Surprisingly, the filmmakers lived to tell their tale

IT’S not often that a sex scene calls for 350 extras. But with this outrageous set piece, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, debut writer-directors of the action thriller “Crank,” may just cement their cinematic legacy in one crazy, crowded, can’t-believe-they’re-doing-this spectacle.

“Crank,” due out Sept. 1, follows the frantic dash of an L.A. hit man (Jason Statham) after he wakes up to discover that he’s been poisoned and has only a few hours to track down both his would-be killer and an antidote with the help of his girlfriend (Amy Smart) and a mysterious crime world doctor (Dwight Yoakam). Since the poison works on his adrenal system, “If he doesn’t continually find ways to get his heart beating faster, he’s gonna die,” says Taylor.

“It’s a bullet-out-of-a-gun sort of movie,” Neveldine says of the film, which unspools nearly in real time.

Neveldine, 30, a former actor and stuntman, and Taylor, 32, a former cinematographer, had been co-directing action-packed commercials for Nike, Powerade and Motorola when they devised the high-concept “Crank” scenario.

“We live in such an ADD world, and society is like this caffeinated, pumped-up, cranked-up rush from start to finish,” Taylor says. “We wanted to do a movie where the thing was just nonstop movement.”

Statham (“The Transporter”) did most of his own stunts, including dangling out of a helicopter 3,500 feet above L.A. “We’re not fans of CG,” Neveldine says. “We like to do everything in the camera. So in this movie, if it looks dangerous, it was dangerous.”

Statham claims he never hesitated to do anything risky because “the directors were crazier than me. It breeds this in-for-a-penny, in-for-a-pound [attitude].”

In one scene, where Statham is racing through the streets on a stolen police motorcycle at 70 mph, Neveldine was flying backward on rollerblades, braced against the bike’s handlebars with one hand while filming his star with an HD camera. “There’s not a director on the planet who would do that,” Statham marvels. “Oh, it’s mental. It is absolute testosterone to the max.”

Neveldine and Taylor shot “Crank” for $14.6 million in a mad sprint around L.A. -- downtown, Beverly Hills, Boyle Heights, Inglewood, Chinatown -- and stayed flexible and spontaneous by handling 95% of the camera operation themselves.

“Our style of shooting can be very improvisational and high energy and creative on the fly,” Taylor says. “So when we do our preproduction, it’s like we’re creating a sandbox for ourselves to play [in]. We’re getting all the pieces in play, and then we’re gonna show up and just do cool [stuff].”

The sex scene, which the filmmakers prefer to keep shrouded in mystery, was the most logistically preposterous, and they had just one day to make it happen -- with no backup plan.

“For the actors it was a high-wire act like you can’t imagine,” Taylor says. “After wrapping that day we knew there was nothing that could stop us the whole rest of the shoot.”

“Sometimes,” Statham says with a chuckle, “great risk provokes great reward.”

-- Jay A. Fernandez