Tavor 21 and Resident Evil: Apocalypse

[MT2008]

Originally Posted by gunguy001

Mr.
wow never been called that before, feeling old now lol.

The M134 mini was really simple, we just made our own barrels at 12 inches and also made a shorter barrel clamp.
Then the rest was furniture machined from aluminum to make it lighter, 60-80 pounds total, then we attached a feed chute that held 200 rnds in the chute and there you have it.
It was fired by one arm, so take that Arnie.

For extend firing, the ammo can was below camera frame, the longest burst was when he was taking out the stars unit, did about 15 seconds straight and that was a very long 15 seconds, funny watching the brass and link build up around his ankels.

The one thing that I will never forget was when we fired it in the hallway, we told them what will happen and they wouldn't believe us, so we told the set department to glue, staple and tape every paper that was on the wall,
the grips built a 5/8's plywood shield in front of the camera on the dolly and had lexan in the viewing port for the focus puller.
We then had sound blankets over the camera guy's and the usual eyes and ears, thenwe asked locations to open all the window's on that floor that were not in shot.
So the dolly started 100ft down the hall on tracks and the grip would push that thing, once it got to 60ft, nemisis came around the corner and fired a 200rnd burst.

Now remember we tried to explain to them what it's goingto sound like and what type of over pressure we were going to deal with and because of that they should keep their mouths open, the usual camera reply of I'm too cool to worry and everybody just figured it was going to sound like a machinegun like the other ones.

Well let me tell you it scared the living shit out of everybody that was there when that thing went off, the focus pullersteeth rattled so much that he didn't focus because he was holding his jaw, the doly grip and dollywas pushed back 20 ft from the pressure and one fellow nearly pissed his pants because he was too busy reading his newspaper to even bother putting on his ears.
Needles to say everybody went crazy, they wanted more, I had to beat people away as they wanted to know more and I was busy trying to make the gun safe.
So everything was fine, on to take 2.
Again the doly grip couldn't hold the dolly, take 3.
So they bring in dolly grip #2, they needed a 2nd guy to push and hold the dolly in place, so off they go, gun goes off, the 2nd dolly grip just ran away in fright, he was to busy smoking in the truck and never heard the thing go off before hand, we all thought he knew what was happening, it was a good laugh.
Take 4, in the can.

After that, huge crowds would form on set to watch the mini fire, it turned into a problem sometimes.

Now I thought that was loud until I worked on Deathrace
we had 5 x mini's, 2 x 20mm vulcans, 5 x .50 cals and other various belt feeds firing at the same time, that sound cannot be described.

The MP5K was spray painted to look like nickle, the para's beaver tail was shaved off and some other corner's were filed off so when Milla was spinning them they would not get in her way or cut her.

Wow, that's quite a story! Do you recall roughly how much blank ammo was expended from the Minigun alone?

[gunguy001]

RE2, maybe 15k tops

Deathrace, 4 tons of spent brass was collected through out the movie.

[MT2008]

Originally Posted by gunguy001

RE2, maybe 15k tops

Deathrace, 4 tons of spent brass was collected through out the movie.

That sounds like it would have taken up a sizable portion of the budget!

[Excalibur]

believe it or not, firearms can be the most least expensive thing in a movie budget

[MT2008]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

believe it or not, firearms can be the most least expensive thing in a movie budget

True. Although 4 tons of brass is still just...whoa. Of course, that's because 20mm and .50-cal rounds are both huge.

[Gunmaster45]

Yeah, I remember the filmakers talked about the 20mm blanks fired from the Vulcans in xXx, and the blanks were so expensive, they were going through ~ $100 a second. My memory on it is fuzzy though.

Four tons of brass collected?! I'm buying that movie now, that sounds fucking awesome!

[gunguy001]

I recall on 2nd unit we were filming the rig all gunned up and firing all it's guns, we went through 5000 rnds a take I believe, how many takes and days I don't know, I was only there for a week then back to work on another show.
The 20mm had 12g inserts, I think it had upwards of 80+ grains of powder in the shell.
I agree with excalibur for features, on smaller shows they make you feel like chickens with lips are far more common.
The 3 things that get chopped are stunts, FX and guns,
I couldn't imagine what would happen if the upper's had to get rid of something useless in their contract in order to make the film a little more exciting.