Lights, Motors, Action at Hollywood Studios

I wasn’t sure about going to see Hollywood Studios’s new stunt show – Lights, Motors, Action, but everyone else in my group had seen it before and said it was fantastic, so I went along, and at the end of it I had to agree that it was certainly worth seeing.

The first thing that amazed me about it was the size of the seating area. It was huge, much bigger than I had imagined, with seats for 5,000 people. We had seats right in the front row, as we were amongst the last people to arrive, and they certainly gave us a fantastic vantage point. The seating area is quite steeply banked, so all the seats will have an excellent view of the action.

The ‘stage’ is laid out to look like a film set, with shops at the back and a canal at the front. The idea is that we are watching as they film a sequence for an action spy film, set in a small town in France, where the ‘goody’ is being chased by the ‘baddies’. The director and cameramen and various members of the production crew are there and the director explains to us what is happening as he shoots the different scenes. He and other members of the crew, explain some of the ways they shoot things, and why it isn’t always shot in sequence. After all the scenes have been ‘filmed’ the director combines them and shows what the final film footage will look like in the giant screen at the back of the set.

It is a fast and furious show, and very loud, with the cars’ engines revving and explosions going on. The stunts that the cars perform are amazing – I found it hard to believe what they could do in a relatively small space. The stage is actually very large compared to the normal area used for a show of any kind, but when you have cars racing around it at high speed, it suddenly seems very small! Not only are cars involved, there are motor bikes and jet skis. Some of the stunts they perform are carried out with jaw-dropping split-second accuracy and the driving skills required to do them is mind-boggling. At first when I saw it I thought in some way that this was a computer controlled show with remote controlled cars, or that the cars were fixed onto a cleverly concealed track of some kind – but the reality of it is that these are real cars with real drivers!

I won’t divulge exactly what happens in the show, what the stunts and amazing tricks are, as that would spoil it for you, but some of the things that happen are simply breathtaking, and you will have your heart in your mouth on more than one occasion.