One day I got the opportunity to work on a movie set through a
friend of mine: a mad inventor and adventurer of note, Peter Dickens. He
knew a stunt man, Peter Spiro, and between the two of them they signed
me onto a set as a diver.
The part of the script to be shot was of a young boy on a raft with a
cheetah. The raft capsizes and both are in the river. Our job was to
make sure the beast and the boy got back on terra firma safely. One of
us had to be in the water to pull out the child actor (that was Spiro),
the others (Peter and I) had to get the cat out. Okay, a cheetah is not
the most dangerous member of the cat family, but is certainly not your
household domestic one. We came up with a plan to build a small pontoon,
put a battery-powered outboard on the back and nail a piece of carpet
on the front. The idea was, one of us would steer and the other would do
whatever else needed doing.
We built the pontoon. It was about a metre wide and two metres long.
The film was being shot outside Parys on the Vaal river. The plan worked
very well. We would motor up to the animal and it would claw its way
onto the pontoon via the carpet. Peter was in charge of the steering and
I had to help the cheetah up, some close calls with him snapping at my
hands, but fear makes one quick! Then we, who were now stuck on a
floating piece of wood with one very pissed-off and sopping wet cheetah,
Peter would steer towards the bank where the animal’s trainer was
waiting. We were doing this for 4 days; in the movie, Duma, the whole
shot is about 2 minutes long.
More Short Stories links on my page:
THE MEXICAN HORSE THIEF
Of interest
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The Gravy Train
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