Anna Daniels
You started as a racer and moved into stunt work later. Why make that transition?
Well, the short, funny answer is that the money’s going the wrong direction when you’re racing. You can make a million dollars racing, but you need to start with $10. For me, as I got further up the ladder in the racing world, it just became more evident to me that it was more and more about the money that you could bring to the table. It kind of took away from why I chose to race. Because going down the back straightaway at 180 miles an hour and you’re trying to think about where the next check is coming from to cover the expenses for the team, it just takes away from the passion of the sport.
But during that time, I met guys working in the film industry that I was racing with and it sounded kind of interesting. Eventually they wound up hiring me to come drive some race cars for a race movie, and I really enjoyed it. As I applied myself more and more into it, the creative process really drew me in. Writing new storylines and coming up with these ideas, getting them on film and getting the director’s vision on film I find very satisfying.
How does driving a car for a stunt differ than driving in a race? Because in one you’re trying to crash, and in the other you’re trying not to crash.
Well, for racing versus crashing, it comes down to car control because the crashes may seem random at times, but they’re not, they’re very specific and very choreographed, because unless you get it on camera, it’s all pointless. Things need to happen at a specific point in time. And there are some guys that just don’t transition well from the race world into crashing cars, because as you said as a race driver the point is to not wreck.
But just having that skillset, the driving skillset, and applying it to a stunt driver works very well. And a lot of the guys I hire have a pretty solid race background, because I know I can put them in any car. The one main factor is the car, not them. Their skillset is far superior than most cars out there.
Over your career, you’ve worked as both a stunt coordinator and a stunt driver. What’s the difference?
So, as the stunt coordinator, typically I’m tasked with designing and choreographing all the stunts, whether it be car stunts, fights, gun fights, all of that. Depending on the film and my involvement with the director — the two most prominent would be Baby Driver and Ford v Ferrari – I’m kind of given the latitude to design all the action and then present it to the director and he’d sign off on it.
On Ford v Ferrari, for the most part, he loved everything we did. And my personal approach as a coordinator, I typically try and write a story to fit that action, to describe the action and try and fit that into the narrative of the film so it all kind of flows together. As a stunt driver, I’m just the guy there waiting for direction from the stunt coordinator as to what to do and then perform that action as needed.
When you write that story, do you do it in script format?
It’s not necessarily a script format. So, let’s say for Ford v Ferrari, the three races, I just wrote a storyline from Ken Miles’ perspective, since that’s who we were focused on. So, what’s going on around him, describing the race at any given moment so you can read through it. It’s sort of a roadmap for the race, if you will. At any given moment, you know exactly what’s going on. You should be aware what piece of action is happening and what corner the racers are turning, so on and so forth. And from there we can storyboard it and/or have the previsualization guys put it into an animated previs.
Written by: Looper
