What inspired you to take on this project?
What drew me to this project was not only getting to work with the vehicle and try to design action in and around it as a character in the story, but it was also the challenge and opportunity of working with new actors and in a new space. Since my days in film school, I haven’t shot a short film. I’ve been working mostly on feature films and some television. The opportunity to be challenged in the storytelling aspect—how to tell an intriguing, action packed story in a short amount of time—was a fun one.

I said “yes” also because I got to work with great actors and good people at BMW. I’ve known Dave Morrison [the founder of commercials production company Reset Content, which produced The Calm,] for a while and had been trying to work with him. So that opportunity was very appealing to me.

Tell us about designing the action sequences and stunts for The Calm.
It is challenging to create an intense action sequence in a short film, because a lot of action is in the setup. You’re going to set up situations and scenarios, build the tension, and then pay it off with an exciting sequence. Hopefully your characters learn something through that process.

So for this, it was important that we had a story. But the challenge in a short film is that you want to keep the audience watching and guessing. For me, I wanted to infuse a little bit of humour into the sequence. So we started with a script; I had a lot of great writers and great minds working on that.

In The Calm, the car was so important. I wanted to get to know the car because when I design action, I like to utilise the environment. I do my best work when I’m in the space, so I can see what features of the car we could use in the sequence. I had some cars brought to my residence. I sat in the car and was being walked through by the technician and they showed me some really cool stuff. [For example,] the car is motion activated, and you can [control] the stereo—like forward and backwards, pause it, adjust the volume—without touching anything. I felt like I was Tony Stark in one of his spaceships. So when I saw that, I thought, “Oh, that is very interesting. We need to try to use that in the film.” So we tried to set up that gag, as we call it—the thing that is going to pay off—with some music and then we pay it off later in the fight scene with Pom.

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What’s special about the BMW i7 Electric Sedan that’s featured in the film?
This car was ridiculous. I’ve never seen a car like this. It has 600 plus horsepower, goes up to 150 miles an hour and can go from zero to 60 in less than three seconds. There are moments in the film when we have Pom driving the car and when she presses the gas pedal, you can see the G-force that moves her hair and her skin [backwards] and you’re like, “holy moly”.

Besides the power, the luxury was what blew my mind. The level of detail that goes into it is incredible. There’s so much space in the rear passenger seat. The car is designed with the passenger’s experience [in mind. For example,] you can hit a button for cinema mode, which blacks out the windows and reclines your seat, and a 32 by nine-inch HD cinema display screen drops down in front of you. You can watch whatever movie you want, or stream this film on BMW’s YouTube channel! Hans Zimmer designed the car sounds, and when you accelerate it sounds like you’re in a spaceship. It’s one of the coolest cars I’ve ever seen.

Are you a car person?
I love cars but I wouldn’t consider myself a car person. I’m no Jay Leno [American television host and avid car collector]. For the longest time, I drove a 2005 Honda Civic… actually it might have been a 1995. I’m more of a practical car person; I drive a pickup truck because I pull an Airstream or deal with animals. But I do appreciate cars and love them in film. I’ve been fortunate enough to do a lot of different car stunts.

What’s a day in the life of a stunt coordinator like?
My job on the set is to keep the crew, stunt performers, the actors and everybody safe. We’re making a movie; it’s not rocket science and we’re not curing diseases. So it should be safe, fun and exciting.

Second, I communicate my vision to a lot of different people on set. When I work with actors, my goal is to feature and highlight their skill sets. For example, Pom is an extremely talented martial artist. She has trained for many years, and we were very fortunate in that because the training process for something like that for an actor who had never done martial arts before could take months. [Instead,] she came in a couple of days before, learnt the fight choreography and performed it like she was born to it. So she really made our jobs much easier.

What training did you go through to become a stunt coordinator?
In the US, where I came up, there were really no schools or qualifications for a stunt coordinator. You start as a stuntman, usually working under stunt coordinators as an apprentice. You learn how they do their job and keep the actors safe. Then sometimes if you do good work and they trust you, they will give you a job, usually a lower budget one where the insurance isn’t as premium and the risks aren’t as high. If you do a good job, you get a bigger film. The next thing you know, I was coordinating Avengers: Endgame. So it’s really based on skills and reputation in the US.

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Which is your favourite production you’ve worked on?
As a stunt coordinator and action director, my hands-down favourite film is Avengers: Endgame because I got to work with my brother [Daniel Hargrave]. We were both doubling Captain America and fighting each other in the final battle with Old Cap versus New Cap. I started in the suit doubling Chris Evans on the first Avengers movie in 2012. Eight years later, I coordinated and designed the stunts, stepped back in the suit and fought my brother, who had replaced me as the double. My dad [Doug Hargrave] was there, my brother was there and he had just had a son. So there were three generations of Hargraves there. It was just a beautiful, serendipitous end to my Marvel career, and to be with Chris Evans on screen again was wild.

As a director, I have to say Extraction, because that was my first feature, and there’s nothing like your first time directing because you have no idea what you’re getting into. A film of that level, the sheer number of questions, the pressure and the details you have to pay attention to. I learnt so much. It’s an experience I hold very, very dear to my heart.

How does your previous experience help you with making The Calm?
Coordinating Extraction allowed me to move quickly when designing the action and feel very confident with what we were putting together for The Calm. Being able to work with my brother [as stunt coordinator,] and having that relationship and trust that he knew what was going on with the cars, meant I could trust he would make things smooth and safe while I focused on other things. Feature directing helped me with The Calm’s storytelling, because the focus in those films is all about story. So how do you take that focus and put it into a short film, and make sure that you have at least the basic three-point structure of a beginning, middle and end? And set up a conflict for your character to overcome and prevail?

What kind of stunts do you like to work on?
I enjoy the challenge of working with vehicles, horses, wire stunts and fire. [Every set] presents a unique challenge. I love that they are about problem solving, it’s about entertaining audiences while keeping the performers safe.

What inspired you to become a stunt coordinator?
I came from a background of martial arts and grew up watching, loving and imitating Hong Kong action film stars like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Bruce Lee, Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung. I loved how those performers captured and choreographed action. So that was a huge inspiration for me.

Do you prefer to make shorts or feature films now?
For an art form, I enjoy the long form. You get a little more time with the characters to build the story. But I would like to do both because there’s a satisfying turnaround in a short film where we come up with it, execute it, edit it, and it’s going to go out into the world in less time than it takes to create a feature film. For example, with Extraction, we had been editing it for more than 18 months. So to shoot, edit and release a short film in two months is awesome. But I’ll try to balance between both art forms.

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What’s your next dream project?
It’s on my bucket list to do a [Hong Kong style] action movie and to work with a Hong Kong cast. I think a lot about the beauty of those movies—how they are put together, designed, shot and produced. I would love to be involved in that.

Wink wink, nod nod at BMW: I think there’s a version of something like The Calm as a feature film where you thrust a strong female character into a long form story and just see where that goes. I want to get some creative writers involved, maybe take it to somewhere like Hong Kong, do some really fun martial arts actions and car chases. It would be a very unique experience for audiences to have a BMW feature film.

The Calm is available at BMW.com/TheCalm and BMW’s YouTube channel starting from May 18, 2023.

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