Yahoo Finance Dancer was crushed by ‘mechanical tree’ during filming of advert
A dancer was crushed by a mechanical tree while filming an advert for a “multi award-winning” production company, London’s High Court heard on Thursday.
Keira Johnson, a performance artist who has worked for the Royal Opera House, suffered serious back injuries after a tree mounted on a mechanical stump fell on her as she ran through woodland.
The Bath Dance College graduate from Oakhill, Somerset is now suing Adam and Eve DDB, the advertising agency that hired her, for £300,000.
Documents filed to the High Court on Thursday reveal she had been hired to perform a woodland scene in Poland alongside another performer.
Special effects teams had mounted trees on “a mechanical pivot or hinge” which would fall when triggered at the right time, giving viewers the impression the pair were smashing through the woodland.
Lawyers for Ms Johnson say that she ended up with “serious” crush injuries to her back after “a tree that was intended to fall via a special effects mechanism fell early”, crushing her.
Denies liability
Adam and Eve DDB, whilst admitting she suffered serious injuries on set - denies liability to pay her compensation.
In the company’s defence, lawyers say that while DDB signed her on as “talent" for the film, it was not her employer and had nothing to do with setting up the shoot or devising, building or operating the mechanical trees.
Court documents state that Ms Johnson was one of two artists who had been hired by DDB to star in the advert, which was to be filmed in Warsaw last September.
DDB says that after signing on the “talent” and devising the concept of the shoot, they handed responsibility for it over to a “well-established multi-award winning film production company”.
Ms Johnson signed a contract whereby she would be paid £350-a-day for filming, plus a total of up to £38,000 if the finished product was broadcast on TV and used in a print media campaign.
Barrister James Medd, for DDB, states the production company, which was not named in the documents, “was in control of the shooting of the scene and the claimant acted under (the production company's) direction”.
The barrister goes on to say: “It is denied that the defendant had any relevant ‘level of control’ over the filming location or what was done there.”
DDB UK Limited is the sole defendant to the claim and the production company is not a party to the action.
The case continues.
