Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior Filming Locations
The Bike Gag "Shoot The Tyre!"
The marauders are in hot pursuit, and starting to climb aboard the tanker. One unfortunate biker gets a little too close however, and is sucked under the rear wheels! Although in screen time the stunt is relatively short, it was actually quite a complex shot, as the storyboard below illustrates:
Storyboard design for the gag
The special effects team of Monte Fieguth, David Hardy and Steve Courtley designed, set up and executed this complex gag. The setup involved an intricate arrangement of hooks, cables, counter weights, explosive charges and so on. The mechanism was designed to release the bike and pull it under the wheels, at the same time pulling all of the cabling out of shot, and ensuring that the bike didn't become entagled.
The dummy biker hanging from the tanker
The system had to be operated manually, and Monte Fieguth actually road underneath the tanker to operate all the mechanisms. In the end the sequence was actually filmed four times until they got exactly the shot they wanted.
Back to Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior On Location