Today we are talking about Safety on set and why having an armor on set when using weapons is so important. I’m excited to have Dan Cheatham, an Actor, 1st AD, Stunt Coordinator, Armorer, and so much more. We also spoke about the latest death on set, which involved Director of Photography Halyna Hutchins, and that this was not the first time an actor was killed on set due to negligence.
Dan R. Cheatham II
Producer / Assistant Director / Stunt Coordinator / Armorer / Equestrian / Stunts / Actor / Props
A multifaceted talent and manager with a broad international career, Dan Cheatham II has
balanced his time between his European and American acting-filmmaking career and his active business life in marketing and executive management. Dan earned his double B.A. in Germanic Languages and International Affairs at the University of Colorado in Boulder. After the university, Dan moved to Europe and worked in the international pre-press and reprography markets in worldwide product management and marketing for Linotype-Hell AG and Canon Deutschland GmbH. In 1998 Dan founded his own events management and marketing company, which facilitated the professionalization of his interests in European history and international filmmaking. In Colorado, Dan completed his World Trade Center Certification in International Trade in 2011
Dan’s film and performance interests began with a childhood involved with the school orchestra, traveling church choir stage performances, and a management job at a local movie theater. Dan’s first stage of training and acting reaches 1984 and started at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Having produced and directed his first staged historical play in Colorado in 1986, Dan has remained active. Over the decades, he has written, directed, acted, stunted, and consulted for a wide range of theatrical plays, Medieval and Renaissance acting and fight performance, television series, and cinema production in Europe and the U.S.A. Dan honed his abilities in the “hard-core” acting arenas of stunt, swordsmanship, martial arts, equestrian work and professional jousting in historical settings across central Europe. His German agency specialized in supplying people, props, and places for corporate events and consulting for TV and Film productions. Since returning to the U.S. in 2007, Dan has been professionally engaged in acting, assistant directing, stunt coordination, fight and stunt choreography and as an armorer in Colorado and California. Dan is now a California-certified film set armorer and an NRA firearms trainer. Being fluent in German and English and mastering a variety of foreign accents, Dan performs multi-lingual accented acting and voice-over work as well as translation in various commercial and film settings.
