His early films were inevitably filled with action and effects. Friends became performers for fight scenes in the garden, Action Man was sent from the roof beneath a homemade parachute, and Peter’s Hornby railway became the setting for miniature action sequences. Model aircraft were rigged on fishing line, with cotton wool attached to the wings and carefully set alight, allowing him to film his own miniature plane crashes and collisions with trains.
Peter Pedrero / About
Experience.
Craft. Judgement.
More than four decades of practical filmmaking experience, shaped by a lifelong appreciation of physical storytelling.
01 / About Peter
More than four decades of practical filmmaking experience.
Peter Pedrero is a Stunt Coordinator, Second Unit Action Director and Stunt Performer whose fascination with filmmaking began at just 12 years old.
Peter’s journey into filmmaking began at just 12 years old. Fascinated by film from an early age, he was particularly inspired by British television programmes Screen Test and Clapperboard, which featured amateur filmmakers creating their own films using Super 8 cameras—from animation to short dramas. Filmmakers would sometimes explain how they had achieved their effects, opening Peter’s eyes to what could be created at home with imagination and ingenuity.
Inspired by what he saw, Peter picked up his father’s Super 8 camera and began experimenting for himself. Long before digital filmmaking and home computers, he shot his own films and edited them on a small tabletop film editor. Editing was a physical process: finding the frame, cutting the film and splicing the shots together, sometimes by carefully removing the emulsion and using film cement to make the join, or using the film-splicing tapes that later became readily available.
Performance, costume & imagination
The instinct to create started early.
Long before working professionally in film, Peter was already drawn to performance, costume and visual storytelling. Childhood dressing-up, magic shows and homemade films were early expressions of the same imagination that would later shape his work in action filmmaking.
Peter also developed an early fascination with monsters and make-up effects. His parents bought him a Dick Smith Movie/TV Horror Make-Up Kit, created by the legendary make-up artist whose work included The Exorcist and The Godfather. Armed with little more than the instructions that came in the box, Peter experimented with moulds, prosthetic wounds, make-up and artificial blood, with his friends once again becoming willing test subjects and performers. More than four decades later, Peter still has that original Dick Smith make-up kit.
He experimented directly with the film itself too. Having seen amateur filmmakers create muzzle flashes by applying tiny spots of bleach directly to the film emulsion, Peter tried the technique himself. Other experiments involved working under a large magnifying glass, scratching individual frames and attempting to hand-paint them to create laser effects—with varying degrees of success on a piece of film only 8mm wide.
Looking back, those childhood experiments contained many of the elements that would later become part of Peter’s professional life: performers, action, practical effects, simple rigs, make-up, camera placement and editing—all driven by the same fascination with how filmmakers create an illusion and make an audience believe what they are seeing.
At 17, Peter began his professional career in the film and television industry as a supporting artist. While working on productions, he began the specialist training required to gain the qualifications necessary to become a professional stunt performer and join the Equity British Stunt Register.
After completing the required qualifications and being accepted onto the British Stunt Register, Peter was fortunate to begin building his career as a stunt performer, stunt double and utility stunt performer. With experience came greater responsibility, progressing to Assistant Stunt Coordinator, Stunt Coordinator and, subsequently, Second Unit Action Director.
Over the years, Peter has worked across British, European and Indian cinema, as well as on major international film and television productions.
Peter’s approach to action combines cinematic ambition with practical experience and professional judgement. He believes action should always serve the story, remain believable for the audience and be designed around the individual needs, schedule and budget of each production—without compromising safety.
Of Spanish heritage and fluent in English and Spanish, Peter has worked on productions in Spain and throughout the United Kingdom, Europe and internationally.
02 / Influences
Filmmakers and cinema that shaped Peter’s approach
Cinema
in motion.
From the pioneers of silent cinema through British filmmaking, Hong Kong’s kinetic action tradition and American action cinema, these influences continue to inform how Peter designs action for the camera.
MovementStoryRhythmCharacterPractical craft
01Pioneers of silent cinema
Physicality, invention and risk
Buster Keaton · Harold Lloyd · Charlie Chaplin · The Keystone Cops · Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle · Douglas Fairbanks
The foundations of screen action — physical comedy, extraordinary timing, practical ingenuity and performers genuinely interacting with their environment. Long before modern stunt departments and visual effects, these pioneers demonstrated how movement, danger and character could tell a story.
Practical cinemaMovement before dialogue
Archive frames
02British cinema
Craft, character and scale
Alfred Hitchcock · David Lean · Michael Powell · Carol Reed · Richard Attenborough · John Boorman · Ridley Scott · Tony Scott · Alan Parker · Terry Gilliam · Guy Ritchie · Paul Greengrass · Sam Mendes · Christopher Nolan
A filmmaking tradition built on storytelling, performance and exceptional technical craft. From Hitchcock’s precision and Lean’s epic scale through to Ridley Scott and Christopher Nolan, British filmmakers have continually demonstrated how practical filmmaking and action can serve character and story.
03Hong Kong action cinema
Movement, rhythm and innovation
Bruce Lee · Jackie Chan · Sammo Hung · Yuen Woo-ping · Lau Kar-leung · John Woo · Tsui Hark · Jet Li · Donnie Yen
A revolutionary approach to screen action where choreography, camera placement, editing and performance work as one. Hong Kong cinema demonstrated that action itself could reveal character, advance a story and become a distinctive cinematic language.
Yuen Woo-pingPrecision · Rhythm · Physical storytelling · Practical filmmaking
Hong Kong action heritage
04American / Hollywood action cinema
Story, impact and spectacle
Sam Peckinpah · Don Siegel · John Frankenheimer · William Friedkin · Walter Hill · John Carpenter · Hal Needham · Steven Spielberg · Richard Donner · James Cameron · John McTiernan · Tony Scott · Paul Verhoeven · Renny Harlin
From raw physicality and urban tension to character, clear action geography and large-scale spectacle — filmmakers whose strongest sequences remain exciting because the audience always understands the story within the action.
