By Carol Badaracco Padgett
He’s fought Denzel Washington and also Jackie Chan—twice. And he’s called Atlanta home for the past 11 years. So when Thom Williams talks about stunt coordinating and second unit directing, it’s coming from a place of highly valuable experience and keen insight.
Here’s Williams’ take on getting into the industry in Atlanta, cultivating a critical level of excellence, and what it will take to keep the work flowing.
First off, tell us about your work in the local film industry and what your role involves as a stunt coordinator and a second unit director.
Williams: As a stunt coordinator, I’m responsible for designing and putting together all the action for whatever film or TV show, commercial or video game I’m [working]on.
Oftentimes, I’ll get the script, break it down, and it’ll just say, “… and they fight.” So I have to figure out the beats of that fight, according to [who]the characters are, to progress the storyline. I can’t just make up some crazy 10-beat fight with choreography that doesn’t match the tone of the show.
You’ve got to work hand-in-hand with the writers, directors, actors and their stunt doubles and figure everything out. And then we’ll often pre-viz that. So, I’ll shoot it with my stunt team and put it together [previsualization]and show it to all the pertinent parties up top to get their approval. And then once we get the thumbs up, then we shoot it for real, sometimes on second unit, where I’m directing it, which is great because then I pretty much just reshoot everything I already shot. And it goes very quickly and efficiently. And then, if the main director is doing it, then he or she has the pre-viz to look at as kind of a guidebook. They don’t have to stick to it; I’m not married to it, but at least it’s a guidebook to get them from [point]A to B for the sequence.
Tell us a bit more about second unit and its nuances.
Williams: Second unit, sometimes called action unit if we’re doing the stunt stuff, is basically the things that get scheduled out to the second unit director that don’t fit into the main unit director’s schedule. So, a lot of times, they’ll bring me in, they’ll bring other stunt coordinators in to shoot the big action sequences because we know how to shoot them.
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