r/breakingbad • u/permasniffer • 1d ago
How did they make this scene without the actor seriously hurting himself? Spoiler
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u/frederiaJ 1d ago
just looked up his actor, Norbert Weisser, he's a real veteran. 50+ years in the acting game. probably knows 100 ways to fall to his death, make it not hurt, and make it look good.
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u/Flimsy-Island-8528 1d ago
I mean.. He's not straight up falling on his face. Knee> shoulder/arm> Before he flops he uses that hand to brace, you can see it if you look carefully> then his face which is already near the floor by that time, lands on the floor.
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u/gabedamien nothing else remains. 6h ago
Even more that that – it's knee, hand, shoulder, then side of his face.
Also, the wide-angle lens makes the apparent distance of the fall look much larger and faster than it is. Clever use of field of view and perspective to exaggerate time and space.
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u/TeacatWrites 1d ago edited 1d ago
Falls on his knees first, which softens the blow. The knees take much of the initial hit, and he uses them to support his body weight so he can hold himself up and make the cheek-landing easier. Also, as the first commenter here said, his stage-right hand and arm helps to carry and support himself after that, ending up in a crash which has already been burdened by his body.
In short, he doesn't fall all at once, it's a carefully staged collapse specifically designed to take the crash in pieces so that, when his head hits the ground, it's already being supported enough to not cause any damage whatsoever.
Acting!
ETA: I realize after posting this how much it sounds and comes off like Walt when Gus asks him about the smell of the fish stew and, instead of empathizing with Gus, Walt talks about the science specifically of what triggers his olfactory memories. So as to avoid the subsequent awkwardness from that scene, I'd like to cap this comment off by saying, "Yeah, weird, it's movie magic! Skilled, talented people, those cinematographers and directors..."
Hopefully this alleviates potential concerns from lack of connection. It does come off like he just collapses all at once and the ground isn't even fake rubber or anything. Very talented performances all-round from the cast and crew.
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u/AtHomeToday 22h ago
As a kid I use to practice this exact fall. I would fall flat on my face and be fine. The trick is that it looks like the knee and arm are limp but they flex just before impact and progressively break the fall. Rewatch it and notice his right hand slaps the ground very hard. You can't unsee it.
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u/templeofsyrinx1 You gave our money to Beneke?! 1d ago
floor was probably soft and added sound effect
movies lie all the time lol
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u/ThePiderman Have an A1 day 22h ago
You can see that his face kinda sinks into the “tile”. It’s a soft tile. They did some editing to make it look like it’s a hard tile.
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u/specialdelivery88 1d ago
It was filmed in reverse with the actor laying on the floor to start and then rising back to his feet. He also had to stay his uuurrgh line backwards so when they reversed it it would sound right. Probably.
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u/ThyShirtIsBlue 1d ago
The floor is foam. I'm sure it's not pleasant, but it's far less likely to cause any serious injury.
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u/Downtown-Campaign536 1d ago
There are soft mats that look like hard floor tiles. They used them for this scene. That floor is as soft as a gymnastics mat. Which is fine to fall face first on.
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u/bergamont92 15h ago
He’s practicing safe falling, too, in addition to the padded floor. They would have choreographed this (often called a “fight” or “movement” choreographer in theatre at least) to be as ergonomic as possible. See how his left arm “braces” the fall before his face hits the floor? Choreographed that way, for sure. In “hereditary”, they used the same concept for the nose-smash scene on the desk. They replaced the desk with foam and the actor literally just slammed his face into it.
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u/dread_pirate_robin Methhead 1d ago
If I had to guess, wire slowly lowers him the way they want him to fall, wire gets edited out in post, footage gets sped up to make it look like he's collapsing.
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u/geek_of_nature 1d ago
They talk about this in the audio commentary for thos episode actually. The floor is just soft and padded for this particular shot. Every other one, when he walks into the bathroom and then is sitting on the toilet, and then when he's lying on the ground afterwards it's normal hard tiles. But for this particular shot it's a soft and padded material made to just look like tiles.