At FiberFix we had responded to unusual requests before, but
this one was flirting with crazy. Full body armor? FiberFix is a
rapid-cure, permanent repair wrap – not a combat accessory. It goes on things
like broken water pipes, yard tools and furniture. Yes, it is ridiculously
strong, and patches of it have even stopped bullets, but this was beyond
anything we had ever tried before.
“We’d love to figure it out, but what exactly are you trying
to do?”
We soon heard the whole story. Jeff Harmon of Orabrush and
Poo-Pourii fame had co-founded VidAngel, which offers a profanity and
objectionable content filter for streamed videos, and now he was trying to make
another viral YouTube ad to get his point across – that every word has impact.
He wanted a metaphor to visualize the effect of media
profanity by assaulting a family of four with 792 paintballs per person or 3168
total (the number was generated from the film The Wolf of Wall Street which broke every swearing record in cinema
history). As any paintball enthusiast
knows, getting hit once is no picnic, let alone 800 times, and whatever
protection worn also needed to be form-fitting so it could be concealed under
clothing.
Jeff had already experimented with a scuba suit and
Styrofoam, and he showed us massive bruises on his chest from just five shots.
“I didn’t think it was possible. I thought we might literally kill somebody or
send them to the hospital, and we started to call the shoot off when somebody
brought up FiberFix.”
That’s when we got his phone call. Jeff’s associate, Benton
Crane, offered to guinea pig in our first test. We flattened some boxes for him
to lie on, protected his shirt with plastic wrap and began applying several
rolls of FiberFix. With a ten minute cure time, it wasn’t long before we had
our first FiberFix shield plate. Benton
was a little nervous as Jeff pulled out his Tippman A-5 paintball gun, but the
test went flawlessly – a little pressure, but no pain to speak of. It seemed almost unbelievable.
After a lot more experimentation, FiberFix, Little Debbie’s,
and a couple 2am evenings, I worked with Chani from VidAngel to churn out 4
complete suits of armor. Two FiberFix
employees, Elaina Wusstig and Nathan Richey, volunteered as stunt doubles and
stayed long after hours so we could create and fit the first two suits. Callee
Marshall and Emily Anderson volunteered to model for the second generation. Not
only is FiberFix designed to be watertight or even airtight for pipe repair, it
also gets warm during the curing process. Those stunt doubles sweat through a
virtual sauna to create that armor! Check out the making of Callee and Emily's suits below!
When the day of the shoot came, we were confident in our preparation. I was impressed with the precautions that had been taken in training the shooters, establishing clear protocol, checking and double-checking the armor, and managing traffic around the set. Watching 3200 paintballs fly, however, was breathtaking to watch, to say nothing of what being hit must have felt like to be hit by them. I myself was in the firing squad.
As soon as it was safe after the horn sounded and the shooting stopped, I ran on set to check the status of the stunt doubles. I knew how meticulous we had been and what tests we had run, but I couldn’t fight the natural inclination to be concerned. We knew it could withstand a few dozen just fine, but we hadn’t had the resources to do testing in a hailstorm of 3200 paintballs in advance. My eyes had instinctively told me that to come out of that unscathed would defy all reason.
The set was torn down and a new one was thrown up for a
second shoot with a new set of stunt doubles, but for this one there was no
trepidation. It was going to be another very late night, but sometimes you
can’t help but love your job.
Derek Johanson
FiberFix
Here's how the final video turned out!
FiberFix
Here's how the final video turned out!
