Will Smith acted and operated a camera simultaneously to make the action scenes stand out in his latest movie Bad Boys: Ride or Die.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die is the fourth installment in the Bad Boys series of buddy cop films starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.
The film, which debuted in theaters this weekend, follows Miami detectives Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) who have to go on the run after their late police captain gets falsely linked to drug cartels, and they attempt to clear his name.
On Monday, Smith shared a behind-the-scenes from the filming of Bad Boys: Ride or Die on Instagram. In the clip, Smith is seen handling a camera that is strapped to his chest while holding and pointing a gun at an antagonist during an action sequence all at the same time.
The video then shows a screen of the result that shows Smith in focus as the scene gets filmed, offering close-ups of the action in Bad Boys: Ride or Die.
The Story of The Snorricam
According to Y.M. Cinema Magazine, Smith operates a RED V-Raptor attached to a device called SnorriCam to get this dynamic and disorienting view from the actor’s perspective.
The Snorricam is a camera device used in filmmaking that is rigged to the body of the actor so that they appear in a fixed position in the center of the frame. It means that when the actor walks, they do not appear to move but everything around them does.
The camera device presents a dynamic point of view from the actor’s perspective, providing an unusual sense of vertigo for the viewer.
In the behind-the-scenes footage that Smith shared, the actor is seen getting to grips with the Snorricam so he could get unique angles for an action sequence in Bad Boys: Ride or Die. In one clip, Smith is seen rehearsing with the Snorricam and the camera device spins so that is in danger of almost hitting another member of the crew as the actor practices.
In another moment, Will is rehearsing the action sequence and the camera appears to almost drop out of the rig.
“If this works, it will be memorable!” Adil El Arbi, who co-directed Bad Boys: Ride or Die with Bilall Fallah, says as they rehearse the scene.
While the concept of a Snorricam has been around for decades, the device was invented by two Icelandic photographers and directors Einar Snorri and Eiður Snorri, who worked together under the name Snorri Brothers (but are not otherwise related.)
According to the Snorricam website, the Snorri brothers built the camera rig for a low-budget music video shoot for a punk band in New York City in the mid-1990s. Their friend Eric Watson was hanging out on the set and recognized the potential of the rig to use in a movie he was producing.
Watson asked if he could borrow the rig to show to the director of the movie. The director decided it was the perfect tool to bring out an important characteristic of the movie they were working on. The director was the Oscar-nominated filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, the movie was his feature directorial debut Pi, and the Snorricam rig was born.
Image credits: Header photo via Instagram/@willsmith and center photo via Snorricam.