DAREDEVIL STUNTS
For Alice's descent on City Hall, director Alexander Witt re-imagined art of rappelling to create a stunningly original piece of visual disorientation.  "I wanted to take advantage of the unique quality of the building with its cove-shaped towers mirroring each other," he describes.  "I envisioned this shot to look as if she's running along a narrow horizontal surface.  Then, when the camera does a swift ninety-degree turn, you suddenly realize that she is running straight down the edge of the building.  My hope is to create a totally arresting vision of this almost alien fighter."

The production rigged a camera to track Jovovich down the building with the camera rotation occurring roughly halfway.  "The only hitch to this plan of course is that it required Alice to run face-first down a 260-foot building anchored by only a single wire to her harness," Witt explains.
Jeremy Bolt adds, "It will probably look like a really expensive and brilliant visual effect, but we shot it in real-time and on camera.  The stunt will be much more impressive for that."

The production rigged a camera to track Jovovich down the building with the camera rotation occurring roughly halfway.  "The only hitch to this plan of course is that it required Alice to run face-first down a 260-foot building anchored by only a single wire to her harness," Witt explains.

Although she was eager to perform the stunt herself, the production's insurance company vetoed the idea of the star in such a precarious situation - no matter how secure the rig.  One of the few sequences in the movie performed by Jovovich's stunt double, Joanne Leach made the incredible run twelve times.

Watching from the ground, Jovovich marvelled, "It's insane.  This girl literally ran down the building, two hundred and sixty feet, hooked up to one wire, full speed.  I did the last sixty feet down the building, which was scary to say the least.  There was no screaming; I was in character - tough like Alice.  Of course inside I was going 'Oh my God!  How am I going to do this?'"

The insanity continued at the City Hall location.  An unseasonable cold snap hit the city, sending temperatures plunging to the freezing mark.  The remaining month of the shoot consisted mostly of night time exteriors. 

Jovovich recalls a wardrobe discussion from months earlier, "I had this crazy idea in my head - I want to be sexy in the film.  So, I suggested that Raccoon City is going through a heat wave.  And not just for me - Jill Valentine in her mini skirt and tube top?  Heat wave in Raccoon City.  Of course it's October and we are outside at night.  We can't change now.  This is Resident Evil.  We can't be dressed in parkas!"

Another rooftop stunt was staged downtown atop a sleek, black, forty-story office tower.  Producer Bolt explains, "We actually have a stuntman jumping out of a helicopter nearly seventy feet above this skyscraper.  One thing that Paul and I have learned is that if you can shoot the original element for real, it will read better on camera.  That was our commanding mandate for this film - to make everything as real as possible."

MAKING MONSTERS: NEMESIS
The Nemesis was created by makeup effects artist Paul Jones, whose credits include Ginger Snaps and Bride of Chucky.

Armed with a new, lethal rail gun as well as his trademark rocket launcher, the Nemesis design was based precisely on the most dangerous and popular killer in the Resident Evil game series.
The Nemesis costume was built around actor Matthew G. Taylor, a 6'7"-foot-tall former police officer and bodybuilder.  From a full body cast, Jones and his team crafted a multi-piece body suit of silicone, polyurethane, leather and metal to transform the actor into the movie's most menacing monstrosity. 

"I used silicone for the Nemesis's skin because it has a unique translucent luminosity," explains Jones.  "It actually photographs like human skin.  To heighten his presence on the screen and accentuate the details of the surfaces, we kept his flesh constantly coated with fine layer of slime which was made of modified methocellulose, a substance more commonly used as a food additive."

His leather and metal armour were created in a series of panels each with greater numbers of bullet holes.  Unlike the creature, the armor does not regenerate after bullet hits. To increase his already towering stature, steel platforms were built into his boots, raising him an additional five inches.

The greatest challenge in creating the Nemesis was the grotesquely misshapen face.  A noseless mass of slimy sinew and exposed bone held together with crude clamps, Nemesis bears only a hint that it had once been human.

To achieve the effect, Jones created an articulated fiberglass underskull moulded for the actor's head.  From inside the skull, Taylor could open and close the mouth.  The bulk of the creature's expressiveness was delivered by five servo-motors implanted beneath the silicone skin and operated by remote control.

DEADLY WEAPONS
As in the game, Nemesis uses his trademark rocket launcher to cause death and destruction.  For the movie, his arsenal includes the unique and deadly rail gun.

"The rail gun is just something fresh and incredibly devastating," says Anderson.  "I had this image in my mind of this guy walking around with a gigantic, powerful weapon in each hand and almost indecisive as to which one to use.  Of course, in some of my favorite action scenes in the movie he uses both."

This high-powered gun was created by the movie armament, Charles Taylor, as a modification of a General Electric M134 Mini Gun.  Originally designed to be mounted on military helicopters (as seen in Black Hawk Down), the gun fires 6,000 rounds per minute.

Taylor deconstructed the weapon, shortening the six rotating barrels to 14" and adding muzzle brakes which divert the burning gunpowder to create a unique plasma effect when firing.  The countdown display and Umbrella insignia were added as were the grip and arm brace.  The finished weapon weighs in at sixty pounds. 

RESIDENT EVIL: Apocalypse marks the first time a weapon of this type has ever been fired from one hand.

On the set, the Nemesis' gun was fired for the first time in a narrow corridor of the Raccoon City Police Station.  In three seconds, 150 rounds discharged in an ear-splitting display that created a remarkable vortex by ripping every piece of paper off the walls and creating so much pressure that two dolly grips on the far end of the corridor were pushed backwards.   Nobody had ever experienced anything like this before.