Working at height can be awesome. Great exercise, views that very few other people would ever see. Although sometimes we can be in tough environments, with all kinds of weather conditions to deal with, long days/nights, in a high risk industry. It's definitely not for everyone, but it is for us. So with the awesome nature of working at height in mind...
Are there any other cool jobs we could do?
Whether you're working on buildings, wind turbines, towers or trees. A lot of us got into it from a love of the outdoors, climbing and using great equipment.
Another industry that seems to use similar skill sets and gear, looks like stunt rigging.
Now arguably one of the coolest opening stunt scenes in film must be the James Bond Casino Royal crane jump. Check out the opening sequence, with the huge tower crane jumps by Riggingaccademy on Youtube.
Checking out the world of Stunt Rigging, it looks like it brings together all the cool elements of working at height:
- High adrenaline job
- Working at Height
- Technical Rigging
- Seriously Cool Equipment
- Plus getting to fly around on wires!
Now I don't expect every job to be like these (although I could be wrong), but just from a bit of research, it looks like practical stunts are still really popular.
Movies like The Matrix trilogy, Mad Max Fury Road, John Wick, The Dark Knight trilogy. All employing practical fx, adding to the cringing nature of fight scenes and awkward landings.
If all that sounds like so much fun, but where do you go to learn what it takes to pull off these stunts?
This is by no means a comprehensive or well researched list, although these look to be two great starting places:
AP8 - Gold Coast Australia
Haeger Stunt - Berlin Germany
Hopefully you found this article interesting, maybe even gotten a few of your cogs turning on potential new career opportunities, or just killed some time watching some cool videos of rigging.
We would love to hear your thoughts, especially if you're a stunt rigger and you'd like to shed some light on what it really takes to do your job.
Full disclaimer: I've never done any stunt rigging, so the info may be complete b/s, other than drooling over cool rigging setups and shiny gear in YouTube videos. But I'm pretty sure that's a prerequisite of being in the industry.