Traditionally, stunt artists need to double for different body types, looks, genders and ethnicities, and then perform athletically challenging maneuvers. However, the underwater stunt field, with its unique demands, such as the ability to perform long breath holds, to mimic those panicked motions which consume lots of oxygen without quitting, and to do this for hours on end, presents an insurmountable obstacle to the large majority of topside stunt artists. That's what sets us apart. Our unmatched diving skills allow us to do things no other stunt artist can. There are 3 different services we can provide in the underwater stunt field:
We have no interest in fast driving cars or motorcycles through explosions, jumping off buildings or flying through the air suspended by wires, but underwater, we can accomplish the impossible. Fall through the ice cracks on a frozen lake, fall towards the bottom and "drown" while wearing heavy winter clothing, a wig, face mask and body prosthetics? Been there. "Escaping" from a submarine hatch without breathing gear and frantically swim to the surface 120 ft away in one continuous, uninterrupted take, while avoiding Nazi depth charges? Done that. Get riddled with bullets, fall into the swimming pool and lay at its bottom for several minutes morphing into a nightmarish creature to then jump back out to terrorize the incredulous heroes who just shot you dead? Got that too. And if none of our members can match a specific look or body type, then another feature exclusive to us is that we have a pool of talent from where to find the right person comprised of hundreds of our diving students around the world.
But what if your story would be better served by showing the real actor's face through that crucial moment underwater? The actual stunt is not that all difficult and the actor is willing to try, but you quickly realize how difficult it is to do anything underwater for even a few seconds. We can help. Using the same proprietary training principles and techniques we've employed to turn 5 freedivers into world champions and guide them to over 20 world records, we can help any person become much more comfortable underwater and to perform activities they would have thought impossible in a very short time.
How it works: 1) we will ask to read the scene to get a feel for its requirements, signing an NDA if needed, 2) we will meet with the director and discuss how he envisions the scene in terms of angles and shots and offer our take of what's required, 3) we will then meet the actor or actors and perform a quick "Aquaticity Test" that will let us know how much training they will need to achieve the desired results -most scenes can be accomplished with 1 to 2 days of training and a maximum of 5- 4) if agreed, we will proceed to train the talent and, 5) will then coach them through the shoot until the shots are in the can. That's it! Contact us now for a consultation.
We are very happy to share our unique knowledge and techniques with our fellow stunt performers, and since many directors/producers have a solid relation with a team of stunt artists and prefer to work with them exclusively, we get quite a few requests from stunt teams to train them. To that effect, we have developed the "Aquaticity Stunt Course", which is aimed at increasing the specific skills needed to perform stunts underwater and to develop biological response mechanisms and training patterns that will allow our students to keep improving their underwater performance long after the course is over. As of 2010, over 150 stunt artists from 8 different countries have graduated from this course, and all report "the capacity to do what they couldn't before", in their words.
How it works: 1) contact us and let’s talk about your needs and goals from taking our course as well as the particulars of your team, number of students, specific requirements, time frames, etc, 2) we’ll answer your question and concerns in detail and give you a quote and time frame estimate for course completion, 3) we agree on a time and location for the course, we can come to you, you can come to us, we can meet somewhere in the middle, 4) we teach the course to your team, it usually takes 4-5 days of 8 hours, 4 hours of pool/ocean work and 4 hours of classroom, 5) upon course completion, we set up a training regime for each course student based on their aquaticity assessment so that they can experience an accelerated progress based on their particular strengths and weaknesses.