Todd Semmes

Simply known as “Hammer,” Todd Semmes is a special effects filmmaker. As the co-owner of Spydercam, he is recognized for his skills in stunt rigging, production management, and assistant directing on blockbuster hits.

As a kid, I was quite an athlete and raced sailboats in Hood River, Oregon. My dad started the yacht club there. He was a big sailor from back east and we got into sailing when it wasn’t very popular. And because of that, when I was about seven or eight, I was racing single-handed boats. I was this little kid out with adults racing in national events. And that was the first time that I had the encouragement that I wasn’t feeling like a complete moron because, being raised in the 60s, there were absolutely no tests for dyslexia.

In fact, all the way through my high school, there wasn’t a single class or anything brought up about the topic. So I pursued things that people complimented me on, like, you’re really good at this. And that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that with anything I’ve done, and that gave me the confidence to start sailing professionally. So, I took a loan and bought a sailboat with it and started making money sailing and, during the winters, working as a professional ski patrol at Mount Hood.

When I started in the film industry, we were primarily doing stunt rigging stuff, and like usual, most of the films in the early days were uncredited. I worked with Earl Wiggins, a legendary free climber and early rigger. And then he did a movie called “The First Wives Club” where they dropped a truss window washing rig off a high-rise skyscraper in Manhattan, and then they wanted to have a camera go with it. So we had a guy in a camera chair, handholding, a camera dropping at the same speed falling with this scaffolding.

And then we got a call to do more shots like that. And suddenly, not every movie needed stunts, but a lot of movies loved this aerial camera. And that’s when we started Spydercam. Minority Report with Tom Cruise was one of the first movies we did with servo winches. Then, Stuart Little 2 we did in New York, and after that, we put all our eggs in that basket and had more work. That’s how we fell into it.

Now, the list of film projects is pretty long, so I guess that it all worked out! Some include Aquaman, Jurassic World, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wall Street, Ironman, Thor, The Aviator, Mission Impossible, Terminator 3, Charlie’s Angels, The Italian Job, Spiderman, and another favorite, Game of Thrones.