Stunt driving schools offer learners an opportunity to learn manoeuvres and all other necessary stunt driving skills from professionals.
In this article, we’ll list the best stunt driving schools worldwide and provide detailed information on how to become a stunt driver. Carefully read through!
Table of contents
What Is Stunt Driving?
Stunt driving can e said to be the act of overspeeding, street racing, engaging in driving contests and other dangerous practices in a motor. This type of driving puts others at risk and also has dire penalties.
According to reports from thinkinsure.ca, March 2020 witnessed a 35% increase in speeding tickets issued to drivers who exceeded the speed limit.
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What Does A Stunt Driver Do?
A stunt driver is a skilled driver of a specific vehicle in a film or television production. The car could range from a 50cc scooter to a big dump truck.
Stunt drivers may even be asked to operate a boat, submarine, snowmobile, or motorized beer cooler! Some stunt drivers specialize in a single vehicle type, such as motorcycles, whilst others may have significant experience operating industrial vehicles such as forklift trucks, wheeled cranes, and road rollers.
Where Can I Learn to Be a Stunt Car Driver?
Most stunt drivers attend a stunt driving school before serving an apprenticeship in a team. You can also take classes led by professionals with considerable experience hired by stunt driver schools.
Here are a few places where you can learn to be a stunt driver:
1. Stunt Driver School
Stunt driver schools give newbies a taste of the excitement and allow you to practice the manoeuvres with a professional teacher during a ride-along. Attend a spin class or a stunt driving 101 courses at a school like Wings and Slicks, where you can spend an afternoon studying 180-degree turns, handbrake turns, slalom, and threshold braking.
Practising the fundamentals before investing thousands of dollars in advanced training ensures you are ready to learn more challenging acrobatics.
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2. Advanced Stunt Driver Training
Professional stunt drivers with decades of expertise provide the finest chance to learn the most challenging and demanding stunts and precision driving. Bobby Ore Motorsports, for example, offers advanced lessons in the form of two or three-day seminars utilizing cars provided by the school, letting you focus on honing your skill rather than worrying about ruining your vehicle.
Most stunt driving schools have multiple levels of advanced courses, costing thousands of dollars each seminar. You can also access more complex stunts and precision driving lessons based on your performance level in the previous classes.
3. Stunt Driver Training Centers
The next place you can learn how to be a stunt driver is a training centre.
If you want to do stunts with and without cars, go to a school that offers a wide variety of training, including vehicles and other sorts of stuntwork.
Utility stunt courses, such as those provided by the United Stuntmen’s Association, teach precision stunt driving as part of a program that also teaches falls, combat, wire work, fire burns, rappelling, and career recommendations for networking and resumes.
In stunt driving training centres, teams experienced in filming teach cinematic topics like working with directors and camera cars, in addition to precision driving and stunts.
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4. Group Lessons and Skills Maintenance
Group lessons and skills maintenance offer a low-key approach to learning about stunt driving with friends and acquaintances and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for individuals who have never performed vehicle stunts.
Stunt driver classes are available at Drivers East as a fun activity for bachelor and bachelorette groups. To accommodate the needs of learners, some schools provide private instruction and compressed schedules.
They also take short refresher courses and practice sessions to prepare stunt drivers for impending employment while preventing skill loss.
Why Do People Go For Stunt Driving?
Because their skills are delicate and tailored for particular reasons, people opt for stunt driving for the following reasons:
1. Stunt Drivers are Well-paid
Stunts often require much planning and technical understanding. It costs the studio a lot of money to have a high-paid actor wait for a stunt to be set up. Preparing for a trick that lasts barely 10 seconds can take a day.
Comparably, the average salary for stunt drivers in the US is $49,439.
2. You learn driving skills
Many stunts need split-second timing, skilled vehicle control, and considerable physical exertion. Driving a car, riding a motorcycle at high speeds through tiny streets, or hitting a ramp at just the proper speed and angle all need skills that must be polished through practice.
As an average driver, you don’t get to learn these abilities because the automobiles you drive are much slower than the ones stunt drivers use.
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3. Vehicle Insurance
The vehicles used on set by stunt drivers are usually insured. These vehicles are generally some of the more expensive automobiles used on film sets.
What Are The Skills Required For Stunt Driving?
Stunt drivers must know how to prepare and rig a vehicle for a stunt. They will frequently work in a team and will not only be driving but may also be assisting in preparing the car for the stunt (e.g. welding in a roll cage).
It is recommended that you thoroughly understand the process of creating a commercial, TV show, or film. You must understand how a shoot works, who does what, where you are meant to be, and to whom you are accountable.
Examine the critical movie chase scenes to see how they were put together. There are numerous documentaries about stunt driving, including The Devil at Your Heels.
To become a good stunt driver, you must attend a driving school.
Attending a stunt school can help you master the fundamentals of the cars you desire to drive. In an automobile, you must have precise high-speed control and the ability to drift (slide sideways) in both front-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive vehicles, as well as perform a handbrake turn and a j-turn (driving backwards then sliding the car around to move forwards). Flips, barrel rolls, driving on two wheels, and jumps are among the more damaging tricks.
Riders must be able to perform wheelies (both rear and nose), jumps, burnouts, off-road riding, and drifting on their motorcycles.
Best Stunt Driving Schools In The World
Here’s a list of the best stunt driving schools in the world:
- Paul Swift’s Ultimate
- Bobby Ore’s school
- Stunts Elite Driving School
- Motion Picture Driving Clinic
- Drivers East Stunt Driving School
- Stuntdrivingschool.com.au
- Drive Rush New Zealand
- European Stunt School
1. Paul Swift’s Ultimate
Paul Swift’s Ultimate is one of the best stunt driving in the world. They offer an intensive driving program that provides you with the skills needed to become a precision driver.
The team allows you to participate in some of their most thrilling driving feats. Push yourself to the maximum in their collection of high-performance vehicles while learning how to do the perfect J-turn, just like in the movies!
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2. Bobby Ore’s school
Bobby Ore’s School is on our list of top stunt driving schools worldwide. This school is specifically for military and law enforcement professionals and those who wish to pursue a career in stunt driving.
This stunt driving school in Florida has a team of experienced professionals who have mastered the act of stunt driving. These professionals instil the best knowledge of stunt driving and high-performance standards.
Their training facility is ample and safe for operations.
3. Stunts Elite Driving School
Since its inception in 1997, the school has trained hundreds of stuntmen, stuntwomen, actors, actresses, and anyone looking to improve their driving talents.
Stunts Elite Driving School’s instruction faculty comprises the most experienced and professional personnel in the movie industry, including head teacher Rick Seaman, who has over 45 years of motion picture and television driving experience.
4. Motion Picture Driving Clinic
Initially founded in 1997 by Rick Seaman, Motion Picture Driving Clinic and its team of industry veterans have been training stunt drivers longer than any other driving school in the country.
Utilizing a closed track, a fleet of training vehicles and a team of repair technicians ready at a moment’s notice, MPDC provides an environment where students are safely taught to push their training vehicles to their limits and their skills to the next level.
From 90-degree slides to complex multi-car stunts, MPDC’s curriculum covers everything a driver needs to succeed on today’s film sets.
Using a combination of extensive hands-on driving practice and light classroom study, students not only learn to perform stunts but also about how the stunts work from a technical standpoint.
5. Drivers East Stunt Driving School
Drivers East Stunt Driving school is the first in the Northeast of New Jersey. They offer a two-day course for Level 1 students, which costs $2,175. With a class size of 4, you will receive engaging, hands-on teaching on stunt driving.
There are also group and corporate sessions available, so if you can persuade your boss that doing stunts for a weekend is an excellent team-building exercise, Mike Burke and Roy Farfel of Drivers East have you covered.
6. Stuntdrivingschool.com.au
There’s no need to fly to North America for stunt driving training; Stuntdrivingschool has locations near Melbourne (Sandown Raceway) and Adelaide (Tailem Bend Motorsports Park). Each school uses a fleet of Minis, giving the whole course a Thomas Crown Affair feel.
If you are in Singapore or Malaysia, the instructors in Australia are ever ready to teach you precision driving.
7. Drive Rush New Zealand
Drive Rush is the only stunt driving school in New Zealand. Peter Bell, a 30-year stunt veteran, gives three short courses on precision and stunt driving in Auckland, New Zealand.
The Level 1 training is only an hour and a half long, but you’ll get airborne in that time, jumping 2 meters in the air entirely over another automobile.
The Level 3 course is the most intensive, lasting 3.5 hours, and includes “the moose avoidance technique.” Depending on the curriculum, prices range from NZ$200 to NZ$360 per person.
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8. European Stunt School
European Stunt School is a stunt driving school situated close to Copenhagen. They offer intense classes in stunt driving.
Its precision driving course is the most popular of them all. It teaches learners to slide into parallel spots, do precision drifts and create unique scenes with a camera.
How Much Are Stunt Drivers Paid?
According to data on Comparably, stunt drivers in the U.S range from $10,023 to $254,999, with a median salary of $45,830. The middle 57% of Stunt Drivers make between $45,830 and $115,518, with the top 86% earning $254,999.
How To Kickstart Your Career As A Stunt Driver?
To start your career as a stunt driver, there are a few things you need to do, such as getting the required skills and experience.
Here are the things you need to do to start your career as a stunt driver:
- Acquire certification and expertise in as many cars as possible; the more vehicles you can drive, the more valuable you will be on-set.
- You must know how to drive a manual vehicle.
- Master the basics of engineering so you know roll cages and other vehicle strengthening.
- You should be familiar with automobile brands and models; if a stunt driver asks you to get in the Charger and you don’t know what it is, stunt driving is not for you.
- Master some specific skills like drifting, off-road racing, etc
- Lastly, you need to know the classic chase scenes from different movies so that you can talk professionally about your industry.
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How To Get A Stunt Driving Job
You don’t just get a stunt driving job because you’ve completed the training, you get the job when you do the following things:
- Meet existing stunt crews to see if they have any openings.
- Join the film industry.
- Make a resume and a demo reel (a short video of your driving moments) and make sure a film company knows about you.
- Look for alternative jobs that require performance driving, such as teaching high-performance driving lessons at your local racing track, working on live events, and assisting in the choreography of stunt driving scenes.
- You can create your stunt course
FAQs On Stunt Driving
A stunt driver is a skilled driver of a specific vehicle in a film or television production.
Participants must be at least 18 years old and have a current, valid driver’s license to participate.
No, you don’t need to have any experience to attend a stunt driving school.
Conclusion
Stunt driving is a major part of film and TV series. It is usually undertaken by professionals who have mastered the act of stunt driving.
To hone your stunt driving skills, there is every reason to attend a stunt driving school where you are taught the basics of stunt driving like drifting, handbrake turns, j-turns flips, barrel rolls, driving on two wheels and jumps. Carefully select the best stunt driving school from our list above.
References
- independentmotors.net – Massive Stunts 101: 12 International Stunt Driving Schools
- mocktheorytest.com – Careers in stunt driving: how to become a stunt driver
