Stunt fighting.

[Bdaze]

Two freinds of mine (Garret and Dan) are shooting a movie this january. it's not a little kiddy flick that your average highschooler would make. Both of them intend to major in film in college and both of them have had extensive training (one has take 3 courses through my school and the other went to 8 weeks of harvard film camp)

 

basically, theres a somewhat random fight scene between my self and Garett, the director. both of us will be be clad in ninja uniforms.

 

i have already writen up the basic coreography for the fight scene and it should be pretty good, but i was wondering if anyone has experience with this sort of thing.

 

my main concern is making it look real, but not to overexadurated. the idea is that two highly trained martial artists at the peak of physical perfection are battling for honor, not some staged drunken street brawl.

 

we intend to use light contact but if anyone knows any good moethods for making the fight scene (mainly the striking aspect of it, ive got the grappeling parts down pretty well) or even better, any camera tricks to make it look as though we're fighting faster than we are, it would be much appreciated.

[Karateka_latino]

Be carefull. Safty first. That's the first rule on an stage fighting.

 

http://www.neo-modus.com/stuntpeople/

 

In this web page, you'll find a lot of info about movie fighting... short on-line amateur movies...and reviews of kung fu movies which tell you what's good and what's wrong.

 

You can also e-mail them and ask for advices.

 

Hope this helps

[Tibby]

If you can, get a hold of the "Ultimate fights" DVD. I think you can order it from:

 

http://flixmix.com/

 

Anyways, it has a special feature just for staging fights for film. I might be able to load the clip on the computer and send to you if it isn’t too big. Blockbuster migth have a copy of it, our Blockbuster here does.

[Shorinryu Sensei]

One of the key thikngs that will make you fights look realistic is the angle of the camera in relation to the actors.

 

For example, you want the camera to be behind at an angle to either of the actors when they make a strike/punch/kick because from the camera's view, it will look like it make contact. You don't want the camara at a 90 degree angle to your actors when they are fighting.

 

Also important is practice, practice and more practice before you shoot the scene. Each actor should know what the other is going to do, and what you are going to do. There is little or no adlib'ing (sp?) in movies.

 

I worked on the movie "The River Wild" with Meryl Streep (a sweetie!) and Kevin Bacon (a jerk), and for each scene shot, there was a MINIMUM of 3 practice takes before they turned on the camera, but the cameraman was watching to see how it would look. Then they would shoot the scene at least 3 times, making any small adjustments the director felt was necessary. So they ran through each scene a minimum of 6 times total.

[Bdaze]

..... wow. i own the ultimate fight DVDs. i had no idea it had stunt fighting as a special feature.

 

thanks for the web sites everyone.