Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance The Movie in Budapest,

• Info
• Cast & Crew

• Genre: Action,Fantasy,Horror
  
  Synopsis:
  Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) gets a chance to rid himself of the Ghost Rider curse forever when members of a secret church hire him to save a boy from Satan (Ciarán Hinds) .
  
  Release Date: 02/17/2012
  Running Time: 96
  
  Rating: PG-13 - Parents Strongly Cautioned
  
  http://www.thespiritofvengeance.com/
  
• Cast:
  Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider: Nicolas Cage,Moreau: Idris Elba,Roarke: Ciarán Hinds,Nadya: Violante Placido,Danny: Fergus Riordan,Ray Carrigan: Johnny Whitworth,Methodius: Christopher Lambert,Benedict: Anthony Head,Terrokov: Jacek Koman,Toma Nikasevic: Vincent Regan,Kurdish: Sorin Tofan,Grannik: Spencer Wilding,Krakchev: Jai Stefan,Vasil: Cristian Iacob,Young Johnny Blaze: Ionut Lefter Cristian
  
  Crew:
  Director: Mark Neveldine,Director: Brian Taylor,Screenwriter: Scott M. Gimple,Screenwriter: Seth Hoffman,Screenwriter: David Goyer S.,Producer: Steven Paul,Producer: Ashok Amritraj,Producer: Michael De Luca,Producer: Avi Arad,Executive Producer: E. Bennett Walsh,Executive Producer: David Goyer S.,Executive Producer: Stan Lee,Executive Producer: Mark Steven Johnson,Cinematographer: Brandon Trost,Production Design: Kevin Phipps,Film Editor: Brian Berdan,Original Music: David Sardy,Casting: Gail Stevens,Casting: Colin Jones,Costume Designer: Bojana Nikitovic,Art Director: Serban Porupca,Art Director: Stephen Dobric,Art Director: Adi Curelea,Art Director: Justin Brown,Set Decoration: Dominic Capon
  
  Distributors:
  Sony Pictures
  
  Notes:
  Production Notes Nicolas Cage reprises his role as Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider(tm) Spirit of Vengeance. In this gritty new vision for the character, directed by Neveldine/Taylor (Crank), Johnny is still struggling with his curse as the devil's bounty hunter - but he may risk everything as he teams up with the leader of a group of rebel monks (Idris Elba) to save a young boy from the devil... and possibly rid himself of his curse forever. Columbia Pictures and Hyde Park Entertainment present in association with Imagenation Abu Dhabi a Marvel Entertainment / Crystal Sky Pictures / Ashok Amritraj / Michael De Luca / Arad production, Ghost Rider(tm) Spirit of Vengeance. The film stars Nicolas Cage, Ciarán Hinds, Violante Placido, Johnny Whitworth, Christopher Lambert, and Idris Elba. Directed by Neveldine / Taylor. Produced by Steven Paul, Ashok Amritraj, Michael De Luca, Avi Arad, and Ari Arad. Screenplay by Scott M. Gimple & Seth Hoffman and David S. Goyer. Story by David S. Goyer. Based on the Marvel Comic. Executive Producers are E. Bennett Walsh, David S. Goyer, Stan Lee, and Mark Steven Johnson. Director of Photography is Brandon Trost. Production Designer is Kevin Phipps. Edited by Brian Berdan, A. C. E. Costume Designer is Bojana Nikitovic. Music by David Sardy. Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance has been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for Intense Sequences of Action and Violence, Some Disturbing Images, and Language. The film will be released in theaters nationwide on February 17, 2012. MARVEL, and all Marvel characters including the Ghost Rider character (tm) & (C)2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ABOUT THE FILM Nicolas Cage is back as the Ghost Rider in a gritty new vision for the classic character, Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance. The film is directed by Neveldine/Taylor - also known as Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor - who have earned a cult following with their stylish and edgy films, including Crank and Gamer. Taylor explains that the directors were excited to approach their new film for two major reasons. ``We were thrilled to have the opportunity to direct a franchise film with Nicolas Cage, and, second, to work with this really cool, edgy, comic book series - I mean, this dude has a flaming skull and kicks major ass, says Neveldine. ``I think the studio wanted to do something edgier with this franchise, so our attitude and style of filmmaking fit perfectly with the tone they were hoping to see. We were all on the same page. With a free hand to give the film that edgy tone, the directors could let their imaginations run wild. ``The only thing we knew we wanted to keep from the first film was Nick Cage. We wanted to change everything else - the way he looks, the way he dresses, the bike. We wanted souls to be burned and dragged to hell. And lucky for us, the studio said, 'That's great; that's what we were hoping you'd say.' And that became the start of our process. What we were really going for is a mood, a feeling, an aesthetic - to make him badass. That process continued all the way through production, as Neveldine and Taylor employ a kinetic style both in front of and behind the camera, as Cage explains. ``The energy of making this film was a different experience, says the actor. ``It's a much more wild, almost daredevil experience - even the way Mark Neveldine shoots. He's like a stuntman, risking his life hundreds of times, hanging off of wires or shooting while skating on Rollerblades - he's a very active, macho filmmaker. Fans are going to be blown away by the photography and Mark, Brian and (Director of Photography) Brandon Trost's daredevil camerawork. Describing their intense set experience, Neveldine says, ``At the end of the day, we have to get the performance and the shots, and we'll get them any way we can. You'll see us hanging off of cars and shooting on Rollerblades to push the cinematic envelope. Where other directors might choose to create the Ghost Rider's world inside a computer, Neveldine/Taylor capture as much as they can practically. ``We use real stunt guys and real motorcycle action - though we did set the guy's head on fire in the computer afterwards, says Taylor. ``We think it makes for a better, more visceral experience for the viewer if they're seeing something real. Editor Brian Berdan, who worked with the directors on Crank, says, ``They are so creative; it's all hand-held and intuitive and not totally planned out. That liveliness of a hand-held camera and someone with the sense of what to do with it makes it all really come to life. It can be a challenge to edit, because you get a ton of footage - some of which makes you initially think, 'I can't do anything with this,' and then the camera will come in at just the right point and you grab exactly what you need! Idris Elba was impressed by the directors. ``They managed to catch everything, paying attention to detail and performance and background. They're a very courageous set of filmmakers. You can see that they're having fun, but you also feel that they know what they want. They're really full-on fellas. When I saw Mark break out the Rollerblades - and I'm on a motorcycle on a motorway in Romania (and I can hardly ride, I just learned) - I'm like, 'This dude is nuts, but, hey, let's go for it!' It's a style that Cage relishes. ``They have this gonzo energy, this wild intensity - they're both really up for anything. I think I fit into that, too. ``We were excited for our tone and dark humor to leak into the project, says Neveldine. ``At the same time, it was important to keep it grounded and hard-hitting. Neveldine/Taylor's extreme filmmaking required a story that broke new ground as well. It wouldn't do to simply pick up where the last film left off. ``This story takes place years later, when Blaze - and the Ghost Rider - are in an entirely different place, says producer Ari Arad. ``Johnny Blaze is now miles away from his place of birth, trying to run away from the demon inside him. In comes a priest, Moreau, played by Idris Elba, who promises to help Johnny - if Johnny can help find a certain boy. If Johnny can find the boy and save the child's soul, he might be able to save his own soul as well. Some ideas for the new film started while Cage was promoting the first film. ``I was in England, doing a junket for the film, dressed in leather from head to toe, and I decided I'd go to Westminster Abbey on my lunch break, he remembers. ``I had no idea that I was walking into an environmental summit with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the head of the Greek Orthodox Church. I snuck in, and they sat me in the back, when a bishop from Colorado sees me and invites me up front. He introduces me to the Archbishop, who says, 'Let me give you a tour of Westminster Abbey.' We're walking around, and he sees how I'm dressed, and he says, 'Oh, and by the way, I can be naughty, too.' Well, that was the beginning of it, for me - that John and the Ghost Rider would somehow be working with the church, that the church would need him in some way. For Cage, approaching Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance was ``like starting from scratch in many ways. It's a whole new John Blaze - by now he's been living for a while with the Rider. In the original film he was always trying to calm down - by avoiding alcohol, listening to Karen Carpenter... stuff that wouldn't make his head ignite. It's now years later; his head has ignited and he has to live with that. So it's an entirely different Johnny hiding out in Romania. ``Nick is a brilliant actor and a gentleman, says Neveldine. ``He always puts the film first and we were humbled by his commitment. He brought ideas to the set every day that pushed us to be better filmmakers. He also embraced our style and enjoyed how we work. That made us feel good and kept us on our toes. It made coming to work every day a complete pleasure. ``Nick seems like a lunatic when you see him in movies, but he's super-cerebral in his approach to acting, says Taylor. ``Everything he does is really well thought-out - there's a method to the madness. That's why his performances are so interesting - he's not just acting crazy. And that extends to a project like this one - it's a guy with his head on fire on a motorcycle, but we got really deep into the mythology. Not only did we construct a new arc for Blaze, we wanted to explore who the demon is, what his story is, what makes the Ghost Rider the way he is. Cage's co-stars were also impressed with the actor's range and commitment. ``He's just one of the funniest and most gracious actors I've worked with, says Idris Elba. ``You know, he's obviously a huge superstar, but when you meet him, you know, he's very much down-to-earth. Happy to work. Happy to rehearse. Happy to do it again and again. He's a good guy. Cage notes that just as the Ghost Rider has a new look in this film, so does Johnny Blaze. ``The look is a lot more rugged. The jacket is more fitted and you don't have spikes coming out of it. It's less heavy metal, says the actor. ``When Blaze, wearing a tight-fitted traditional racing jacket with leather pants, morphs into the Ghost Rider, it's a more organic and alive look. Something I talked about with Brian was how it starts to become hot, black, oozing and bubbling. Costume Designer Bojana Nikitovic adds, ``Brian and Mark didn't want it to be stylized; they wanted things to look real - like you wouldn't even notice the costumes. Almost every principal character has only one costume - these are characters that really live in their clothes, so their costumes become their skin, especially Johnny Blaze and Moreau. Everything has to be worn out. John Blaze is not the only role that Cage plays in the film; he also plays the Ghost Rider for the first time. (In the 2007 film, the Rider was played by a number of stunt performers, whose faces were replaced by the famous flaming skull.) ``Brian Taylor really wanted to get into the feeling of the sacrifice - always recalling the pain of the actual initial deal with the Devil, says Cage. ``So, he was a huge advocate that I should play not just John Blaze, but the Ghost Rider as well. It was important to Brian that I inhabit the spirit, Zarathos - he is the corrupted and fallen spirit of justice who became a spirit of vengeance. That opened up all sorts of new doors for me. I'd played multiple roles in movies in the past, like Adaptation, but this time, I was dealing with a character that was not human. How could I bring that to life? It was exciting to me - and let's face it, the movie's called Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance, it's not called John Blaze. The Ghost Rider is the star of the movie. ``We thought it was a great opportunity - you have Nick Cage, this unbelievable actor, and you can have him play the dual role of Johnny Blaze and Ghost Rider, says Neveldine. ``I think he loved getting in there and playing this dark soul, dealing with the addiction of this demon inside of him. ``We really did approach it as a dual role - Ghost Rider is not Johnny Blaze, says Taylor. ``Johnny has been taken over by the demon, Zarathos. It's something else completely. So Nick had to imagine, what does that demon look like when he's in hell? Now he's inhabiting a human body - what does that look like? How does he walk? How does he move? In their re-creating the character for the new film, Cage and the directors worked on how they would portray the demonic spirit. ``Brian and I thought that he was like an ancient pharaoh; he has a regality about him, and he's not something you can relate to, says Cage. ``And I also thought about animals that I could draw on; I had two pet cobras at one time in my life, and I would watch them move and what they would do when they turned their back to me. If you look at the back of a cobra, there's a pattern on it that almost looks like an occult eye. They would start dancing and then turn and just lunge and bare their fangs. That became a motif for Ghost Rider, that sort of hypnotic movement to try to put you to sleep and then attack. Those were some of the little ways of trying to create an entity that would be unlike anything you'd seen before that would, hopefully, scare and entertain you at the same time. While audiences would never see Cage's face when playing the Ghost Rider in the finished film, the actor nonetheless arrived on set in makeup of his own design that created a skull-like look and incorporated contact lenses that blacked out the entirety of his eyes. But why create such an elaborate make-up, when Cage's head was set to be replaced by CG a flaming skull? For Cage, the reason is simple: to find the character and to assist his fellow actors in their reactions to him. ``Ghost Rider, to me, is a fallen angel, continues the actor. ``Since he's not anything you can relate to it was important to me that there be some distance and some fear present when playing that part. When you work from the outside in, it sometimes helps you channel or believe or commit to a character that hopefully not only stimulates my imagination but my fellow actors as well - they know that there's something else in the room now and it's not John Blaze, it's a whole other being. Violante Placido (The American) says that all of the actors are adept and practiced at using their imaginations to picture what the computer will put on the screen... but nothing takes the place of the real thing. ``It made a real difference when Nick put on his makeup and wore these dark contact lenses, she says. ``The makeup made him so different, like an insect or like a snake with its black impenetrable eyes. Two black holes which hypnotize, horrify you at the same time. ``At the end of the film, says Ciarán Hinds, ``he roars up on his bike and I'm trying to crawl as much as I can in any direction. When I turned and saw this extraordinary makeup that he's done, his face just came straight into mine and became otherworldly - he'd gone somewhere with this powerful, powerful energy. Idris Elba leads a group of European actors and rising stars opposite Cage. Elba plays Moreau, ``a religious man who has gone on his own path -a Lone Ranger type character, he says. ``When you meet him, he's in the midst of a journey, searching for Nadya and Danny, and has been for a while. He's traveled around the world, lived in many different places. When I met Mark and Brian, we discussed that the character has to have a feeling of 'been there, done that.' Even though he's a monk, he likes a little bit of a drink. And he has a motorcycle and cool threads - he goes for it. Director Mark Neveldine predicts, ``Idris has a tremendous physical presence and physical skills matching the great action stars of the past 20 years. I love his take on Moreau, his energy and charisma. He has a never-say-never attitude, loves doing his own stunts and he's one of the best-looking guys in the business. A true tough guy who has the talent of twelve actors, and by the way, so much fun to work with. ``First of all, I like him as a person - he's somebody I enjoy talking with and, as an actor, he's brave, says Cage. ``Idris is not afraid to be big, to give his character Moreau size. There's a kind of enchanting madness in his eyes and this wonderful kind of crazy laugh he does every now and then. `` As he did for his memorable role in Thor, Elba chose to wear special contact lenses that would lighten his eye color. ``The character was described as a man who has a light in his eyes - which I interpreted as a light coming from his eyes, he describes. ``So I said to Mark and Brian, 'Hey, why don't we change his eye color? Why don't we make it a little bit more ambiguous as to what's going on with those eyes, you know? He's not a superhero, he's not mystical - he's real - but I wanted him to look like he might be other-worldly here and there. And they loved the idea. ``The moment he put those on, it was the icing on the cake for Moreau, says Neveldine. ``It was this spiritual power, beaming through those eyeballs. We needed that - he's not just a drunk monk, he's a drunk monk with a powerful stare, and he'll need that when he's up against the Ghost Rider. Ciarán Hinds plays a character named Roarke, but let's not kid ourselves. ``There's no way you can mince words, Roarke is the Devil, says Ciarán Hinds, ``and he's not looking for redemption. He's inhabited the body of a human being; unfortunately, human beings, being what they are, are weak and fallible, so the body's starting to disintegrate. Since he has spawned a Devil child, a young boy, he has a back-up plan, but it becomes a race against time, because not only does he have to secure the boy by a certain moment, as he progresses on his journey he starts to disintegrate. After a while, it looks like his whole face is just sliding off him. Strangely enough, this is not Hinds' first time playing the Devil. ``A few years ago, Connor McPherson, a well-known Irish theatre writer-director, asked me to be in a play [``The Seafarer] that he'd written and was directing on Broadway. The character was called Mr. Lockhart - and he turned out to be The Devil. I'm not sure what it is about my choices as an actor that leads to me being cast as the Devil, but it's fun to be evil. ``Ciarán Hinds is the nicest guy in the world - a very gentle soul - but I'm sure the Devil is the nicest guy in the world, too, says Cage. ``He's worked all that charm into his portrayal. There's a great sense of fun with him, as well. Director Mark Neveldine calls Hinds ``a total pro. He's fascinating to watch and he brings so much life to the character with so much ease. We were always excited when he stepped on set. He is a tireless actor who never ever complains and can do a perfect take 20 times in a row. Like Nic, he is one of the great actors of our time. Describing his character's look, Hinds jokes that ``contrary to popular opinion, the Devil doesn't wear Prada. The Devil wears Brioni. Bojana was very good about delicately sizing up the character - a man carrying himself with what he believes is old school dignity and pride. He is trying to keep it all together, but he's falling apart. He looks impeccable, but meanwhile the body's disintegrating. Costume Designer Bojana Nikitovic continues, ``Brian and Mark gave the right instructions to not make the typical version of devil, so we knew that he needed to be a really immaculately dressed, elegant guy. And Ciarán Hinds absolutely helped by how he wears the costume and the way he carries that character. And it's not only the wardrobe that makes the man-to play Roarke, Hinds also wore makeup and prosthetics. ``It's truly creative, fantastic work, the actor marvels. ``You need a little Zen and a lot of patience because it's a two-hour job - hair, makeup, lenses. Most of it is prosthetics work that is blended and sealed into the skin on the side of the face and along the nose. I watch how it progresses bit by bit and, at the end, half my face is not what it was when I sat down on the chair. Violante Placido takes on the role of Nadya, who forms a bond with Johnny when a secret sect of the church recruits him for to help her son. ``She has led a tough life, on the streets, and that has made her tough, says Placido. ``I imagine her like a stray cat. She knows how to use guns and knives - she's ready to kill if necessary. Her biggest sin is her son, Danny; it's a paradox, because he's also her only reason to live. Her mission in this movie is to protect her son and maybe redeem herself, start a new life. ``Nadya is crazy - she's cheated, stolen, probably killed. But at the end of the day she wants to be a mom; she wants to take care of her son, says Neveldine. ``Violante puts that front-and-center; you feel that she is putting the role of being a mother first, and she makes the character redeemable. Cage observes, ``There's a tragic mystery to Violante's performance as Nadya that's right for the role. She is a gypsy vagabond who fell in with the wrong crowds and now feels really heartbroken for this child - she's concerned for his future and feels guilty. And that all comes out in her eyes. Violante's one of those actors who is so mysterious because you don't know what she's thinking; it's all very fluid and effortless. Nadya has a mysterious, unconventional beauty. ``I really like the look that she ended up having - and there was a lot of Brian in the procedure, notes Placido. ``We decided for a dark, punk rock look. She has these dark eyes. It's like a protection that she uses - a makeup that she can make herself. It's not really glamorous and it accomplishes two things - it makes her appear melancholy, even desperate, and, at the same time, tough. It's a kind of cat look. ``It is unclear whether she's a Gypsy, but she's living her life that kind of way, observes Costume Designer Bojana Nikitovic. ``When you dress a beautiful woman, it's good to see the curves and a little bit of skin, so the search for the right costume was not helped by the fact that the story takes place in wintertime. To protect Violante from the cold, we found a jacket that we liked, then we played with colors. We definitely wanted color on her because other characters are almost monochrome, like black, gray. After trying a number of possibilities we found this red that we loved very much. Johnny Whitworth takes on the role of Carrigan - Nadya's ex-boyfriend and a character who transforms into the malevolent Blackout. ``He's a sociopath - definitely a bad guy, Whitworth explains. ``Roarke hires him to track down Nadya, because he wants the child. But the Ghost Rider has been hired by the good guys to do the same thing. An ordinary guy can't go up against the Ghost Rider, so when he almost bites the dust, he finds himself turned into Blackout - and now, he's on the same supernatural level as the Ghost Rider, this other Devil creation. Whitworth had worked with Neveldine/Taylor before, in their film Gamer as well as Pathology, which Neveldine/Taylor wrote. ``They have such different voices, but they complement each other, he says. ``Sometimes they'll give you different direction, but when that happens you realize that they are giving you two avenues to the same destination. ``Johnny is the type of actor that we'd have for one or two scenes and he'd steal the show, says Taylor. ``So we figured this was the time to give him a chance to really blow it up. He's an unpredictable actor, playing a really good bad guy, a dark soul of a man. For the comic book fans out there, I think they're going to find that he's true to the spirit of Blackout, and for the people who aren't, they'll find he's just really cool. To make the character that cool required extensive makeup and prosthetic work. ``The standard was really high on the makeup, because we had to make sure that Blackout and the Ghost Rider, which would obviously be CG, felt like they existed in the same world, says Taylor. ``I think the end result was that our people just knocked it out of the park. For Whitworth, completing the transition from handsome actor to devil creation took four hours. ``It was a painstaking process, but definitely worth it, says the actor. Christopher Lambert plays the pivotal character Methodius, the leader of the sophisticated if monastic sect to whom Moreau struggles to bring Danny, Nadya and Blaze for what they all believe will be the boy's safe keeping. ``It's great to have someone like Christopher - with a legacy like his - in this film, observes Idris Elba. But Methodius' conception of what will make the world safe in terms of Danny's fate is shockingly different from the boy's friends and mother's. ``It's impossible to say if he's a good guy or a bad guy. He's just a guy with a conviction and he's going to go forward with this conviction, notes Lambert. But playing a man of faith who is quite prepared to execute a young boy was not the actor's greatest challenge - that involved coming to terms with how the directors envisioned that would Methodius look. ``When Mark and Brian asked me if I wouldn't mind shaving my head and having my face covered in tattoos, I was really scared. I didn't know how I'd look with my head shaven - I tried unsuccessfully to convince them to let me do it with a bald cap. Ultimately, I shaved it gradually. I didn't have long hair, but I had enough that I wanted to go step by step. I started to cut it really short, then shorter, then shorter and, to my amazement, I really liked it. I'm going to grow it back a little, but I'm going to keep it very short because first of all, it's very practical and, secondly, I feel good about its pleasant feel. I was going to say 'the wind in your hair,' but the wind on your skull is pretty nice. The tattooing process designed by special effects makeup artist Jason Robert Hamer was, as described by Lambert, ``pretty simple. Fortunately, the tattoos stay on; I can sleep with the makeup. The day before shooting, we do half my face and my skull and then, the morning of the shoot, we do the rest. All together, it's about a two-and-a-half-hour process, and it takes more time to take off than to put on. `` The then-thirteen-year-old actor Fergus Riordan rounds out the principal cast in the pivotal role of Danny. ``Unfortunately, he's the son of the Devil, says Riordan. ``His mom made a pact with the Devil to host his child. So he runs away from good guys and the bad guys; in fact, he's not really sure who is good and who is bad. Ultimately, he has to decide between good and evil. ``We were very lucky to find Fergus, agrees Executive Producer E. Bennett Walsh. ``We were getting ready to do this complete European search for ten-year-old boys. We had already cast the major parts and we thought we were going to have to do this huge search to find the kid. Our casting directors in London sent Fergus' tape and we flew him in on a weekend; he read the lines and Mark and Brian cast him right there. Cage found Riordan to be ``one of the most professional actors I've ever worked with and he wasn't even fourteen yet. He is the model of how you want someone to behave on the set--he's always on time, always prepared and he's really, really good. He's just got a presence about him, timing and confidence. He was out there in these remote locations, working very hard in the cold, outside, and he never once complained. Plus, he's adorable. ABOUT THE BIKES AND STUNTS For Johnny Blaze's iconic motorcycle, the filmmakers chose the Yamaha V-Max. Its rider, Nicolas Cage, loved the choice. ``I was relieved to be able to ride a Yamaha because it made my job so much easier, says Cage. ``When you have to ride a chopper with a raked front end, it is very hard to hit your mark. It's almost impossible to maneuver and when you have three hundred people watching and a camera on you, you don't want to make a mistake. The V-Max handled it all for me. It performs beautifully - I feel like I'm one with it. I feel completely connected to the motorcycle. Production Designer Kevin Phipps and Picture Action Vehicles Supervisor Alex King worked to dress the V-Max bike for the screen, making it look like an oily and burly but well-loved machine with age and scuff marks, burnished where the paint has worn off. Then, of course, they would need another bike, for the Ghost Rider. Blaze's bike changes as he does - when he becomes the Ghost Rider, his bike becomes the Hell Cycle. King explains: ``The Hell version, the Ghost Rider's bike, is transformed - it's like molten lava, a seemingly burnt-out bike. For it to burst into flames, the visual effects people needed LED lights and orange marker points for the effects. Phipps adds, ``This machine that has heated up to a molten state and cooled down again a thousand times. We looked at lava fields, high temperature steel manufacturing, and other expansion-contraction processes with metals that come about through heat expansion and corrosion. We experimented with paint finishes, using sands, high temperature paints, and expanding foams and gradually layered up the bike with very complicated paint finishes. Mark and Brian would come along, give notes and were ultimately delighted with what we achieved. Also, the bike would have to be set on fire (through the computer, in post production). To give the VFX Supervisor Eric Durst and the 3D Stereographer Craig Mumma ample reference, Phipps and King added LEDs and orange tracking markers to the bike, which could be removed by the VFX artists as the fire was added. The motorcycle that Moreau rides is a Russian Ural Solo 750 customized with a new leather seat and vintage-looking saddle bags. But what may be the most impressive vehicle in the film is the giant Bagger 288 commandeered by the Ghost Rider during his explosive fight in the quarry with the well-armed Carrigan and his crew. The Bagger is a gigantic bucket-wheel excavator or mobile strip mining machine that is up to 721 feet long and approximately 315 feet high. As much attention was paid to riding these vehicles as the finding them. With Stunt Coordinator Markos Rounthwaite overseeing the stunt work, stuntman Rick English took on an important role as the Ghost Rider's stunt double. ``The stunt team is incredibly important, praises Cage. ``Rick is one of the great motorcycle riders in the world and the things that he can do with a bike are absolutely acrobatic. And Markos, who knows martial arts incredibly well, has designed moves that really bring a pop to the scenes. Rounthwaite was responsible not only for helping to design and plan an aggressive slate of stunts for his own team, but also keep his directors safe as they pushed the filmmaking envelope. ``Markos came to us with a natural, old-school stunt approach, says Neveldine. ``He just wanted to crash cars and put guys on wires. He had an incredible stunt team - riders that could do wheelies on motorcycles and take great hits and jump off of trucks and were precision drivers. He also put us on the wires when we had to get a shot going over the cliff. Rounthwaite observes, ``In stunt doubling, you need to really concentrate on how the actor moves, how they act, so they can mimic the actor's body movements. So it's not just the overall action you've got to take into consideration, it's also how the actors move as well, and Rick's very experienced and great at that. Stuntman Rick English adds, ``We like the actors to do as much as they're capable of doing - and Nick is very capable. We'd show him rehearsals, get some feedback from him and tweak the plan - he'd be very up for it all and very good at doing stunts. The same with the motorcycle riding. I went out riding with him when he first started on the picture; he hadn't ridden for a long while and I thought we'd take it nice and easy, go nice and slow. And then, two minutes later, he shot past me about a hundred miles an hour and I thought, I better go catch up with him! He's a very good rider and very safety conscious as well, which is good. He always respected Markos and the stunt team's opinion. ``Rick is the Michael Jordan of stunts, says Taylor. ``He is so dominant in everything. He could fight, he could do wire work, he could lay down a bike at eighty miles an hour. He could do all that and perform, too - Nick had developed a pretty complex and interesting style of movement for the demon, and for the scenes in which the demon is on the motorcycle, Rick was able to channel that and recreate it -not just mimic it, but make it happen. In addition, Rounthwaite was responsible for other behind-the-scenes stunts as well - n