Working with the Istanbul Stunt Team for Skyfall on a New Turkish Comedy, Bana Masal Anlatma

Trailer for Turkish movie Bana Masal Anlatma is out! (I’m at 1:05 in the trailer.)

While working on Dragon Blade, I had the great pleasure to meet a good friend, Fatih who happened to have a stunt team in Istanbul, Turkey. Beşiktaş Kültür Merkezi, BKM for short, was shooting a new comedy in Istanbul called Bana Masal Anlatma. They needed a few Asian guys that could fight and play as monks in the movie.

From what I was told in Turkey, BKM is one of the largest studios in Turkey. (http://www.bkmonline.net/en)

I flew in from Hong Kong on what would be a 19+ hour trip. There were some layovers and it was a longer journey there than expected.. but luckily I can sleep anywhere. When we arrived we were placed in a nice hotel in Taksim. The majority of this trip was rehearsals, fittings, stunt work, and filming, but I did have a few hours to check out the city. My travel adventures I’ve put in a separate post. Top 6 things To Do in Istanbul Turkey.

After we got all settled in, we immediately got to rehearsing. I had the great pleasure of working with Yunus, the stunt coordinator and the rest of his team, who had also worked stunts on Skyfall for the Istanbul portion. There were a few wire gags, so we got me into the harness and did a few run-throughs of each set up until we were happy with the action.

Then we tested everything out in the wardrobe.

On the shoot days I had a great time with everyone. I was mainly there for stunts, but the director gave me a few lines in Turkish as well which was fun because it was first time learning Turkish! There should be some fun scenes in there.

 

On our last day, immediately after a full day of shooting it was time to hop on to a 15+ hour flight back. Bolkan, one of the PAs that showed us around was really cool. He picked us up and dropped us off at the airport and he was a great host showing us around the city. Hope to find myself in Istanbul again sometime.