Cut! Alex Gunn
Alex Gunn is the special-effects supervisor behind, among many others, Band of Brothers, Troy and Munich. He takes his task so seriously he'll study pictures of war wounds or read Homer to get an epic fight just right. His graphic work on the latest Rambo movie has both delighted and appalled people
You can tell Alex Gunn is a hard man. It’s not simply his gravelly South London accent, punctuated by a menacing if mischievous laugh, it’s his commitment to getting things right. He will not be budged. There is the right way, the Alex way. Or there’s the wrong way.
How did you decide you wanted a career in special effects?
As a kid I was always interested in models, Airfix kits and suchlike. I would spend hours building them and then I would go to the top of my tower block, strap them with fireworks, lob them off the roof and watch them explode in mid-air. That was the kick. It was great to build the stuff, but to see how realistically you could destroy something was just as interesting.
You’ve worked with top directors on more than 46 productions. How was working with Sly Stallone on the latest Rambo film?
Brilliant. I loved every minute. Stallone would ask me for an effect and I would just be able to do it. Or I would suggest something and Sly would say ‘How much do you need to do it and when do you need it?’ Bang! Done! None of that bean-counting you occasionally get elsewhere.
How does the latest Rambo film compare to the very first one?
Oddly, people often cite the first movie as being the most violent. But it only has one death, and it’s swift – someone’s yanked out of a helicopter and good night Vienna. The second and third movies had higher death counts but were very much of their time – 1980s-style big action movies. Very violent, but not credibly so. Like in the second one, I think he fires his machine gun into a computer in order to disable things and kill people. That struck me as an image of huge impotency. The fact is he’s shooting an inanimate object. Rambo should be shooting people.
There’s certainly a lot of that in the movie you worked on…
Rambo is a Boys Own hero, and Stallone is a man’s man. I mean, Rambo is not a date movie, is it? And you wouldn’t invite him round to meet your mum, or your wife. Though having said that, he is a pretty charming fella. In fact, in pride of place in my hall is a shot of him and me with all the family. But this movie does exactly what it says on the tin. You know it’s gonna be violent. It’s Rambo, for crying out loud. If you don’t like the idea, don’t go in.
How did you make the violence so realistic?
That was partly down to studying footage of gunshot victims, partly because Stallone and I watched The Wild Bunch endlessly and partly due to hiring real amputees so we could make blowing off limbs look as real as possible.
Wouldn’t that be traumatic for them?
You do talk to the actors and stunt men beforehand. This time we had guys who’d had limbs blown off in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reasoning is that the MoD or the State Department or whoever haven’t taken care of them so they may as well get paid elsewhere. Trust me, these guys get paid handsomely.
Some scenes in Rambo are reminiscent of Apocalypse Now…
Yeah, the claustrophobia of the jungle, that sense of this beautiful green place being utterly hostile. Apocalypse Now was a movie we used for reference material. We allude to things that happened in that movie – for instance the helicopter gunships attacking the village, or when the soldiers attack on foot. We wanted that scene to have a similar impact.
Did you ever get lost in the jungle?
No, but it’s bloody easy to do so. One false step off the path and you ain’t gonna find your way back because it all looks the same.
You’re not a huge CGI fan?
With Rambo we went the old-school route of using amputee performers. However, where scenes involve a main character you use CGI – you don’t want them spending hours in make-up having blood wiped off. Especially when the main character also happens to be the director, and that director happens to be Sly Stallone.
Excellent point, well made.
Cheers. I hope you’re gonna be nice about Sly, me, and the movie. Otherwise we’re not talking CGI, or old school. We’re talking super old school. Know what I mean?
Story by Ben Marshall
Rambo is out now on Sony Blu-ray Disc™, from Sony Home Entertainment Pictures
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