Ramez: Movie Star

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Nobody does celebrity pranks quite like Ramez Galal - star of MBC1’s annual Ramadan extravaganza - and the Masscom.98 team. This year’s batch of bemused and furious celebrities believed that they had been engaged to star in a post-apocalyptic action movie, produced by Jean Claude Van Damme. As they were driven through a desert landscape in a riotous chase scene involving stunt bikes and explosions – Mad Max style – things began to go wrong. And then the stunt driver drove on to a partially built bridge...

Project Breakdown

We broke the project down into 3 parts; The Bridge, The Effects and The Crocodile

The Bridge

Our client asked us to make a steel frame and platform, 6m long and 3m wide, to fit on a partial bridge structure. The platform’s hydraulic systems allowed it to hinge forward as if slowly collapsing and then to reset into its original position once the prank was complete. As the car was driven on to the platform, an Artem technician, concealed under the bridge, secured it safely with winches and safety cables which hooked on to the car’s specially-strengthened frame. This frame and cable system supported the car as it moved vertically with the collapsing platform and its front wheels rolled off the edge of the bridge.

Our technicians designed and built the platform in Artem’s West London workshop facilities and flew out to Riyadh to install and make final adjustments on set.

The Effects

Ramez, heavily disguised as one of the film’s fictional characters, was positioned in the rear seat of the car throughout the prank and ramped up the celebrities’ stress levels in every way possible, while one of Artem’s technicians set off remote-controlled pyrotechnic spark and smoke effects, cued by the director.

Building the Bridge Platform at Artem

Installing the Bridge

Under the Bridge - Winches and Safety Cables

The Drop Below the Bridge

Remote Control for Bridge Mechanism

Fibreglass Croc with Latex Skin

The Latex Skin Fitted

Artworked Detail of Crocodile Skin

Crocodile Jaw Detail

Crocodile Detail

Arriving on Set

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The Crocodile

Just to add to the tension of hanging vertically in a car on a collapsed bridge with a 15 metre drop, the waterhole below the bridge was inhabited by a 4 metre-long crocodile, which the celebrities had been told was a real life reptile. Artem moulded the crocodile in fibreglass and fitted a textured latex skin. ‘Jaws’ the crocodile was puppeteered by divers below the surface of the water who animated the head and flexed the tail.