Canada — CBC Documentary “Falling For Hollywood” Will Put the Engineering Behind Stunt Safety on Camera

• A 52-minute documentary called “Falling For Hollywood” is now filming in Canada.
• It covers the chemistry, engineering and technology that keep stunt performers from getting hurt.
• Stunt coordinator Blair Johannes is the subject and is overseeing the stunt work.

Posted: October 11, 2026

A one-off factual special in production in Toronto is taking the unusual angle on this trade: not the spectacle, the arithmetic underneath it. Falling For Hollywood, a 1 x 52-minute film from White Pine Pictures and 519 Films with CBC attached and Orange Smarty handling international sales, is built around stunt coordinator and performer Blair Johannes, and its stated subject is “the science that keeps stunt performers safe” — the chemistry, engineering and technology behind a gag, and the procedures that mean nobody gets hurt executing it.

The structural choice is the interesting one for anyone who has sat through a stunt documentary that cuts straight from a pitch to a finished shot. Orange Smarty chief executive Karen Young says the film has “an original short film embedded within the documentary, used to illustrate the thought process, technical preparation and final execution of major practical stunts in a real working environment.” In other words, the doc builds its own sequence and shows the full chain — conception, prep, execution — rather than borrowing clips and narrating over them. “This is a show that doesn’t simply show viewers what happens, but reveals how and why these stunts work,” Young says.

The project came out of a friendship between director Andy Hourahine, Johannes and producer Stephen Paniccia, and Young says the brief was explicitly to put the department in front: the producer “wanted to focus on Blair and showcase these unsung heroes of the film industry, with an inside look at what it takes to put on an amazing stunt.” Peter Raymont is executive producing, with Hourahine and Anthony Morgan writing and Morgan hosting on camera, and Johannes running the stunt coordination on the shoot itself — which means the gags in the film are planned and signed off by the person the film is about.

Filming has started. The budget is just under C$700,000 (about £370,000) and nearly closed, with the production now looking for broadcast and streaming pre-sales to cover the shortfall; worldwide rights outside English-speaking Canada are available.

Source: Broadcast — In The Pipeline: Falling For Hollywood

Learn more on IMDb: Blair Johannes