Stunt driver flying high for video at Valley's old plant sites

RZR Stunt Driver

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At first glance, it could be a scene from a “Mad Max” video. But the video released Tuesday by Mad Media — showing professional off-road stunt driver R.J. Anderson tearing through a bleak, post-apocalyptic landscape — was shot in Youngstown, Warren and other Mahoning Valley locations.

By GUY D’ASTOLFO

dastolfo@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

At first glance, it could be a scene from a “Mad Max” video.

But the video released Tuesday by Mad Media – showing professional off-road stunt driver R.J. Anderson tearing through a bleak, post-apocalyptic landscape – was shot in Youngstown, Warren and other Mahoning Valley locations.

Mad Media, of San Diego, came to the area last month to shoot a video of Anderson driving the Polaris RZR utility all-terrain vehicle at abandoned industrial sites.

Josh Martelli, creative director of the film production company, saw the beauty in the post-industrial landscape. He also called it an ideal place to show off Anderson’s driving skills and death-defying stunts.

The six-minute video was released Tuesday on UTVunderground.com, a website that is an online home for the specialty off-road vehicles.

Much of it was shot on a brownfield site on the East Side of Youngstown. A segment also was shot at RG Steel in Warren, including one scene in which Anderson jumps onto the top of a scrapped locomotive in his RZR, rides across the top and then jumps off the other end.

The video is full of similarly incredible jumps and stunts.

In one, Anderson crashes through an industrial window wall in an abandoned factory. In another, he jumps across the in-ground ruins of a steel mill, which look like a miniature canyon.

Polaris and other sponsors in the off-road recreational vehicle industry funded the video as a promotional tool. The video, which cost more than $100,000 to make, includes no voiceovers – just the sound of the modified Polaris vehicle.

Anderson, 22, has been racing four-wheel off-road vehicles since he was 14. The California native is now a professional short-course racer. He has been named the Pro Utility-Terrain Vehicle Driver of the Year and has won the Pro UTV Baja 1000 race. The video released this week by Mad Media is the third he has done with the production company.

Although Anderson makes the stunts look easy, they are anything but, and failure is definitely a possibility.

In fact, three of the Polaris vehicles were destroyed in the making of the video. The retail cost of each vehicle ranges from $12,000 to $25,000.

“RJ pulled off some of the stunts on first try,” said Martelli. Others had to be repeated – at considerable risk.

“For some of these stunts, you could die if something goes wrong,” said Martelli. “It’s all real. There is no CGI and no safety net.”

Mad Media hired local contractors, such as a bulldozer operator, to set the scene for some of the stunts – creating hills and embankments, and making other modifications.

In one scene, set inside a massive abandoned mill building, Martelli’s crew laid down a series of bumps, which actually were scrap-steel piles taken from the site.

In another scene, Anderson drives through a real half-pipe – actually a massive mill vent pipe that had been cut in half lengthwise.

Martelli said a second video was made during his crew’s stint in Ohio, but it won’t be released for another week or so.

The second video was shot on the Newell Toll Bridge over the Ohio River at East Liverpool, a rickety old bridge that has an open steel grate for a road deck. Anderson sets the speed record for a Polaris RZR on the bridge in the upcoming video, which also will premiere on UTVunderground.com.

It can be a scary experience driving across the Newell Toll Bridge in a regular car at 25 mph. But Anderson hit 100 mph while driving across it.

In the Mahoning Valley, Polaris RZR vehicles can be purchased at Johnny K’s Powersports in Niles, and the dealership assisted in the making of the video released this week.

“They came with a couple of machines, and as you can imagine, nothing goes perfect, so we gave them a place to work on them and some spare parts,” said John Kalogerou, owner of the dealership. Kalogerou said he was able to go on-site to watch the video being made.

Aaron Robbins, a sales rep at Johnny K’s and an off-roading enthusiast, was excited about the video.

“It’s pretty wicked,” he said. “It’s sweet that it was shot in our backyard. They really nailed the post-apocalyptic look.”

Robbins said his customers in the local off-roading community were already well aware of driver R.J. Anderson. But he hopes the video reaches a new crowd and gets more people interested in the sport.