furious7

If you thought your last shoot was hairy, spare a moment to consider the camera operators who captured a key action sequence in freefall for Furious 7.

On Furious 7, which opens in U.S. theaters tonight, the idea during production was to capture as much of the film's oversized action as possible in camera, keeping CG to a minimum. And so, when it came time to shoot a scene where the film's heroes parachute — with their cars, of course — onto a mountain road to hold up a convoy, the decision was made to shoot actual cars being dropped out of an actual airplane.

Watch the scene here:

Under the supervision of second-unit director and stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos, stunt coordinators Andy Gill and Jack Gill, and second-unit cinematographer Igor Meglic, the action unit went airborne for the first section of the film's "snatch-and-grab" caper sequence. Three aerial camera flyers — JT Holmes, Luke Aikins, and Jon Devore — jumped out of a Lockheed C-130 cargo plane flying over Arizona at 10,000 to 12,000 feet, with Red Epics and what look like GoPros strapped to their heads to grab footage of the cars that were dropped along with them. (The majority of the film was shot with the ARRI Alexa XT digital and ARRICAM LT film cameras.)

Watch all the looney second-unit action:

Vin Diesel famously predicted that Furious 7 will win a Best Picture Oscar at next year's Academy Awards. It's hard to see that happening. But if the Academy were to add a category for stuntwork, well then, Furious 7 would be a prime contender.