Keanu,

we put the dummy on an eight foot cable

tethered to the bike,

because when we did this in testing

the dummy flew way out here,

the bike went over but the dummy just got launched

'cause he's on the end like a pea on a spoon.

This is probably sparks from the cannon.

That right there is the hole

where the cannon pipe comes out of.

It's a practical bike, it's a practical dummy,

and then we just CG'd a little bit of movement on the dummy.

(engine revving)

You see this shot here.

That camera was here so that's a VFX removal

on that camera for this overhead shot.

This car, obviously, is here.

A lot of times we don't have the resources

to test something like this.

And you can't just smash cars to see.

A lot of it is just us dipping into our experience

and saying okay if we back this car up this far,

and we hit it at 30, we should get enough decell

before he hits the immovable object.

See how far this car is?

It starts here on that line and it's moving.

This is that line back here.

So it's moving 10 feet of decell,

plus the crushing of the car,

so we try to mitigate the amount of damage.

(tires screeching)

(metal crunching)

So this is Keanu actually doing the impact into that car.

You also see that he doesn't wrap his thumbs

around the steering wheel.

That's a veteran stunt move right there

'cause you wrap your thumbs around the steering wheel

and you hit anything and your body goes forward

it breaks both your thumbs.

So guys will keep their thumbs on the outside

of the steering wheel so your hands just come off the wheel.

(tires screeching)

(body thuds) (man grunts)

The way this gag originally was laid out

was he's on a wire being pulled.

I think it's probably here and it goes around his back

and goes up to a post so we get a little bit of a twist.

It might be more here on his back.

This post was actually a foam built post.

See how thick it is here?

They built this and added a foam side to it.

(assassins yelling)

(fist thuds)

(leg thumps)

Keanu comes in, if we have him for two hours,

he's working for four.

If we have him for four hours, he's working for six.

When you get somebody who trains that hard

and who's willing to go into the choreography that deep

it allows you to sit in beautiful wide frames like this.

You couldn't do that with an actor

who didn't train like this.

That's textbook Judo right there from Keanu.

(engine revving)

Jackson Spidell's been doubling Keanu

for all the fight stuff on both John Wicks.

He just, just a little bit, lift his leg up

and just gets his hip up on the car.

(yelling)

(John thuds)

So this guy,

I think he was like a Russian Sambo champion or something,

this is Jackson,

he picked up Jackson like he weighed 20 pounds,

there's no wire on this or anything,

and just dumps him to the ground.

(gun fires) (Russian yells)

You move considerably faster

whenever we can employ VFX blood hits,

as long as you have a good VFX guy.

They end up adding muzzle flash,

they end up adding the gun cycling, the shells ejecting,

things like that through a lot of John Wick.

(Russian groaning)

(dramatic music)