Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One | The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History (Tom Cruise)

This is by far the most dangerous thing we've ever attempted. We've been working on this for years. We will be filming it in Norway and it will be a motorcycle jump off a cliff into a BASE jump. I wanted to do it since I was little. It all comes down to one thing. The audience. There is a lot riding on this trick. So Tom put together this master plan to coordinate all of these experts in each of the

part

icular disciplines involved to make all of this happen. John and I jumped out of a helicopter. He's going to chase me.

That's what we tell each other: don't be careful. Be competent. Be competent. One year of BASE training, advanced skydiving training, lots of canopy skills, lots of tracking. Tom Cruise, he is an incredible individual. You tell him something and he just gets it. His sense of spatial awareness, he's the most aware person I've ever met. Lots of practice on stability in free fall. Follow up with John and Miles in the air, doing many different positions, like they're a two-man team in the air. One above the other, one below the other, going backwards, forwards. You know, we've drilled and drilled and drilled.

When you do a lot of back-to-back jumps, canopy control skills improve a lot. We have three open canopies, which is good. The training has gone very well. He is making enormous progress. - Hello McQ. - How are you? Great day, man. This is the next

part

of the training, motocross. Let's do it. So we built a motocross track. He is confident in motocross, so he comfortably jumps over 70 or 80 foot tables. Good time in the air. Great positioning on the bike. Landing well. I have to be so good at this that there's no way I'm going to lose my grades.

That's good. Come a little closer to me. Coming up with the trick is just one of the technical challenges. The other is to put a camera in a place where you can see where Tom is doing it. Finding the right lens, the right platform, the right medium. Even two years ago, cameras didn't exist that would allow us to do what we're trying to do today. How do we engage the audience? I just want to give them that emotion. That means the camera has to be facing Tom and as close to him as possible. - It feels like you are stepping over the camera. - Yes.

Very cool. You train and practice every little aspect over and over again. They did 30 jumps a day. Getting to a point where I was just a machine. I mean, over 500 skydives. That's what we do. More than 13,000 motocross jumps. - Oh, that's going to be fun. Oh, it's great. We replicated this ramp in England in a quarry. We filled the quarry with cardboard boxes that were there to take a motorcycle. The reason we did this is so Tom could simulate the jump. How fast should I shoot? How far do I travel? We built models of different ramps at different angles to calculate what Tom's trajectory would be.

We have to be able to consistently predict where Tom will be in three-dimensional space. We will carry a GPS chip. And that recorded each of Tom's jumps along with his forward speed, whether there was a headwind or a crosswind. And by doing this several times, we were able to get a consistent data set. So that in each shot we could see how tall I am. This way we can place drones and cameras in places where I can get directly close. Rule one: don't hit me with the drone. Because if we do it all and we don't get it right, what's the point?

Let's do it, guys. - Ready? - Yes. I always use earplugs so I don't hear myself scream. We are ready. Three, two, one! The key is to reach certain speeds and be consistent with that. There's no speedometer, so I do it by the sound of the bike. And then when I get off the bike I'm riding, the wind hits me here and I'm cupping my chest. That will lift me up. Thank you all very much for your help, guys. We are here in Norway. We have been building this ramp for several months. Everything here has to be brought by helicopter.

Engineers and technicians. It's incredible what they have done. This is masterful. Today is the first day of principal photography and we begin in classic Mission form with the

biggest

stunt

of the movie. What we're doing here is I'm just doing jumping jacks to warm up the body. Let's do it. Just to start my follow up and make sure everything is working well. I'll try not to smile. Basically, when you get off, put on your parachute, and jump on your bike, you'll know the weather conditions in this area, in the valley, and on the ground. And then you have to safely deploy a parachute.

Now he's in a bowl of rock with walls around him, and he has to fly out of it. Of course, you know, when you do something for the first time, you can't help but worry a little about how it will actually turn out. With a jump like this, the challenge is finding the cameras, the amount of preparation and the weather. You want the light to be right. You want the clouds to be good. Misty but not misty. This weather here is exactly what we're looking for. It's about 10 minutes to get here, land, and perform the actual trick.

Sounds good. We are on the move. See you soon. Now we are going to configure the frames with this ship with a camera, with the drone only to verify everything, then we will prepare. You know, the only thing you really want to avoid when doing a trick like this is serious injury or death. Here we go. You're on a motorcycle, which is quite dangerous at the top of a ramp raised off the ground. So if you go off the ramp, it will be very bad. You are falling. If you don't get a clean exit from the bike and you get tangled with it, if you don't open the parachute then you're not going to make it.

Three. Two. One. Action! I saw a canopy. I saw a canopy. To you, thank you. Tom, that was absolutely beautiful. No problem. The bike is gone. I mean, the track was perfect. It was actually really cool. Yes. Thanks friend. I think I can hold the bike a little longer. Action! Practically the greatest trick in the

history

of

cinema

. Tom Cruise just drove off a cliff six times today. This is by far the most dangerous thing we have ever attempted. The only thing that scares me more is what we have planned for Mission 8.