NARRATOR: What happens when a barroom fight
gets out of control...
Wake up, man.
NARRATOR: ...a rattlesnake says, "Don't tread on me"...
It's responsible for more snakebites
than any other snake in North America.
NARRATOR: ...and a bowling ball strikes out?
Pay attention, 'cause you might pick up something
that'll help you on tour.
NARRATOR: What happens? "Time Warp."
Uh-oh.
Ooh.
NARRATOR: Take two guys whose slo-mo cameras
can and will stop the world in its tracks...
It starts out pretty asymmetric.
It has to move the mass of this thing out of the way.
Joseph, I need the widest-angle lens we have.
NARRATOR: ...add a high-tech laboratory
where anything can happen...
[Explosion]
...and some of the world's wildest talents.
What happens?
I mean, it's 1,000 times faster than this.
It takes about a foot a second.
[Panting]
NARRATOR: It all started in an instant.
[Both grunting]
We could not control it.
In fact, we helplessly stood by.
Whoa!
Whoa.
Hey, hey, hey. We got to catch that entire thing.
We're gonna make you do it about eight or nine times.
Maybe we should start right in the bench area.
NARRATOR: Ray Carbonel, seen here in happier times,
and Eric Jacobus -- Uh, he's this guy --
are professional stuntmen.
They do this for real in movies.
But how real is real?
Now, you guys relax.
We'll do the heavy lifting now.
NARRATOR: Using our high-speed cameras,
we're going to break down some typical stunts
to reveal the anatomy of a fight scene.
Save your head.
That looked painful from this angle.
NARRATOR: First up, hand-to-hand --
not to mention foot-to-body -- combat.
That's a little more real.
Hey, you all right?
I'm fine. It's all fake.
Well, let's just see about that, shall we?
So, I'll start with the Hollywood angle.
Look at that face, man.
You guys don't really like each other, do you?
We're actually friends.
NARRATOR: In slow motion,
we can see the incredible body control
and precise timing necessary
for Ray's kicks to look like they hurt
and still leave Eric unscathed.
LIEBERMAN: You guys are really getting the timing well.
Obviously, we can't see this, but even slow,
the timing is as if you guys are really making contact.
[Laughs]
NARRATOR: Like magic, they use misdirection
and playing the angles of visibility
for dramatic impact.
This view reveals the tight but obvious spacing
between Ray's flying limbs and Eric's face.
You still haven't recovered from the first punch.
JACOBUS: No.
NARRATOR: From behind,
the illusion comes to life as a real punch.
KEARNEY: Yeah, it's just nice. Then the second one...
NARRATOR: Ouch!
In our minds, that'll leave a mark,
because both fighters have sold the hit,
with Ray's big swing
and Eric's violent head turn.
Do we want to break some stuff stuff?
We have a lot of those stunt props around,
but we don't know how to use them,
so it would be great to get a little tutorial.
-All right. -Cool.
One, two, hah!
[Grunts]
Now, how much does that hurt?
Barely at all.
I mean, this is the only thing that I really feel,
and it's so light that there's almost no impact on it,
so that's why we didn't even need to score this.
Okay. So we're not worried about you.
Let's go check those out.
NARRATOR: You've seen this stunt before --
one that may be used to dramatize a bar fight
or a game of musical chairs gone very wrong.
Let's look at that hit again.
Ooh. That's got to hurt.
But guess what. It doesn't.
Eric returns the favor by throwing Ray through a table.
KEARNEY: Whoa.
LIEBERMAN: All right, the table.
We've had all of our carpenters cut scores through the wood
so that this table actually breaks when we fall on it.
And it'll break in specific spots.
The legs should break out, and this should break, and...
You know, if we're falling on it right,
it should all go according to plan.
Buckle as planned.
Which means that whoever gets thrown through it
is basically doing a free fall.
[Grunts]
NARRATOR: And again.
Mm.
Somebody remind us
not to invite these guys to the wrap party, okay?
And wrecking furniture is only part of the fun.
The next drink is on them.
LIEBERMAN: These bottles actually look pretty real.
They're actually prop glass. It's pretty --
Watch out. It might break.
It's that delicate.
NARRATOR: Just how easy?
[Laughing] Oh, that easy.
But can the pros make it look more realistic?
So, you're gonna use the beer bottle?
Yes.
We've got a little liquid in here for effect.
All right, one, two...
NARRATOR: Okay, one, this is a fake bottle.
Two, fake or not fake bottle,
don't try this at home
or in a bar or -- well, anyplace.
Great. How's that?
The water...
Having the liquid in there is the key.
JACOBUS: Even in slow motion,
that bottle looks like it's a real bottle,
but I'm not an experienced bar fighter, so I wouldn't know.
Well, it terms of the way glass acts,
it acts really similarly.
The way it shatters is almost identical.
NARRATOR: Guess we can forget that 10-cent deposit.
We've gone from punching to kicking
to destroying furniture,
breaking bottles on each other's faces.
What's next?
The art of aiming a heavy ball
at 10 pear-shaped pins down a narrow alley
is actually the number-one recreational sport in America.
It's also a great way for guys to dress up cool.
Okay, maybe not these guys.
But sartorial splendor aside,
it does take some serious skill
to knock them over in the frames.
Pro bowler Mike Fagan more than looks the part.
He can bowl strike after strike,
seemingly with ease and certainly with style.
Well, people say
that I've had one of the most unique releases in bowling.
And a lot of people ask me, you know, "How do you do it?"
And sometimes, I just don't know how.
I mean, it just comes natural to me.
NARRATOR: It is our ongoing mission at "Time Warp"
to take the natural
and break it down into component parts...
...as everything does have a scientific explanation.
But it's important never to let the scientific mojo
get in the way of the natural magic,
as every bowler -- or, really, every athlete -- can tell you.
Now, are you consciously thinking of the physics
as you take a swing?
No, no, no.
I have to turn my brain off in order to bowl well.
You just have to kind of go back to your instincts
and let it happen.
NARRATOR: Hard to argue mental preparation with a 300-pointer,
but what about the rest of us?
What exactly needs to happen to turn this...
into this...
over and over again?
A lot, actually.
More than 100 muscles work together
to master the transfer of momentum
from the body to the ball to the bash.
What's Mike's secret?
FAGAN: I have a pretty loose arm swing.
I try to keep my hand
on the inside of the ball at all times
and delay that until it's very possible,
then come up through underneath the ball.
LIEBERMAN: But you're actually cradling the weight
with your entire hand.
Exactly.
NARRATOR: Just before their hand releases the ball,
great bowlers, like Mike, put a spin on things
by using lots of power and some rotation.
By you preloading in a rotation and ending flat,
you're most likely to have it go straight
with your arm where you're aiming.
NARRATOR: So, does knowing the laws of physics
mean you can easily put them to use?
Not always.
Everybody has their own style.
You look a little tense out there.
Well, this is my center-of-mass balance system.
NARRATOR: Sounds good in theory.
LIEBERMAN: I do nothing like what you do.
I'm releasing directly from the top.
NARRATOR: Well, now that we've identified
that little problem...
...let's take a closer look
at the journey of the ball itself.
Beyond his technique, Mike relies on a thin coat of oil
covering only the front portion of a lane.
All lanes are oiled to protect their surface
from being battered by the balls.
But the last few feet, known as the back end,
are kept dry to promote traction.
I didn't even know
that they consciously didn't oil the last "X" feet,
specifically, to let you work on that traction.
It would be very difficult without that, yeah.
Right. It would never grab.
It would just go down the 8 line.
NARRATOR: The first part of Mike's throw
is all about getting the ball down the alley
with enough force to override most of the spin.
When friction is incurred at the dry end of the lane,
the ball's rotation takes over,
causing it to veer toward the center pins
with the destructive force of a spinning tornado.
KEARNEY: That's pretty cool.
FAGAN: That's a great view.
LIEBERMAN: You really kick all the rotation into it
at the last moment,
and it seems like, through this entire shot,
that rotation is just waiting to have an effect.
It doesn't do anything until the last 10 or 12 feet.
FAGAN: Exactly.
NARRATOR: Most people aim straight for the center pin,
but it's actually not the best approach to guarantee a strike.
As we've seen, Mike likes to throw curve balls,
where the spin from the release causes an arc towards the pins.
Yeah, it's really amazing.
You know, most people don't think of sports
as physics exercises.
But, really, how could you redefine what bowling is?
Bowling is trying to most efficiently
get the momentum of the ball
into as many different pins as possible.
And we don't have to do it by sitting down with equations.
We do it by muscle training
and by learning angles and by practicing.
NARRATOR: No physics, no nothing can explain
this next all-important part of the bowling process --
the wardrobe.
Pay attention, 'cause you might pick up something
that'll help you on tour.
This is the good stuff.
I think it's double-A batteries.
This is the good kind of cigar.
NARRATOR: Here's the release.
And the secret to Matt's mediocre performance?
What are you using the cigar for?
It's just counterweight.
Helps to keep me perfectly balanced.
NARRATOR: No comment.
Welcome to "Time Warp's" wild kingdom,
featuring animal expert and Hollywood trainer Jim Lovisek
and a couple of creatures --
one innocent
and one -- well, not so innocent.
But they both have one thing in common.
They make a very distinctive noise.
[Clicking]
[Rattling]
Exactly where do these sounds come from?
How do they make them?
Our cameras are about to tell all.
LIEBERMAN: We're pretty lucky to have these guys.
These guys are not dormant once every 17 years.
LOVISEK: This is the periodical cicada brood XV --
amazing insects that produce incredibly loud sounds.
Now, again, is it wingbeats that create the sound?
No, they actually have a special organ called a timbal
which vibrates at high speed to make this unique sound.
Okay, and where is that located so we can try and film it?
What you have to do is, it's hidden by the wings.
[Clicking]
Oh, I hear it making the noise right now.
And if you lift up the wing, you'll see this right there.
That.
It's pulsing back and forth.
You can just barely see something that's shaking.
Yeah, and the abdomen is hollow, so it amplifies the sound.
-So, it's like a guitar body. -Right.
NARRATOR: This part of the cicada's anatomy
is called the timbal.
And if you look closely -- there, there. See it?
LIEBERMAN: It's amazing.
You really can't even see the timbal at all.
It's really protected.
LOVISEK: Totally hidden by the wings,
so most people would never even know it's there.
NARRATOR: But it is there.
At 10,000 frames per second,
we can see that, as the timbal buckles inwards,
it produces a click.
And as these muscles relax, it produces another click.
10 of these vibrations produce a full cycle.
And it takes 50 of these cycles
to generate one second of actual sound.
[Slow clicking]
Mix in another 1,000 or so cicadas,
and this solo performance
becomes a deafening summer orchestra.
[Intense clicking]
But when we slow it down, you can see so much more detail.
You can see that this is actually a stack
of about 10 strong structures
connected by some thinner weak membrane.
And it keeps folding at those points.
It doesn't make it all the way across.
I doubt that very many people have ever seen this before.
Well, if you have never seen this,
then I would guess very few people have seen this.
NARRATOR: As loud and mesmerizing as this is,
it's a love call compared to our other guest.
It's a western diamondback rattlesnake,
and it's responsible for more snakebites
than any other snake in North America.
It's large, and it has a nasty disposition.
NARRATOR: In order to get the rattle going,
Jim uses a dangerous form of prompting.
He risks a deadly bite
for the sake of the "Time Warp" cameras.
[Rattling]
And we're filming the action of this rattle
at 2,000 frames per second.
LIEBERMAN: I had no idea that it worked like this.
I thought the individual segments
were gonna clank against each other.
LOVISEK: They're all interlocking.
And the rattlesnake is born with a little button,
which has been lost, so it is made of keratin,
like your fingernails, so it will break off.
And every time the rattlesnake sheds its skin,
it adds a new piece, a new segment to the rattle.
LIEBERMAN: Okay, in some sense, it's more like spinal vertebrae,
where the top of one goes inside the other one,
and that's what's clanking back and forth.
LOVISEK: That's correct.
[Slow rattling]
NARRATOR: Note to self. If you hear this...
- [Clicking] -...you could be 17 years older.
But if you hear this...
- [Rattling] -...run!
So, when we last saw Ray Carbonel and Eric Jacobus,
they were amusing themselves by kicking each other,
breaking bottles over each other's heads,
throwing each other on top of tables,
and -- oh, yeah -- revealing some trade secrets.
Even in slow motion,
that bottle looks like it's a real bottle,
but I'm not an experienced bar fighter, so I wouldn't know.
NARRATOR: But it just wouldn't be "Time Warp"
without some gunshots and shattered glass.
KEARNEY: So, what's going on with the glass over here?
The glass is tempered.
Yeah, we have a glass popper. Is that what it is?
Yeah, so, inside this, which goes flat against the glass,
there's a little nail.
And an explosive's gonna go off.
NARRATOR: But the glass is only part of this final stunt.
There's more to it,
because I actually have to be hit with some squibs
when Ray fires the blanks at me.
How do those work?
The squibs will be wired.
There's a wire that actually runs right along the ground here
all over the place.
Our pyrotechnics guy will fire off the squibs
when Ray hits the trigger.
NARRATOR: The gun will be loaded with blanks,
but it's always a good idea to double-check.
Right, they're lighter. There's no bullet in the front.
You can tell 'cause they're crimped at the end, okay?
That would show us the lead.
There's no question that they are blanks.
NARRATOR: That's a relief.
-You're in good hands. -Excellent.
All right, we're gonna be going live here shortly.
We will be firing quarter loads...
NARRATOR: Precautions aside,
stunts involving firearms, fuses, and shattered glass
also involve real risk.
One, two, bang, bang.
NARRATOR: And a reminder. These guys are professionals,
so do not try this at home.
Up here.
NARRATOR: Experience counts.
"A" marker.
NARRATOR: Even though Ray's gun is pointed away from Eric,
it still seems as if Eric is getting shot,
thanks to the squibs.
[Both laugh]
Are you okay? Everybody all right?
Oh, my God, that was crazy.
-Are you good? -I'm good.
You got to get down here. We got to take a look.
[Laughter]
NARRATOR: From outside the loft,
the stunt appears even more realistic.
KEARNEY: Oh, look at that.
LIEBERMAN: Oh.
Oh, I didn't know you went under the rail.
I guess I should have realized that.
The way it's lit, too, you're just flying away.
NARRATOR: And yet another shot is staged
to complete the scene.
That old perennial, the death fall.
Whoa.
Wake up, man. You good?
You got glass covering your whole body.
MAN: Capture on this camera.
NARRATOR: Eric's landing is framed
in an ice storm of tempered glass.
It's a wrap.
Now for the premiere.
If there's anything else you'd like to see warped,
check us out on the Discovery Channel website --
discovery.com/timewarp --
and the warp you see just might be your own.