A veteran on the film crew, injured in an accident, blames Amazon for his pain

In March 2023, producers of the Amazon movie “Candy Cane Lane,” starring Eddie Murphy, were determined to set a 15-foot-tall spruce tree on fire in a scene, according to court papers filed in a recent lawsuit.

But court documents say the weather was not cooperating. The producers had already canceled filming on several occasions due to rain and wind.

However, on this day, production will continue amid winds of up to 30 mph, court papers say.

One severe storm sent a tent on the set crashing into John Farhat, the visual effects supervisor. In the lawsuit he filed last fall, Farhat said Al-Khayma speared him in the back and threw him into the air “as if he had been caught in a hurricane.” He fell to the ground unconscious.

Fifteen months later, Mr. Farhat, 66, remains bedridden in his home, unable to sit, and unable to stand for more than an hour. He broke five vertebrae and two ribs. He said an ambulance was needed to take him to medical appointments. He says his struggle to recover was made more frustrating by what he describes as a combination of workers’ compensation red tape, which left him dissatisfied with his doctors and pain management plan.

In his lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last September, he accused Amazon Studios, its production services company, a producer and others of negligence, asserting, among other things, that the tent was not properly secured. Lawyers for Amazon Studios and other defendants denied that they were negligent, responsible or in any way at fault regarding Mr. Farhat’s injuries.

But Mr. Farhat, undeterred, said in an interview that he felt it was important for him now to speak publicly about his disaster, especially after another accident in the Amazon region in April that left several people injured.

“I’ve been playing it safe for a year and trying to play by the rules and not piss anyone off and not say anything,” he said. “It all seems untenable.”

There has been increasing scrutiny of the adequacy of safety protocols on film and television sets, as more attention has been drawn to high-profile incidents, such as the shooting death of the cinematographer for the film “Rust,” which ultimately led to criminal charges.

In the wake of this shooting in 2021, Los Angeles Times The researchers analyzed data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and reported that nearly 250 serious accidents have occurred during film production since 1990.

Safety on set is a major issue for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, whose contract the union representing about 170,000 behind-the-scenes crew members is negotiating with studios and some streaming companies. Specifically, the union is seeking increased fines when employers fail to provide mandatory rest breaks for crew or require crew to work excessively long hours, defined as more than 60 hours per week.

The union declined to comment on Mr. Farhat’s case or the incident that occurred near Atlanta.

“I’ve heard some negative things said about the cast by producers,” Melanie A. said. Ragone, a veteran Hollywood star, describing her. Years of experience on a variety of film sets. “This is what I hate. Why do we go out and kill ourselves for you and risk our lives? Why are the crew treated like we’re expendable?”

Amazon has been involved in three serious accidents in the past few years, with the Atlanta-area accident being the most recent. It happened on April 20 during the filming of “The Pickup,” which coincidentally also stars Mr. Murphy. Something went wrong and a two-car collision was captured on film.

Tracking down the major studio responsible for a film set where a serious accident occurred can be difficult, in part because some safety violations are filed against film production subcontractors. But the number of recent incidents in the Amazon region, while alarming, does not appear to be out of the ordinary, given the total number of such incidents that occur each year.

In a collision in the Atlanta area, an armored truck and an SUV collided and fell off the road. Eight people were sent to the hospital, two with what authorities described as life-threatening injuries and the third with serious injuries.

One of them, Marvin Haven, spent several days in the intensive care unit why Family members said they were The injuries included broken ribs, a punctured lung and a fractured skull, requiring facial reconstructive surgery.

The second victim, Wayne Rowe, also suffered serious injuries including fractures to his vertebrae, a broken wrist and a large laceration to his head. his wife said on his fundraising page. the incident It is reviewed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)..

As for the third incident, it was in 2020, when a stunt actress was injured when her head hit a fixture at the bottom of the tank in which she was working during a rehearsal for the movie “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” according to the Amazon website. and WorkSafe, New Zealand’s government health and safety regulator.

The regulator was notified about the injury six days after it occurred, and a review later found that “risk assessment, worker engagement, risk identification, monitoring and review structures were not as cohesive as they could have been,” WorkSafe said.

Amazon declined to provide further comment on the three incidents, but defended its safety record as a film producer.

“The well-being of the entire crew and cast is our first priority,” Amazon said after the incident in the Atlanta area. “We will continue to insist on the highest industry safety standards during filming. All safety precautions were reviewed before filming and observed during filming.

OSHA cited four violations related to “Candy Cane Lane,” which included delaying the reporting of a serious injury. Fines were imposed $7,200 for violations. The citations were filed against Big Indie Candy Inc., which Farhat’s lawsuit identifies as the production services company hired by Amazon to oversee the film. The company is attractive.

Although Amazon finances and promotes products under the Amazon brand, the company often employs a production services company to manage day-to-day operations. This company, in turn, typically outsources insurance, payroll, and equipment services to other outside contractors. Although some film productions are structured this way, especially in the case of independent films or those shot abroad, experts said it is uncommon for locally made films produced by legacy studios.

One effect of outsourcing much of the film industry is that Amazon reduces its direct legal liability, experts say.

Anatomy of the accident

Before his injury, Mr. Farhat, a 33-year Hollywood veteran, was a demanding visual effects supervisor, supervising computer-generated graphics on more than 20 films, five of them with Mr. Murphy. (When Mr. Murphy creates his multiple characters in his films, such as “Doctor Dolittle,” it is often Mr. Farhat who works closely with the motion-capture cameras to allow the different versions of Mr. Murphy to interact with each other.) He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in The film “The Mask”.

Today, as he reflects on what may have led to what he considers negligence on the set of “Candy Cane Lane,” he blames the production environment, which he describes as disorganized.

Director Reginald Hudlin asked the film’s screenwriter to repeatedly rewrite the script while Mr. Hudlin reshaped the film, Mr. Farhat said. Although it was originally conceived as a charming Christmas movie, Mr. Farhat said Mr. Hudlin turned it into what the director once described as an action-adventure film “in the spirit of Avengers Endgame.”

At one point, midway through production, Mr. Hudlin gathered his crew of 100 in the Universal backlot to admit that although he knew some were frustrated about the amount of rewriting taking place, the situation was unlikely to change, Mr. Farhat said.

Four other people who worked on the set agreed in interviews that the script was constantly changing and that the production was poorly organized at times. Two people recall working for a month on night shoots in extremely cold conditions.

“We never knew what we were doing when we showed up, and when we did, it changed,” Mr. Farhat said.

Mr. Hudlin declined to comment. But others who worked on the film described the production challenges as typical of a big-budget, special-effects film. Douglas Merrifield, the film’s executive producer and a defendant in Mr. Farhat’s lawsuit, objected to Mr. Farhat’s characterization of the environment surrounding the filming location.

“I really enjoyed the experience of working on this project, working with Reggie, the cast, and Amazon,” he said.

In a statement, Amazon described Mr. Hudlin as a “terrific partner” who “managed a professional set and delivered the film on time and on budget.”

“To say he did anything other than that is categorically false,” the statement read.

Mr. Farhat was injured during the filming session on March 29, 2023, which the second unit crew took over after the completion of principal photography for the film. Mr. Hudlin, as director, was not present that day as 2nd Unit crews are usually assigned additional filming that does not include the main actors or other senior officers.

In court papers filed by Mr. Farhat, he says the tent designed to protect camera equipment was improperly constructed and was never attached to the ground. The suit says that at approximately 1:45 p.m., winds pushed the tent toward Mr. Farhat.

“watch out!” someone shouted, according to court papers. (Mr. Farhat also created an animated video showing a visual reconstruction of what happened.)

Now, Mr. Farhat says he just wants some relief. His wife, Stephanie Allen, who is caring for him, said it was hard to watch her husband, a commercial helicopter pilot and veteran Hollywood crew member, wither in front of the television.

“It’s like putting a hummingbird in a box,” she said.

Mr. Farhat says his suffering was exacerbated by what he described as the substandard care he received under California’s workers’ compensation system, which has drawn complaints from injured workers for years.

Through it all, Mr. Farhat has remained at work – from home.

Working from his hospital bed, with a computer mounted on a table above him, he finished all the special effects for “Candy Cane Lane” on October 15, roughly seven months after his injury.

“I delivered the entire movie,” he said.

And the burned-out Christmas tree never arrived.

@Jack Begg contributed to the research.