Communications Arts Professor Jake Turner Receives Nod for Stunt Coordination

The fights and falls on daytime Television add spice to our favorite soap operas and for Jake Turner, a professor at St. Francis College, it may also add an Emmy Award after being nominated for a Daytime Emmy in the Outstanding Stunt Coordination category.

Turner, who teaches Directing course at St. Francis, received the nomination for his work as the stunt coordinator on the CBS soap As the World Turns. The episode that garnered the nomination featured fights and a roof collapse.

His competition for the Emmy includes stunt coordinators from General Hospital, One Life To Live, The Bold and the Beautiful and Kamen Rider Dragon Knight.

Over the past 35 years, Turner has been an actor, stunt coordinator and most recently has added director to his portfolio. He has worked steadily in Television, Film and opera as well as numerous Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. His responsibility is to coordinate any physically demanding stage or screen action, like fights or accidents.

“A lot of people, especially in film and television think that for a fight scene, they are trying to create something that is very real,” said Turner. “But it’s not real. You’re creating an illusion and then taking pictures of that illusion, trying to create a semblance of the reality. In a real fight, people get hurt. In film and on stage, you do everything you can to make it safe.”

Turner has worked with stars like Susan Lucci and Al Pacino (in both the stage and screen version of “Richard III”) and worked on other Broadway productions including “Peter Pan”, “West Side Story” and “The Three Musketeers”. His TV work spans the spectrum from Sesame Street to Saturday Night Live and he’s been onset for a host of films including “Ragtime”, “See You in September” and “Panic at the Wilderness”.

In a field where even the best precautions sometimes lead to serious injuries, Turner is fortunate that he’s only encounters bumps, bruises and some sprains. ‘I’ve been lucky. I knock on wood everyday and include it in my prayers at night.”

The 37^th Annual Daytime Entertainment Emmy® Awards, which are run by The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), will be broadcast on CBS from Las Vegas on June 27th.

St. Francis College, founded in 1859 by the Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn, is located in Brooklyn Heights, N.Y. Since its founding, the College has pursued its Franciscan mission to provide an affordable, high-quality education to students from New York City’s five boroughs and beyond.
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St. Francis College, 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
www.sfc.edu