Practicals With Horses In Film

As we have seen through the years of horse actors, there has been a significant increase of safety with guidelines being introduced. For some filmmakers, they would prefer to use practical stunts to create more “ Realistic” visuals to the screen. It isn’t true for some cases however, Jovine F. (Winnerswire, 2024) that using practical stunts would save the cost of production compared to using CGI which in some cases, when working with a low budget you have to find solutions to cutting down money. In this chapter we will discuss stunts which required horse stunt actors to perform covering filmmakers taking a step too far and how stunts are done as well as the old Hollywood techniques to create a realistic action.

In War horse(2011), director Steven Spielberg’s war film follows a horse's life from being sold away from his mother to a little cottage to being brought to the war and helping serve the nation. In the film, a specific scene where we see horses pulling a cannon up the hill. In the behind the scenes of the process of making the film, we can see over 100 horses were used in the scene. To allow Spielberg to create intense scene and the need to express realistic scenes of the War, Speilberg worked closely with the animals making sure he is creating a realistic scene depicting the war without harming any of the horses. The AHA reported that there were no major injuries for any of the horse actors which the film was given “ No Animals were harmed” ending credit (AHA, 2011). 

For some filmmakers, they take “ Realistic Actions” to a new level such as the film Jesse James (King 1939). The 1939 film was criticised 2 horses were used to attempt this horrific stunt. The horse actor were required to jump off a cliff into the sea. The horse actor broke many bones but then with the lack of medical help, the horse passed away but that didn’t stop Henry King, he continued to bring another horse and did the exact same stunt which the previous horse was required to do. None of them survived (Chase, Horses In Film: Abuse For Entertainment?). 

Working with practical practices does in fact, create a realistic scene but only if the practice is done correctly and animals safety are taken in which is why from all these horrific accidents, with the improvement of technology and the public being able to have more insight of the behind the scenes guidelines the AHA were created. More animal rights charities were created, to help, save and protect the horse actors from the abuse and to never let history repeat itself.