Stuntman Mike Chute chuckles a little bit when he hears people talking about the new workout fad called CrossFit. That’s not because he finds it to be silly but rather because he started doing it ten years ago when it was used to fashion the uber-fit cast members of the film 300. Mike has been in ridiculous shape for many years thanks to 300 and the new approach to working out at that time. This established stuntman remarks that working on 300 was one of the most unusual experiences of his life. That is saying a lot for this pro who has worked on major film productions like X-Men: Days of Future Past, Suicide Squad, Lucy, The Day After Tomorrow, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and a host of TV shows. Chute is one of the mainstays of the film industry’s stuntmen so when he says an experience was like none other, people take note.

As a traditional stuntman, Mike Chute does it all. He drives, he performs choreographed fights, he jumps out of perfectly good buildings. Chute and his compatriots are the men and women who make the faces of Hollywood look brave and adventurous. Veteran actor Michael Ironside has worked countless times with Chute. Ironside, whose credits include Top Gun, Total Recall, The Perfect Storm, The Machinist, and others states, “I’ve been blown up, dropped from buildings, crushed by vehicles, set ablaze, shot, stabbed, beaten to a pulp and terminated in every possible way one can imagine. All of them, spectacular sequences, well outside my realm of expertise/talent and far too physically risky and dangerous for me to perform. Michael Chute has been my action double and/or stunt coordinator whom I’ve entrusted my physical safety to countless times.” Situations like this are just another day at the office for Chute. When this stuntman recalls his work on 300, it involves a completely different and unique experience.

300, based on the Frank Miller Graphic Novel was a smashing worldwide box office success, grossing $457 MM and winning over twenty awards (Saturn Awards, BMI Awards, Empire Awards, etc.). In many ways, every aspect of making the film was different including the preparation for filming. In preparation for filming, Chute was given one week to learn ten different fights with 10-30 moves per fight. A natural athlete who played semi-pro hockey, Mike had an inclination towards anything which resembled sports, but Chute likens this experience to dancing. He states, “It’s the same principle as dancing. You’re moving in an organized sequence around a floor. For 300 we learned a very specific set of moves that were based on a few different martial arts styles centered around Wushu Kung Fu.” Once Mike and the other stunt fight team members were chosen, they trained for four months, followed by four months of filming. The actors and stuntmen on 300 spent 60% of their day training with weapons and rehearsing fight scenes while the remaining 40% was a CrossFit workout. Mike shed 30 pounds in training for the film. As someone who has been a natural athlete who loathed training, Chute took well to the variety of training. There was an added factor which contributed to the progress of the cast member’s workout. Mike notes, “They would time us. Forty men with egos become competitive quite quickly in that situation. It was still a lot of fun.”

One of the factors that was not so exciting was the filming environment. In order to capture the actual look and vibe of Miller’s Graphic Novel 300’s producers and Director Zack Snyder (decided to film in a soundstage entirely using green screens. For a professional stuntman who is used to being in the eye of the storm rather than imagining he is there, it was a bit of a challenge. Chute comments, “Zack Snyder was an unbelievable ball of energy. He was so much fun to work for. He made the days go much quicker. I normally work on really big sets. On 300, there was nothing there; it was all using your imagination. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun, but I wouldn’t want to make a lot of movies that way. I’m definitely glad I did it because I gained even more respect for actors who can use their imagination to give such a believable performance on screen.

With months of rigorous training and demands for use of imagination, the most torturous part for a stuntman like Mike was sitting still. He reveals, “The hardest part of making 300 was being in the makeup chair. Even though everyone was in the best shape of their lives, the appearance on the camera had to be big in a Hollywood sense. We spent four hours every day in the chair getting makeup put on and then an hour taking it off. The camera test revealed to the filmmakers that the abs weren’t standing out like they wanted. It’s amusing when you have trained to get a six pack and then they are painting shadows on them. The costumes that we wore as the Persian army members were made entirely of neoprene, resulting in all of us losing any water weight we might have had. Everyone was carved out of stone but it just didn’t translate to a comic book type look without the makeup. 300 was easily the most physically demanding movie I’ve been a part of.”

As a stuntman who is always required to be in top physical shape, Mike Chute has a perspective on the start of a fitness trend that is ubiquitous these days. On a parallel path, Mike’s career is more vibrant and present than it was even ten years ago. As a part of the X-Men and The Mummy franchises, Mike has proven that he is taking the legacy of stuntmen into current days and evolving with it. Mike’s most recent work can be seen in DC’s Suicide Squad, Marvel’s X-Men: Apocalypse, and the upcoming XXX: Return of Xander Cage

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Growing up in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Peter Hadfield and always had a passion for filmmaking. From playing with his father’s video camera, to taking classes in high school, to using his hobby of skateboarding to film tricks with his friends, Hadfield spent his early life doing what he loved.

Hadfield now lives in Toronto, and has had many achievements in his career as a cinematographer. His work has been selected in film festivals such as Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), and he has had four music videos selected as Vimeo Staff Picks.

“I think I’ve always been interested in the way things look and observed the way I felt as I was looking at an object or situation. When I was I kid I would stare at the waves rolling across the Pacific Ocean or the landscape passing by. I had a habit of closing one eye and alternating which eye was open just to look at how the perspective of my view would change,” he described. “Robert Mapplethorpe said ‘It’s all about light.’ To me that meant how the light fell or reflected or got diffused and how that could affect my emotions.”

Hadfield also had the opportunity to work on Bayer’s We Can All Be Remarkable commercial about a device that measures insulin for diabetic athletes.

The commercial features a lot of different athletes performing a variety of sports , so Hadfield says they really had to be on top of their game. He describes shooting the hurdler as the highlight of the experience. It required an electric camera cart called the EXO camera cart, and they fitted a Steadicam arm to it and burned down the track while the hurdler was going. However, he says the challenge came during skating.

“The hardest part was skating and camera operating at the same time. We were shooting with a 9 year-old girl, and I hadn’t skated in a while but I thought I could keep up with a little girl, but she left me in the dust! It was pretty fun that she could skate so much faster than me,” laughed Hadfield.

Hadfield worked alongside director Claire Edmondson on the commercial, and the pair agree they made a dynamic team.

“Peter is great to work with as he is a good collaborator, is relaxed and patient. He listens to your thoughts and ideas, adds his own and is dedicated to finding the best way to making something look good,” said Edmondson. “Peter is a good cinematographer because he’s always looking for the most beautiful way shoot something, the more interesting angle. He is a master at handheld, his composition is always stunning.”

“Claire is amazing. She’s got such an eye for performances and is so in control of what she’s getting out of the talent. It just so happens that my visual taste lines up with hers quite well, so we found that we gelled quite well,” said Hadfield.

The project helped Hadfield with how to handle and communicate with bigger film crews.

“As commercial budgets increase, the amount of people the cinematographer has to manage goes up as well. At a point in commercial cinematography a lot of delegating starts to happen, so having effective communication skills is a must,” he said.

Hadfield was in his twenties studying psychology when he realized he should follow his passion as a cinematographer. He attributes this to the rebellious nature of skateboarding, which helped him with “guerilla filmmaking.”

“When I enrolled in film school, I found that I would be more willing to go to a weird location at three in the morning, or hold on to a camera while hanging out sunroof of a car to get a shot. There’s a sense of danger and immediacy in cinematography that parallels skateboarding that I got really excited about,” he said. “When you’re holding a camera you have to be completely present and conscious of a moment to capture it in the way you want to, and the reward is getting amazing footage, just as when you’re skateboarding or doing anything that demands you to perform physically. You have to be completely focused on what you’re doing to perform and achieve. There’s a rush from that that I still get today.”

That rush is part of the long list of reasons Hadfield loves cinematography. For him, there isn’t just one simple reason to be in the profession. From all the different people he gets to meet by being a cinematographer, to travelling to new places and getting access to interesting places, to the act of creating and capturing images, Hadfield knows he is in the right career.

“I like the fact that holding a camera can either turn me into an observer and distance me from a subject or it can intertwine me with a subject. There’s something very intimate about capturing someone’s image. It makes the people in front of the camera venerable, and if that is met with the same openness from the person holding the camera, some very interesting moments and images can be made that will speak to the viewer,” he said. “I also like improvising with a camera on my shoulder to capture moments with actors or subjects. I like storytelling, and working with directors to figure out the best way to tell a story visually. I like collaborating with other people, and cinematography enables me to do all those things.”

Despite this, there are still challenges that Hadfield thrives of off.

“Shooting isn’t easy. Things never really go ‘according to plan’, so you’re constantly thinking on your feet. It’s a swirling mess of problems and opportunities, and it’s up to the director and cinematographer to guide the production through that mess. They’re the keepers of a film’s visual language. So, it’s a challenge to be able to keep calm, keep a cool head, keep on time, keep on budget, and still get amazing footage. But it happens! So, it’s a high risk/high reward game that’s a bit addictive,” he described.

In the end though, Hadfield says he just wants to be a decent, balanced, caring person and be a role model for young people and future film makers.

“In the future I want to live by a body of water and drive a mint Volvo 240 DL, walk my dog off leash in the forest, have good conversations, shoot film, listen to music and play guitar,” he concluded.

Film Editor Takashi Uchida’s fluid, crisply rhythmic work has earned him a professional reputation as a first rate, fast rising craftsman. Uchida’s skill is reflected in his impressive roster of achievements, credits he has racked up in short order, not only as an editor but also as a director, composer, writer and in visual and special effects. While he followed a somewhat circuitous route, Uchida’s path to Hollywood was almost inevitable.

“I was born and grew up in Tokyo,” Uchida said. “I was just a typical nerdy kid who liked anything film and TV related. I spent my teenage years exploring films from all over the world and the different cities, beliefs and cultures that I discovered in them made me question whether or not I should stay in Tokyo. I ended up deciding to go to the US after high school.”

“Although I always wanted to do film, during college I focused on anthropology, and then upon finishing undergrad, I started focusing on film making. I went to USC School of Cinematic Arts and started my career as film editor.”

At the SCA, Uchida’s natural flair, flawless visual instinct and sense of clarity were immediately apparent, developing an editing style is driven by an artful enthusiasm.  “In the film production program, you learn every aspect of film making during the first year,” Uchida said. “I pretty much like every aspect of film making, but I especially like writing and editing. And if I have to choose which is more cinematic, I believe that editing is the more unique aspect of film making, it really determines the finished film. However boring the footage may be, there’s always a way to make the film better in post-production. I really enjoy that creative capacity.”

Uchida hit the ground running, tabbed by multi-talented performer James Franco to work on Actors Anonymous, the feature adapted from Franco’s own popular novel. With its complex weaving of ten different narrative vignettes, the project was an ideal vehicle to debut Uchida’s deft cutting style.

“Actors Anonymous is one of the films that I am most proud of,” Uchida said. “Not only because it was the first feature I edited, but also because I was working with 10 directors for the project and the result of the collaboration was phenomenal. Every film has different kind of challenges, and struggling with those challenges made the film very unique and emotional, I believe.”

Uchida went on to edit Jessica Darling’s IT LIST, based on the New York Times teen bestseller and starring Disney TV actress and YouTube sensation Chloe East. His ongoing work on the popular Netflix animated series Kong: King of the Apes provides an ideal analog for this talented artist’s professional life: a redefinition of one of film lore’s most abiding, fascinating figures—the oft misunderstood, quasi-human behemoth Kong—that is offered to audiences on the non-traditional web-based Netflix platform, a melding of past and future that reflects Uchida’s solid grounding in film history and his singular, beyond-the-horizon creative perspective.

“Kong was the second animation editing I did,” Uchida said. “I had actually made a couple of animation shorts myself so the opportunity to edit Kong was really exciting to me. One thing I’ve learned is that an editor must know the importance of ‘one frame.’ Film is usually 24 frames per second, so one frame is almost 0.042 second. And indeed that tiny difference actually matters. Kong was reminded me of that importance, it had a lot of action sequences and it was a great experience to see how that one frame can make a scene much better.”

His innate grasp on the intricate technical delicacy each instant of every project demands elevates Uchida to a plateau of his own, and the editor is keeping busy, currently working the post-production end of Rio, another feature adapted from a James Franco novel.

“Film editing is the most unique and creative phase in film making,” Uchida said. “It is a magic of time and the visual. It is very instinctive and creative, but also very logical and knowledge-based. It mixes both, like where the river meets the ocean. And combining  intuition and logic is so complicated, it’s almost impossible to consciously grasp. But that’s exactly why I want to keep doing it.”