In March 2023, producers of Amazon’s holiday movie “Candy Cane Lane,” starring Eddie Murphy, were determined to light a 15-foot fir tree on fire for a scene, according to court documents filed in a recent lawsuit.
But the weather didn’t cooperate, according to court documents. The producers had already canceled filming several times due to rain and wind.
Yet on this day, production would continue amid winds gusting up to 30 miles per hour, according to court documents.
An intense gust sent a tent on set onto Jon Farhat, a visual effects supervisor. In the lawsuit he filed last fall, Mr. Farhat said the tent pierced his back and threw him into the air “as if he had been caught in a tornado.” He landed on the ground, unconscious.
15 months later, Mr Farhat, 66, is still bedridden at home, unable to sit up, unable to stand for more than an hour. He broke five vertebrae and two ribs. An ambulance is needed to transport him to his medical appointments, he said. And his struggle to recover was made all the more frustrating, he says, by what he describes as a jumble of workers’ compensation red tape that left him dissatisfied with his doctors and of their pain management plan.
In his lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in September, he accuses Amazon Studios, his production services company, a producer and others of negligence, claiming, among other things, that the tent was not properly secured . Lawyers for Amazon Studios and other defendants have denied they were negligent, liable or otherwise responsible for Mr. Farhat’s injuries.
But Mr. Farhat, undeterred, said in an interview that he felt it was important for him to speak out now about his calamity, particularly after another incident on an Amazon plateau in April made several injured.
“I’ve been playing it safe for a year and trying to follow the rules, not piss anyone off and not say anything,” he said. “This all seems untenable.”
The adequacy of security protocols on film and television sets has come under increasing scrutiny as attention is drawn to high-profile incidents, such as the shooting death of cinematographer of “Rust,” which ultimately led to criminal charges.
Following this filming in 2021, the Los Angeles Times analyzed data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and reported that approximately 250 serious accidents had occurred during film production since 1990.
On-set safety is a key issue for the International Stage Employees Alliance, as the union representing some 170,000 behind-the-scenes crew members negotiates its contract with studios and some streamers. Specifically, the union seeks to increase fines when employers fail to provide mandatory rest periods for crews or require crews to work excessively long hours, defined as more than 60 hours per week.
The union declined to comment on Mr. Farhat’s case or the incident near Atlanta.
“I’ve heard some pretty negative things said about the crew by the producers,” said Hollywood veteran Melanie A. Ragone, describing her years of experience on various film sets. “That’s what I hate. Why do we go out and commit suicide for you, risking our lives? Why are the crew treated like we are replaceable? »
Amazon has experienced three serious incidents in recent years, with the Atlanta-area accident being the most recent. It happened on April 20 on the set of the movie “The Pickup,” which also stars Mr. Murphy. A stunt went wrong and a two-vehicle accident was caught on camera.
It can be difficult to know which major studio was in charge of a shoot where a serious accident occurred, in part because some safety violations are filed against film production contractors. But the number of recent accidents on Amazon sets, while worrying, does not seem out of the ordinary, considering the total number of such accidents that occur each year.
In the Atlanta-area crash, an armored truck and an SUV collided and left the road. Eight people were sent to hospitals – two with injuries authorities described as life-threatening and a third with serious injuries.
One of them, Marvin Haven, spent several days in the intensive care unit for what family members said were injuries that included broken ribs, a punctured lung and a fractured skull requiring surgery. facial reconstruction.
A second victim, Wayne Rowe, also suffered serious injuries, including fractured vertebrae, a broken wrist and a large laceration to his head, his wife said on a fundraising page for him. The accident is under review by OSHA.
The third incident occurred in 2020, when a stuntwoman was injured when she hit her head on a fitting at the bottom of the tank she was working in during a rehearsal for “The Lord of the Rings: The Lord of the Rings: rings of power,” according to Amazon. and WorkSafe, New Zealand’s government health and safety regulator.
The regulator was notified of the injury six days after it occurred and a review later determined that “structures for risk assessment, worker engagement, hazard identification, monitoring and review were not as consistent as they could have been,” WorkSafe said.
Amazon declined to comment further on the three accidents, but defended its safety record as a film producer.
“The well-being of the entire crew and cast is our first priority,” Amazon said after the accident on the Atlanta set. “We will continue to insist on the highest safety standards in the industry during filming. All safety precautions were reviewed before and monitored during filming.
OSHA cited four violations in connection with “Candy Cane Lane,” including late reporting of a serious injury. It imposed fines of $7,200 for these violations. The citations were filed against Big Indie Candy Inc., which Mr. Farhat’s lawsuit identifies as the production services company hired by Amazon to oversee the film. The company appeals.
Although Amazon funds productions and promotes them under the Amazon brand, the company often employs a production services company to manage day-to-day operations. This company, in turn, typically subcontracts insurance, payroll, and equipment services to other subcontractors. Although some film productions are structured this way, particularly in the case of independent or foreign-shot films, experts said it is rare for domestic films to be produced by traditional studios.
One effect of outsourcing much of filmmaking, experts say, is that Amazon reduces its direct legal liability.
Anatomy of an accident
Before his injury, Mr. Farhat, a 33-year Hollywood veteran, was an in-demand visual effects supervisor, overseeing computer-generated graphics on more than 20 films, including five with Mr. Murphy. (When Mr. Murphy creates his multiple characters in his films, like “Dr. Doolittle,” it is most often Mr. Farhat who works closely with motion-capture cameras to enable the different versions of Mr. Murphy interact with each other.) He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on “The Mask.”
Today, as he reflects on what may have led to what he considers negligence on the set of “Candy Cane Lane,” he blames a production environment he describes as disorganized.
Mr. Farhat said that Reginald Hudlin, the director, asked the film’s screenwriter to frequently rewrite the script on set while Mr. Hudlin reshaped the film. Although originally intended as a charming Christmas film, Mr. Farhat said Mr. Hudlin made it into what the director once described as an action-adventure film in “the spirit of Avengers Endgame.
At one point, midway through production, Mr. Hudlin gathered his team of 100 people on the Universal backlot to acknowledge that while he knew some were frustrated by the number of rewrites, it was unlikely that the situation is changing, Mr. Farhat said.
Four other people working on the set acknowledged in interviews that the script was constantly changing and the production was sometimes poorly organized. Two people recalled working for a month on night shoots in freezing conditions.
“We never knew what we were doing when we arrived,” Mr. Farhat said, “and when we did, that changed.”
Mr. Hudlin declined to comment. But others who worked on the film described the production challenges as typical of a big-budget special effects film. Douglas Merrifield, the film’s executive producer, who is a defendant in Mr. Farhat’s lawsuit, disputed Mr. Farhat’s characterization of the filming environment.
“I really enjoyed the experience of working on this project, working with Reggie, these actors and Amazon,” he said.
Amazon described Mr. Hudlin in a statement as “an incredible partner” who “led a professional set and delivered the film on time and on budget.”
“To suggest that he did anything other than that is categorically false,” the statement said.
Mr. Farhat was injured during a shoot on March 29, 2023 that was handled by a second unit crew after principal photography of the film ended. Mr. Hudlin, as director, was not there that day, because second-unit crews are typically tasked with additional filming that does not involve the lead actors or other higher-ups.
In Mr. Farhat’s court papers, he claims that a tent designed to protect photographic equipment was poorly constructed and never secured to the ground. The suit says that around 1:45 p.m., winds pushed the tent toward Mr. Farhat.
“Attention!” someone shouted, according to court documents. (Mr. Farhat also created a video animation providing a visual reconstruction of what happened.)
Now Mr. Farhat says he just wants a little relief. His wife, Stephanie Allen, who cares for him, said it was difficult to watch her husband, a professional helicopter pilot and veteran Hollywood crew member, shrivel up in front of the television.
“It’s like putting a hummingbird,” she said, “in a box.”
Mr. Farhat claims his suffering was prolonged by what he says was the substandard care he received under California’s workers’ compensation system, which has drawn complaints from injured workers for years. years.
Despite everything, Mr. Farhat remained at work, far from home.
Working from his hospital bed, with a computer set up on a table above him, he completed all the special effects for “Candy Cane Lane” on Oct. 15, nearly seven months after he was injured.
“I delivered the whole movie,” he said.
And the burning Christmas tree never happened.
@Jack Begg contributed to the research.