Michael Bay and the producers of Transformers 3 could be in a world of hurt, though probably not as much as Gabriela Cedillo, a twenty four year old Chicago bank teller hospitalized yesterday after an on set accident left her with serious head injuries.
According to both the LA Times and Deadline, Cedillo was working on set as an extra when a stunt sequence went badly wrong. This would be bad enough but making it even worse are reports that Cedillo - very definitely NOT a trained stunt performer - was involved in a stunt sequence at the time, according to one report having been paid a measly twenty five bucks to allow her car to be hooked up to a cable rig that was towing her car through an elaborate action sequence when the cable snapped and smashed through her windshield while the car smashed into the concrete median barrier wall on the highway where they were shooting. Initial news reports - see the embedded clip below - tell the story of where Cedillo was at the time of the accident slightly differently but given that they'll have gotten their information from a paid publicist attached to the film while the Deadline report came from an anonymous witness on set, I'm a bit more inclined to believe Deadline's account.
Obvious question: Why the hell was a non-professional anywhere close to a major action sequence at all, particularly if Deadline is correct and she was right in the middle of it with no training in her own car? This is bad, bad stuff and our best wishes go to Cedillo for a quick and full recovery.
According to both the LA Times and Deadline, Cedillo was working on set as an extra when a stunt sequence went badly wrong. This would be bad enough but making it even worse are reports that Cedillo - very definitely NOT a trained stunt performer - was involved in a stunt sequence at the time, according to one report having been paid a measly twenty five bucks to allow her car to be hooked up to a cable rig that was towing her car through an elaborate action sequence when the cable snapped and smashed through her windshield while the car smashed into the concrete median barrier wall on the highway where they were shooting. Initial news reports - see the embedded clip below - tell the story of where Cedillo was at the time of the accident slightly differently but given that they'll have gotten their information from a paid publicist attached to the film while the Deadline report came from an anonymous witness on set, I'm a bit more inclined to believe Deadline's account.
Obvious question: Why the hell was a non-professional anywhere close to a major action sequence at all, particularly if Deadline is correct and she was right in the middle of it with no training in her own car? This is bad, bad stuff and our best wishes go to Cedillo for a quick and full recovery.
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Was there any need to have her flying around inside a car? Sounds pointless to me, just cgi the damn thing, like everything else they do. This was revolting to read, hoping anyone responsible in this accident gets charged for this.
Untrained extras should definitely not have been asked or allowed to participate in stunt-filming. This would be disgraceful on the part of the stunt team should it be true. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt at the moment, as I group 'anonymous witnesses' in the same subset as paid publicists.
I hope Cedillo makes a full recovery soon.
She was set up double crossed and left for dead... Now one man stand's in her way that left her astray, He is Bay!!! At 100 mph full throttle one woman with a headcase on a hellbent killing spree and revenge is just the beginning, she is 'CEDILLO'....
Oh, please say this means he can't make movies anymore.
Please tell me Michael Bay will not make more movies!!!
Michael Bay made movies??
I mean I've watched some things by him...and stuff moved around in them....and there were people in them ...and their mouths moved..and they said words...but I don't know that I'd call them movies ...anymore than I'd call watching some drunk getting electrocuted and then staggering around screaming and projectile vomiting ..a movie.
You're dreaming if you think this would in any way hinder Bay. With the amount of these Transformers movies make, sadly, high-level studio execs would have do anything short of having people killed to make this go away if it endangered their fattest cash cow of all time.
transform-her.
As updated on Deadline, the Paramount reps having another take on the situation:
"Paramount just weighed in with me to say that the injured extra was not involved in the stunt, that her car was not involved in the stunt, that a "freak accident caused her injury", that she and her car were more than 500 feet from the stunt, that she was struck by a flying metal object whose welding had come apart and not by a steel towing cable, that the stunt from Tuesday had to be repeated Wednesday because of a "timing issue" and not because it had failed, and that "nobody has done movies more safely than Michael Bay". The studio, however, could not explain why its version of events was so at odds with the local police and media reports. "We feel horrible that anyone was injured and will take all appropriate action," a Paramount exec told me."
This would go against witness reports and of course take any blame off Paramount. Whatever happened, it is unlikely that Bay will take any direct blame. I am assuming part of the reason so many films employ CGI over real action boils down to money, insurance, and avoiding situations like this. Sorry to say, but this accident may only increase CGI use for future films.
I wish Gabriela the best and hope she wakes up soon.
Did Brandon Lee die from a prop gun??? Whose fault was that, for having a live round in one of the guns??
As I recall from the Brandon Lee incident, there was no "live round". There were fragments from a previous blank round stuck in the barrel. As for blame, probably the props department for not checking the gun thoroughly beforehand, and the actor who actually pointed the gun directly at Lee instead of to the side.
The Lee incident, and the one Luc Besson was involved in on Taxi 2 where a stunt went wrong and caused a fatality, are different from this case, if proved true, in that a completely untrained, unqualified extra was (allegedly) involved in a potentially dangerous stunt. What stunt co-ordinator would want that extra element of randomness in their otherwise meticulously planned stunt? Ridiculous.