■ MODERATE RISK ■ Sports & Entertainment
The coordinator's job is safer than the performer's. Digital doubles and virtual production have absorbed a lot of gag work, but somebody still has to plan a sequence that does not kill anyone and sign off that it is safe to roll.
“CGI replaces many stunts. Your wire work is now 'practical effects.'”
Our AI replacement risk score — how we score jobs
Coordinating stunts is mostly pre-production. You break down a script for action, design sequences that a director can actually shoot, budget them, hire and vet performers, arrange rigging and equipment, run risk assessments for insurers and safety regulators, rehearse and previz, coordinate with the AD, camera, SFX and VFX departments, and then on the day control the set, call the gag, and manage what happens when it goes wrong. A significant part of the role is saying no to a director who wants something that cannot be done at that speed with that vehicle.
Digital tools have taken a real bite. Digital doubles handle falls, full-body burns and impacts that once meant a human at risk; crowd and vehicle destruction is routinely simulated; face replacement means a performer's stunt double no longer needs to resemble them; and virtual production reshapes what has to exist physically at all. Previz and simulation software model a gag before anyone rigs it, which is genuinely safer and also reduces rehearsal days. Generative video is starting to encroach on the low end of action content — advertising, background plates, second-unit filler — where nobody was paying for a coordinator anyway.
The defence is a mix of physics, law and taste. Practical action still reads differently on screen, and directors keep choosing it precisely because audiences can tell. Every real gag involves live risk to human beings, which brings legal duty of care, insurance requirements, union rules and a named person accountable for safety — that person cannot be software. Coordinators also carry hard-won knowledge about how a specific car behaves on a specific surface with a specific ramp, which is not in a dataset. Our risk score of 28 reflects a shrinking volume of practical work concentrating into fewer, more senior, more responsible hands.
Automatability: our editorial assessment of current and near-term AI capability
Substitution has been underway since digital doubles matured, and generative video is now compressing the cheap end of action content fast. Expect the 2030s to bring fewer practical gags per production overall, with the work concentrating on tentpole films and shows that use real stunts as a selling point. The coordinator role persists past 2040 because safety accountability is legally personal, but there will be fewer chairs.
It has replaced a meaningful share of the most dangerous gags — high falls, burns, severe impacts — which is a genuine safety win and a genuine loss of work. Performers doing fights, driving and body-double work are still in demand, partly because audiences reliably notice when action is entirely synthetic and productions market practical stunts as a feature.
It can already help design and simulate them, and previz software makes sequences safer before anyone rigs a wire. What it cannot do is hold the legal duty of care for a person about to be thrown through a window. Insurers, unions and film safety regulations all require a named, qualified human in charge on the day.
Viable but narrowing. Fewer productions use large practical action units than a decade ago, and generative tools are eating the cheap end of action content outright. The coordinators doing well are those attached to major productions that sell practical stunts, plus those working in live shows and theme parks where nothing can be rendered.
The digital pipeline — previz, mocap, virtual production — so you are collaborating with VFX rather than being replaced by it. Then formal safety and rigging qualifications, because accountability is the durable part of the role. Live entertainment work is also worth building, since it is structurally immune to the substitution happening on screen.