Bomber is a quiet professional when it comes to any of his work or pastimes. I first met Bomber on a CQB course and over the years have worked with him on many such courses. He is not one to boast but believe me he has a history to be proud of and qualifications and experience that takes decades to achieve.
He has over twenty five years military service of which a considerable amount is elite forces. He has always had an interest in military close combat and combat sports and I have had the pleasure of seeing him rise to advanced course instructor status in special operations CQB.
We worked the Americas Cup in the capacity of close protection for the Alinghi Syndicate where Bomber’s former elite forces expertise was employed on land and at sea as well as in risk reduction capacities such as searches for any potential sabotage attempts on Alinghi property vessels or vehicles.
This was New Zealand’s most intensive and extensive high profile close protection contract and Bomber and I were part of the Barrie Rice led close protection team for Berakas Corporation that was owned by another CQB practitioner Wayne Tempero.
Bomber leads by example and for those that have had to follow his lead in climbing or chin-ups they will always remember just how good and committed he is.
Nearing the end of his military career in 1997 Bomber attended a stunt-training course held over four weekends. He had previously read an article in a newspaper that the movie industry required more stunt people and following this replied to an advertisement for stunt training in New Plymouth.
The course consisted of stage combat training like bar room brawling skills from the old wild west that was more geared towards live shows than movies. The course also included basic gymnastics and high fall techniques starting at about the ten foot mark and working up to a maximum of 50 foot off the fire tower on week three.
The initial twenty starters were down to eight by week three and only three of them jumped at the 50-foot height.
The last weekend saw Bomber do a full burn stunt and he was the only one on the course to do such a stunt. This stunt was preformed in a way that would probably be considered obsolete today. Bomber had to wear layers of dry and wet clothing and the accelerant was petrol. This was a long and spectacular burn that he remembers with a smile on face, in fact it was over thirty seconds of full on fire.
It was evident that Bomber had a wealth of experience at working at heights over a very long period that even stunt instructors could not lay claim to and you don’t get a name like Bomber if you don’t know your way around things that go bang which was another skill Bomber could provide.
Then in 1999 he heard of the filming of the Lord of the Rings and contacted the stunt coordinator who requested a copy of his CV and with in two weeks he got the call up to work on Lord of the Rings. From all his previous rigging experience the stunt coordinator said he could really use Bomber for the Lord of the Rings. He advised Bomber that there would be a stunt training day the next day and Bomber went along to that training session and met other members of the stunt crew.
From then on Bomber would train with the rest of the stunt crew that he met on that first training session twice weekly until they moved to Wellington to begin work on Lord of the Rings.
Between August and October, during the pre-production time in Wellington, Bomber and the stunt crew began to learn of and practise the skills required for the different character movements and fight styles.
Once Bomber had learnt the specific character fight style he would get the chance to rehearse including with the actual actors. Bomber mainly played the bad guy characters such as the Uruk hai and predominately the Orc as his physical size was well suited to this type of character.
He also played the Moria Orcs, the goblins and later one of the Hobbits and doubled Sam along with Sam’s main double Steve Reinsfield. This was especially necessary when they were working on split units and Steve could not be in two places at once.
The following year when they began working on the pickups Bomber got to cover other characters such as Gondorian, Rohan, and Harrad that ride on the elephant.
Bomber got to sample hours of make up and prosthetics for close-up character doubling and took this all in his stride not moaning or groaning about having to sit still hour after hour while his make up was painstakingly made ready.
After the Lord of the Rings Bomber worked on the Lost World, which was a BBC mini series, in which he doubled Bob Hoskins as well as playing one of the Ape characters.
This production involved some fight sequences with the native Indian people and some work in white water on the Aratiatia rapids, Taupo, and other scenes that were too dangerous for Bob to perform.
After the Lost World it was downtime for Bomber until he did a stint on Mataku, the TV show, as a military advisor that included scenes of where Special Forces were attacked by a Maori warrior.
The next job for Bomber was Treasure Island as an advisor co-host and the man responsible for setting up the challenges and the safety aspects. I’m sure readers that watched the show will remember Bomber hiding fully camouflaged in the undergrowth.
This show featured Bad Boy Barrie Rice who when voted off went AWOL and had a certain fellow competitor terrified for his safety and Bomber out tracking Barrie. This was a twist that no other reality show had featured and it really got people interested in what would happen next. Barrie had also worked with Bomber on Lord of the Rings and was a former elite forces soldier and CQB instructor.
Bomber worked on two more celebrity Treasure Island shows on special effects and props and setting up the challenges.
Bomber played one of the Colonial Soldiers on River Queen next and was in his element in the battlefield scenes where he got to shoot weapons from the 1800s as well as doing a lot of general utility stunts. This included a lot of use of squibs that are special effects that are used to realistically show bullet wounds. They are a small detonator with a small blood bag that when detonated bursts the blood bag giving off the effect of a bullet hit. The general fight scenes included general battle scenes against the Maori tribes and Bomber really enjoyed this type of work.
Bomber then worked for over two months on the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, which was similar work to Lord of the Rings. He had to wear costumes that you could barely see out of and his character included the bad guys: the Minaboar and Boggle and the good guy’s The Fawn and Saytr.
This movie for Bomber included fight scenes with swords and military advising with the ceremonial parade sequence at the end of the movie.
Bomber’s last work was on King Kong and he did a lot of the rigging, as there is a lot of blue screen and green screen work involving wires and wiring up the actors for their scenes. This included a considerable amount of safety and harness work as well ladders and cliff edge type work or moving the actors around in their harnesses.
Bombers previous military training especially working at heights and in the mountains and climbing and repelling buildings has been very helpful with his stunt work and has created openings for him.
His CQB training has also been a real advantage especially with realistic dirty fighting scenes and military special operations close combat of battlefield scenes. When you have done it for real in the military you can really bring realism to a scene and Bomber has become well known for his expertise and experience.
I asked Bomber what he intends to do in the future and he told me he will keep doing stunts as long as he can and when the body says slow down he will keep working with the rigging and safety and may work more with the special affects.
Bomber also is a joint owner of an adventure school that is set up to accommodate large numbers of clients and take them through climbing, boating, canoeing, and bushcraft experiences and much more.
He is well known for his hell chin up routines on CQB courses and has turned out over 35 repetitions and that is full and correct examples of the exercise in one go. His chin up sets include one set of thirty over grip reps, two sets of twenty over grip reps, and one set of fifteen under grip reps to finish as part of his physical training.
Bomber is 5 foot 5 inches and 70kgs and has considerable upper body strength that has served him well through his military career and stunt work.
Bomber has had the pleasure of meeting Peter Jackson who he describes as a good Kiwi bloke that never gets angry or upset, who is a true professional and talented genius who has really put New Zealand on the map in the movie industry.
Bomber brings to the movie industry specialist skills that include parachuting, climbing, repelling, diving, boating, driving, explosives, survival, CQB, close protection and expertise with a wide range of weapons and facets of warfare.
He is also the treasurer of the New Zealand Stunt Guild and keeps in close contact with the close-knit group of buddies he made back at his entry to the industry and throughout his involvement to date.
He has one son Logan that he is very proud of and already has him into martial arts training and looks forward to sharing years of quality time with in action packed pursuits as Logan gets older.
