FALL GIRL
Stunt co-ordinator Dani Biernet talks us through her scrapes on this year's Doctor Who.
[Published in Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #42 - The 2016 Yearbook (Panini UK Ltd, December 2015), pp. 28-31. Posted here by kind permission of DWM editor Tom Spilsbury.]
In
The Witch's
Familiar –
the second episode of Doctor
Who's latest series –
Dani was required to double Jenna Coleman as companion Clara, in a
scene where the villainous Missy (Michella Gomez) has her dangling from a rock on the
Dalek home planet, Skaro. The scene was recorded in Tenerife, in the
extraordinary surroundings of the volcanic Mount Teine, the highest
mountain in Spain. But, as Dani explains, it wasn't exactly a
holiday.
“I was there for four days,” she says. “The rest of the crew
were there a week or maybe two, but I travelled out, the next day we
did the recce and set up for recording, the day after that we
recorded it, and the next I travelled back home, job done.”
It
might have been quick, but it wasn't exactly easy. “The high
altitude where we were shooting can make you feel a bit sick, and
when you're upside down your sinuses quickly fill up, which isn't a
good look in close-ups. But Jenna went upside down a lot herself. She
was brilliant – she's always been very good. It's only me for the
wide shots.”
When Missy
releases Clara and drops her on her head, there's no trick photography: Dani did the fall for real. She and stunt coordinator Gordon
Seed, who supervised the shot, had imagined a smallish drop but, says
Dani, “the director, Hettie Macdonald, knew it would look better if
it was higher off the ground. It ended up being about four feet.
“Normally, if
you're doing a drop you try to twist out of it to land on your
shoulder, but as I was hanging there, ready to do it, I realised I
wouldn't be able to do that. I was harnessed up with wiring down my
legs and ropes around my feet so I couldn't twist, I just had to go
for it. That's why it looks a bit awkward – I just hit the ground,
'Erk!' And then the director said, 'Can we do it again?'” Dani
laughs. “She wanted a closer, different angle. So I looked at
Gordon, and he looked at me and went, 'Sorry!' And it was worse the
second time, because by then I knew how much it would hurt. And you
know what? They used the first take!” She hoots with laughter. “I
know, because of how I landed in that one. It hurt more than the
second.”
Isn't there a
danger of serious injury from being dropped from a height onto your
head? Dani shrugs it off. “I had a bit of gravel rash all down my
face. Jenna was really concerned. She said, 'I'm glad you did that
for me – it looked painful.' I went, 'It was.'” Again, she
laughs. “So yeah, a little stunt, a silly one, but awkward to do.
But that's my job, isn't it?”
If Dani is
doubling for Clara, does she copy Jenna's style of acting and
movement. “Not on a drop like that because there's not enough time.
But on some of the other ones we've done, I watch what she's doing
and try to match it. Like when she dies...” But we'll come to that
in a moment.
Dani
has provided stunts for Doctor
Who
on and off since The
Christmas Invasion in
2005. The coordinator on that story was her late husband, the renowned
film and TV stuntman, Peter Brayham. “He wouldn't just get me in
because I was his wife,” Dani explains. “You always get the right
person for the particular job. I do cars and fights, but if you want
a high fall you get another of the stunt girls. Lucy Allen will do
100 feet backwards.”
In fact, Brayham discouraged Dani from getting into stunts at all.
“I met Pete when I was 21 and he was 54, in about 1990. I studied
fashion in art, but I was always sporty. He took me on set or I'd be
sat with him as he tried out a car, and I thought, 'I quite like
this.' But when I told him I wanted to train in stunts, he said, 'No,
it's too dangerous!'”
They
quickly made a deal. “I
wasn't a good swimmer at the time,” says Dani. “We used to go on
holiday and he'd be out in the sea while I'd just sit there,
watching. So we agreed that if I could conquer my fear of water, then
I could become a stuntwoman. So in six months I passed my swimming
test and I was rescue diving and scuba diving – and they became two
of my special skills when I joined the register in 1996.”
The Joint
Industry Stunt Committee – which Dani's late husband helped set up
– publishes a register of stunt performers and coordinators to
ensure the highest standard of performance and safety in the
industry. “It's really strict,” she explains. “When I was
going for it, you needed six specialist skills out of 36 in four
different categories, and high standards in each. So in martial arts
you'd need to be black belt, in scuba diving I think you've now got
to be a dive master.”
But
as one of only around 50 women on the register, Dani's skills were
quickly in demand. “My first proper year working, 1997, I
doubled for Natalie Portman in
Star Wars [although
The Phantom Menace
was
not released until 1999], for Posh Spice in Spiceworld
and
Michelle Yeoh in the James Bond film, Tomorrow
Never Dies.
Yeah, that first year was phenomenal.” She's remained busy every
since.
Dani has recently
progressed to co-ordinating stunts performed by other people. Sometimes a job requires her co-ordinate and perform the stunts. In once such instance her contract read: 'Clara hangs out of the
TARDIS.' “Jenna was brilliant doing that,” says Dani. “That was me doubling
for her as well as co-ordinating. I did it, and then she wanted to
have a go. We had her wired off, hanging upside-down about 20 feet
over the TARDIS, in the car park at the BBC.”
Is
it a problem letting the stars of the show perform their own stunts?
“Well, if she gets badly injured or breaks a leg, yeah. Depending
what it is, you'll
get the double in but if the actor is willing to give it a go and you
feel it's safe enough, then you let them. I mean, you talk to the
director first, and the producers, who have to think about insurance
and stuff.”
On
16 June, Dani was back on set for Face
the Raven. Her eyes light up as she reads the contract. “'Clara falls to
the floor dead.' Now, I don't get to read every page of the scripts,
just the bits I'm doing. But that was exciting. We had a raven – a
real raven – fly into her and she falls down onto the floor. I was
co-ordinating it, but doubling for her, too. A raven is a heck of a
big bird to come at you, and it comes really close because it's
heading to its trainer, who was stood just behind me. And Jenna did
it – she was really brave. She
did most of that scene but I had to be there for some of the shots,
dressed as her. So I watched her movements, how she fell to the
floor, and tried to do the same. Sometimes we talk it through: me
advising her on the stunt, her advising me on how to act it.”
Dani
returned for 2 and 3 July to co-ordinate a scene on Heaven Sent in which 'The Doctor smashes the window with a stool then dives
through it.' “We're
setting it up,” she laughs, “and Peter Capaldi suddenly said,
'I'm going to do it like this!' – and jumps over the bed. That was
great, so for the stunt we got the double, Leo Woodruff, to do the
same and then dive through sugar glass [which breaks easily and is
less likely to injure performers than real glass]. But it's in a
castle, so it's a very narrow window. There's a ledge, and it's high
up, and Leo – like Peter – is tall. That makes it all a bit more
complicated. We had cameras inside and outside, so we get him going
through the window and then falling through the air the other side
without doing it at separate takes.”
On
21 and 22 July, Dani co-ordinated scenes on Heaven Sent,
directed by Rachel Talalay, supervising Peter Capaldi as he punched a
wall. In September, Dani was again on set to supervise scenes on the
forthcoming Christmas special. “Crispin Layfield [the show's
regular stunt coordinator] did most of it, I was just filling in –
as was [fellow stuntwoman] Jo McLaren. I had to supervise a scene
with Peter and Alex Kingston [River Song] where they fall
backwards. I put crash-mats underneath them.”
“Then
the director, Douglas [Mackinnon] wanted a shot of them landing in a
forest – just their feet as they hit the ground. Now, to make that
work you need a jump down of four or five feet, and it's something
simple like that where things can go wrong. You can land awkwardly
and sprain an ankle, which would not be good for the schedule, so I
couldn't get Peter and Alex to do it. You think on your feet. I could
double for Alex – in heels. I got the assistant director,
Gareth Jones,
to put on Peter's clothes. Gareth's great. I set up some scaffolding
sort of like goal posts, and we hung ourselves from the cross bar for
15, 20 seconds – which is not as easy as it sounds – and then
dropped down on cue. I don't think Gareth minded, getting to be
Doctor Who.
“Yeah,”
she shrugs, “You make it work, and then it's on to the next job...”
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