question about swords

[Bsmith]

I was wondering what big movies that use swords for props, what type of sword do they use. Are they real? I would imagine that would be to dangerous.

and how do they show swords going into peoples chests or other body areas?

[R!ff R4ff]

Hello Bsmith from Kalamazoo, WMU grad here.

They use swords that are (usually anyway) right for the period. Real swords too. Yes it is dangerous, that's why actors who use them spend lots of time learning them from masters. The fights they do are choreographed and then practiced until they know it by heart. The trick is to make it look spontaneous when your filming.

A lot of the older movies (Erroll Flynn for instance) they use optical illusion with the camera and the angles. If you're Japanese you can get away with really sticking your actor with arrows and swords, you just have to use wooden blocks under his costume. Today it's more about CGI I think.

[Bsmith]

I see thanks.

cool, I don't live to far from wmu, except I going to grand valley this year.

[Neil Rowe]

the thing to do is to buy real swords, but buy unsharpened ones. so they have an edge, but its about as sharp as the back of a butter knife. of course this doesnt help if the movement is a thrust with the tip of the blade though. if you have to buy a pre sharpend sword because you cannot find it for sale unsharpend, you should take the time to dull it by using a grinding stone or wheel to remove the edge before you start swinging it at someone.

the dull edge isnt noticed at all by the cmaera unless you are doing a closeup of the blade at any time.. at which point you would substitute a sharpened sword.

[GageFX]

If you're Japanese you can get away with really sticking your actor with arrows and swords, you just have to use wooden blocks under his costume.

Please do not try this if you are Korean or Chinese. VERY DANGEROUS FOR OTHER ASIAN NATIONALITIES.

-GageFX

[Shaw]

Almost all sword effects are practical and optical effects still. The Lord of the Rings movies are perfect examples of this. Almost all the shots are optical illusions. The one digital shot I know of is when Lurtz gets his head cut off in the first movie. Other than that they are mostly optical. It's really an art form in and of itself - very akin to fist fighting for movies. No one gets hit but it sure looks real!

As for real swords.. yes and no. In LOTR they used a combination of steel, aluminum and polyurethane (rubber) swords depending on how close the camera was and how dangerous the stunt was. I wouldn't recommend trying to do this sort of thing without some experience and ABSOLUTELY DO NOT BUY SWORDS OFF EBAY. In fact, don't buy and FIGHT with almost any commercially available sword! 99% of the 'swords' out there are nothing more than stainless steel strips of metal. They have little to no temper and WILL shatter. They are not meant for actual combat even if they are sold as 'combat ready' (a meaningless term much akin to 'broadcast quality').

If you'd like I can dig up a list of 'brands' that would be ok to actually fight with. The number is rather small. I also have a few links to individual smiths who can forge very nice custom weaponry for you (at a price of course!).

Swords are one thing you CAN NOT go cheap on. The safety risks are far too real. There used to be a video floating around the net not too long ago where a guy was selling a 'sword' on TV. To demonstrate the 'swords' strength he banged it againt a table several times. Of course, the sword shattered and stabbed the guy in the chest.... I'll see if I can't dig that link up. The risks just aren't worth it...

[Bsmith]

shaw thanks,

I would like that list actually. I'm still in teh very early stages of this, so early in fact, no one else knows about it except me. However I don't plan on doing this for awhile as I have other projects that come first. And I'm just trying to gather as much into on this as possible. I'm trying to decide what my bidget will have to be for stunts, props, and effects. And having swords is going to be a must.

thanks

[Matt Grunau]

You guys are probably gonna laugh, but I have seen suprisingly realistic video of swordplay where the swords were wooden and painted with a chrome/silver paint. From a distance of more than a few feet, especially when they are moving, it's really hard to tell.

There are the weight issues of course, but saftey is crucial and a simple lamintaion of epoxy over even something as simple as cheese cloth or other light mesh (over which is primed and painted), can safegard againt outright explosive shatter. They'll break alright if you dash 'em hard enough but it's pretty safe. Plus their blunt.

You could probably use Rattan or mesh enforced fiberlass, but the latter may be more expensive than a sword.

[Noiz2]

Go get a copy of Legend of Drunken Master (Drunken Master 2, remix). Look very closly at the swords and such. First off the swords are almost all a very thin flexible steel, basicaly sheet metal. And second other than the sword to sword hits pretty much nothing hits anything. THere are lots of fights etc and if you watch closly they are missing each other by a foot or so. THe key to selling this is the sound. THe entire film was shot MOS (many Hong Kong action films are/were) so every sound you hear was added in post. You can use wooden swords (bamboo is a good choice because it wont shatter and most wood will) or plastic and with the right sound nobody will notice. Same with the punches. LDM is good because it is well done has a great variety of weapons and the sound was completely redone in 2000. And its a fun flick.

[Shaw]

Bsmith, sorry for the late reply. This certainly isn't a complete list but rather a list of some companies I've heard good/decent things about or used myself.

Arms and Armor
Lutel - Good Quality combat weapons
Windlass
Starfire Swords - freakin heavy weapons. More like a chunk of iron rather than a sword but these things certainly won't break!
Del Tin - High Quality stuff. Used in Braveheart!
Museum Replicas
Albion Armorers - SUPERB weapons. I can't praise these enough! The most accurately reproduced weapons I have ever seen in terms of weight, balance, function, look etc. These are the real deal (and the cost clearly shows it)!
Armor Class
Angus Trim - Great swords (expensive) but I'm not sure if these are sold blunt.
Christian Fletcher - Same as above (expensive). These are almost all sharp (if not all).

I'm sure I've forgotten a bunch. Try heading over to swordforum.com. They will have a lot more experienced people than I who can answer any questions you might have. Also check out myarmoury.com. They have reviews of many swords from several sword makers which are excellent.

Feel free to hit me up if you have questions :)

[TeamJoeDawn]

Please do not try this if you are Korean or Chinese. VERY DANGEROUS FOR OTHER ASIAN NATIONALITIES.

-GageFX

Hahahahahahhaha! Now thats funny, no matter who you are.

:-)

[TeamJoeDawn]

You guys are probably gonna laugh, but I have seen suprisingly realistic video of swordplay where the swords were wooden and painted with a chrome/silver paint. From a distance of more than a few feet, especially when they are moving, it's really hard to tell.

There are the weight issues of course, but saftey is crucial and a simple lamintaion of epoxy over even something as simple as cheese cloth or other light mesh (over which is primed and painted), can safegard againt outright explosive shatter. They'll break alright if you dash 'em hard enough but it's pretty safe. Plus their blunt.

You could probably use Rattan or mesh enforced fiberlass, but the latter may be more expensive than a sword.

I would think this would work... if you get the sound FX right, and take out that hollow wooden knocking noise.

:-)

[TeamJoeDawn]

Bsmith, sorry for the late reply. This certainly isn't a complete list but rather a list of some companies I've heard good/decent things about or used myself.

Arms and Armor
Lutel - Good Quality combat weapons
Windlass
Starfire Swords - freakin heavy weapons. More like a chunk of iron rather than a sword but these things certainly won't break!
Del Tin - High Quality stuff. Used in Braveheart!
Museum Replicas
Albion Armorers - SUPERB weapons. I can't praise these enough! The most accurately reproduced weapons I have ever seen in terms of weight, balance, function, look etc. These are the real deal (and the cost clearly shows it)!
Armor Class
Angus Trim - Great swords (expensive) but I'm not sure if these are sold blunt.
Christian Fletcher - Same as above (expensive). These are almost all sharp (if not all).

I'm sure I've forgotten a bunch. Try heading over to swordforum.com. They will have a lot more experienced people than I who can answer any questions you might have. Also check out myarmoury.com. They have reviews of many swords from several sword makers which are excellent.

Feel free to hit me up if you have questions :)

I remember talking about filling the Arnold flick ,.. "Conan", that they used a lot of fiberglass swords plus a real metal one for closeups.

J

[-zach-]

Well I agree with Rapier_100a. My friend made a film on 16mm film with two plastic swords that he bought from the Pirates of the Carribean ride at Disney World. It looked surprisingly real and he shot it on regular 16mm and added all the sound in post. It's very realistic and completely safe. I'd buy some backup swords though in case the actors break them.

z

[maverickstunts]

I worked on Hook for nearly 6 months as one of the pirates. Real swords, real stunts for all of it. We spent 3 months learning how to swordfight in close quarters. The best was doing the final fight with Robin Williams. That was really him and he fought 17 of us. I was the one he grabbed by the throat and used as a shield.
What was interesting was that it took us a week to put together the fight. We would block out an entire fight with his stunt double, Keith Campbell, video tape it and the coordinator would take it to Spielberg. He would say stuff like, "I like it, but we did that in Raiders" or something similar. One day Robin did about 20 minutes of stand up at Bruce Willis' expense. Both Robin and Dustin did great jobs with the physical stuff.

[epplegacks]

The mates and I did some shorts in high school using wooden swords and for all the actual fight footage it looked bloody fantastic, but we didn't have any "hero swords" or props that can stand up to close up so all those shots were terrible. :) But we're planning on using that for another feature where we'll have good props for close-ups and we'll use wooden ones for the actual action. Just make sure to plan everything out well in advance as you'll need to be very sure which shots you can get away with the wooden swords or not. And yes it's all about the sound effects with stuff like that.


PS maverickstunts, great story! Hearing about the creation of action movies from a behind the scenes perspective is what got me interested about being behind the camera. Cause of course when I was a kid I wanted to be Chow Yun Fat because I thought it was the actors that made movies. :P