“Dope” Stunt Dbl for Kimberly Elise (Lisa Hayes Bus Driver) Interior Shot

This is the second blog post on  the movie Dope. I doubled Kimberly Elise who plays Lisa Hayes the Bus Driver in Dope. As I mentioned in the earlier blog post this was the second time I’ve driven a Bus. This stunt was something I had not done before. Their were people on the Bus including Kimberly Elise who was taking this video. If you look closely you will see a red car that does a 90 right in front of me! Our timing had to be spot on. Larnell Stovall was driving the car and he was the Stunt Coordinator for the movie. Larnell was driving East Bound on the street and I was driving west bound. We had to time the 90 and give me enough space and time to stop. Why enough space to stop? Well the Director and video village (where the Director, Script Supervisor,Producer,Assitant Director (AD) and sometimes more people watch the scene from the video monitors as the scene is going on that way they can get idea how the scene looks on film.) were right on the other side of the red car where it stopped. They were within feet of his car and my Bus. So I had to allow enough room for him to do his 90 and for me to stop in time before well no need for that to be said. I also had quite a few passengers on the Bus and n0 one wants to hear or see passengers flying around on the bus because you slammed on the breaks. A Forty Foot Bus typically weighs 25,000 lbs and up. That’s a lot of weight to have to bring to a slow smooth stop. I also had to take into consideration the pitch in the road (slant). The road pitched the right a bit and if your not careful and paying attention you can end up close to close to the side walk because of the natural pitch of the street. Driving the Bus is real traffic was definitely a lot of fun and something I would love to do again!