Watch Tom Cruise Backflip Out of a Helicopter Wearing a Snorricam Rig
In a new behind-the-scenes video from the filming of Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, viewers can watch Tom Cruise perform a death-defying stunt while jumping out of a helicopter with a POV camera rig attached.
First shared by Digital Camera World, the harrowing clip from Rotten Tomatoes shows the award-winning actor and stunt performer Tom Cruise back-flipping out of a moving helicopter. The video also looks at the detailed planning, preparation, and equipment that go into creating such edge-of-the-seat visuals.
Cruise, at 62 years of age, is famous for performing many of his own stunts, particularly in the long running Mission: Impossible series, from hanging off the side of a plane, skydiving, climbing the Burj Khalifa, to jumping motorcycles off of cliffs only to parachute to safety like it was no big deal.
PetaPixel previously shared details about the time Cruise opted to skip CGI to hang off an Airbus A400M airplane as it took off for a scene in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, the actor has over 30 years of complex and dangerous stunt training and doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
Rotten Tomatoes’ fascinating behind-the-scenes featurette for Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning shows a sneak peek at the hard work, teamwork, and creativity of director Christopher McQuarrie and the crew, from safety briefing to dry test runs, culminating in documenting Cruise’s daring stunts. Most notable for fellow or budding cinematographers is the use of a Snorricam, also known as a bodycam, to film the wild stunt.
Snorricams are a camera rig device named after Icelandic photographers and directors Einar Snorri and Eiður Snorri Eysteinsson, although unrelated by blood, share the moniker Snorri. Working together as Snorri Bros, in 1996, the duo redesigned the already known heavy 35mm motion picture camera body mount style camera into a point-of-view (POV) device utilizing small, lightweight cameras that the talent could wear for extended periods, allowing the creation of immersive footage.
Now, with the choice of a Snorricam to film Cruise’s harrowing stunt jump out of the helicopter, viewers are pulled into the scene for an emotionally charged first-person POV of the actors’ backwards free fall and violent spiral towards earth. Of course, the clip cuts abruptly, viewers will just have to see Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning when it hits cinemas on May 23 to see what happens next.
Image credits: Rotten Tomatoes
