Directors and Actors Alike: How Important is Realism to You when filming?

Doc Bernard

Doc Bernard

Indie Arms Member
I am testing the waters here....

If you had an action film upcoming (involving prop firearms).......how important is it you that the usage of those firearms are realistic? Handling, tactics, etc. Would you overlook a character that portrayed the persona perfectly....except for how they held the weapon like someone completely unfamiliar to a weapon, despite the character "being on the force 20 years"? Or a military character that had no clue what an M4/AK47 was, despite trying to convince the audience they have handled them for years?

Same goes to actors....would you be interested in actor's training in weapons and tactics?
 
I used to think it was ultra-important but now I'm kind of sick of seeing movie action sequences that look like a SWAT team training video. Not a patch on the excitment of Rambo or Predator. It was impressive the first time but if you do it correctly it's always going to look the same so it is no longer a point of differentiation. It's far more exciting when things don't go right or the movie gods rather realism (to a point) keep a character alive against the odds. Besides, everyone's desensitised to it due to FPS games and when you see it in movies you are often reminded of a particular level and pulled out of the picture momentarily.

On the other that's just my opinion at the moment. If it's a business or sideline you're looking to set up I'd encourage you to do so. I find weapon handling when done correctly draws attention to itself but maybe that's just me. I have gun-nut friends whose entire motivation for watching certain movies is positive reviews of the accuracy of the gun handling, audio and impact effects as reported by their gun porn websites. So there is definitely a market for it. Not to mention the bonding experience that a platoon of movie actors will get on a movie with a budget. Probably more valuable than the training. Executive training days would be another market.

Confidence is all that is required to sell a character to the uneducated. My Dad goes loopy everytime he sees a watch of the incorrect era adorning the wrist of an actor in a movie. He literally won't shut up for about 5 minutes. That's an extreme example and there's obviously more people who know (or think they know) about gun tactics. In fact most people, particularly teenagers if shown 5 minutes footage of SWAT guys on an exercise and some actors replicating a level of ARMA or similar would perceive the game reenactment as more realistic.
 
Egg Born Son said:
I used to think it was ultra-important but now I'm kind of sick of seeing movie action sequences that look like a SWAT team training video. Not a patch on the excitment of Rambo or Predator. It was impressive the first time but if you do it correctly it's always going to look the same so it is no longer a point of differentiation. It's far more exciting when things don't go right or the movie gods rather realism (to a point) keep a character alive against the odds. Besides, everyone's desensitised to it due to FPS games and when you see it in movies you are often reminded of a particular level and pulled out of the picture momentarily.

On the other that's just my opinion at the moment. If it's a business or sideline you're looking to set up I'd encourage you to do so. I find weapon handling when done correctly draws attention to itself but maybe that's just me. I have gun-nut friends whose entire motivation for watching certain movies is positive reviews of the accuracy of the gun handling, audio and impact effects as reported by their gun porn websites. So there is definitely a market for it. Not to mention the bonding experience that a platoon of movie actors will get on a movie with a budget. Probably more valuable than the training. Executive training days would be another market.

Confidence is all that is required to sell a character to the uneducated. My Dad goes loopy everytime he sees a watch of the incorrect era adorning the wrist of an actor in a movie. He literally won't shut up for about 5 minutes. That's an extreme example and there's obviously more people who know (or think they know) about gun tactics. In fact most people, particularly teenagers if shown 5 minutes footage of SWAT guys on an exercise and some actors replicating a level of ARMA or similar would perceive the game reenactment as more realistic.
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I disagree, I feel like the audience has been educated and their expectations are higher. If you try to pull off a scene with actors handling weapons irresponsibly, or lacking training, it will be hard to take the rest of the work seriously. Today's audiences are a lot more sophisticated than they were 20 years ago.
 
A point of differentiation you could offer in your training would be also able to teach 'inexperience' as well. Possibly noone else offers that. The films that show inexperienced draftees entering their first battle and crapping their pants, spraying wildly, friendly fire or just plain freezing in a foxhole...those movies have far more dramatic impact than the camera following the movements of a squad that moves as a well-oiled machine. The beach landing at the beginning of saving private ryan had pretty much just one experienced soldier having to marshall the rest to achieve the goal. Imagine if it had been 100 veterans storming the bunkers SWAT style, it would have been really cool but had no impact. If you could teach the kind of things that people do under fire realistically, common gun handling mistakes and things like that, that might be a unique service.
 
bill totolo said:
I disagree, I feel like the audience has been educated and their expectations are higher. If you try to pull off a scene with actors handling weapons irresponsibly, or lacking training, it will be hard to take the rest of the work seriously. Today's audiences are a lot more sophisticated than they were 20 years ago.
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As I said, that's my personal opinion. Most my friends would disagree. But then they don't care about story and characterisation. Only guns.
 
I would think the more realism, i.e., the fewer things that could end up in "5 things stupid filmmakers get wrong" articles on cracked.com, the better. The only reason you CAN get away with a lack of realism with this stuff is 'cause so many people don't have personal experience with the subject matter. What if you showed someone hammering a nail the wrong way and they were supposed to be a carpenter for thirty years? So why treat weapons any differently?
 
Josh Bass said:
What if you showed someone hammering a nail the wrong way and they were supposed to be a carpenter for thirty years? So why treat weapons any differently?
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Good point.

As to teaching "inexperience"......for me.....that's just allowing the actor to "do it" without much hands on guidance. I have had that exact situation on a project. A fully trained team, and an actress who was to have no clue about a combat shotgun other than knowing the basics. I trained the team......allowed her to watch........but specifically did not have her do any drills. I explained to her that her character was not trained like the team, but I wanted her to pick up little things by just watching. Nobody else in the cast had a shotgun.....so the only things she could pick up would be by mimicry and adaptation. Which is the exact thing needed for the script.

To this day......I have not had to help "detrain" an actor's handling, though. If they had some weapons handlings skills.....they usually got a role that required it.

I have done these classes before....usually for a particular production....have one of those this Sunday. But I am thinking of expanding and holding them once a quarter for all actors, now that I have found a place willing to let me hold the classes there.
 
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The following has nothing to do with gun handling specifically, but...

In the making of The Shining, Jack Nicholson quoted a comment from Stanley Kubrick about his performance while shooting a certain scene. That simple line always stuck with me:

"Yeah it looks real but it's not interesting..."

The goal of movies is (usually) to entertain. A good amount of plausibility is (probably often) more entertaining than 100% accuracy.

That's my take.
 
I read somewhere that that the camera used to focus on the hand holding the gun but now it focusses on the gun. I don't know if that's even true but it might play an unconscious role in my attitude.

But let's not lose track of the OP which is whether or not offering such a service is a worthwhile endeavour and I say yes, especially as it is a natural extension of the services Doc already offers.
 
If you look at "Act of Valor", "End of Watch" or even "Raid: Redemption" you can see the focus is leaning toward realism. This is probably a result of over a decade of "reality"-centric programming on TV. We're at a precipice where the audience wants to see more real people on screen and realistic behavior.
Unless of course you're watching "Downton Abbey".
 
And to Denis.......absolutely. I don't train 1 to 1 with standard tactics. I teach them "film-flair" tactics, based off real procedures. The real thing is boring, so I take that base level and add the things I know film-makers want to see. Scanning an area with a rifle.....is fast and looks spastic in real life firefight, so I show them how to slow it down just a little for dramaticism, yet still not over do it. Same with mannerisms. There are a ton of little things you may not notice when they are there.......but when they aren't, it's very noticeable. Or if a mistake and seen on screen........

Case in point: Trigger finger. If an actor is going to portray an experienced role with a weapon (police, soldier, etc.).......they don't walk around with their finger on the trigger. That is the first thing you are taught with a weapon......finger off the trigger until ready to fire. Just the act of placing your finger on the trigger, makes for a great insert shot to "sell" the intent of the actor's action.

It is a fine and delicate line between what is real.......and what looks authentic and is still entertaining. Which is why I always discuss the training with the Director and Producing staff before I do script specific training with talent. Believe it or not.......I find training prior service actors (former military and/or law enforcement) to actually be harder than people who have no firearms experience. It's not "detraining" them....it's more of giving them an additional way to do something.
 
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Well as filmmakers, it is our job to create a world that others can inhabit. Anything that takes the viewer out of that world, anything that seems "off", needs to be avoided as much as possible. So yes, I think realism is important, if you are making a realistic movie. If your movie is stylized, then you can stylize the action as well. The important thing is for the whole package to feel cohesive. If you are making a military film or a cop film and the actors handle their weapons like an untrained moron, then yes that will severely detract from the film. Alternatively, if a young single mother with no background in military or hunting or w/e handles a weapon like an action hero, that too would detract from the film.

But nothing has to be perfect. It can be difficult to afford the proper weapon training unless you have a decent budget, so just do what you can.
 
Sorry....that's what I do....so feel free to add to the discussion in your own way. I don't do set dec or general wardrobe or.......so for me to talk about those subjects would be a little odd.

I am not drawn to RomCom's or Love Stories or Coming of Age films. I am an action junkie....and proud of it. And in an action film.......weapons are usually involved....and weapons are my business. So I use what I am interested in as the discussion point.
 
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But that's what RomComs, Love Stories and Coming of Age films are missing...AK47's and C4 high explosives. You could revolutionise cinema!


Doc Bernard said:
It is a fine and delicate line between what is real.......and what looks authentic and is still entertaining. Which is why I always discuss the training with the Director and Producing staff before I do script specific training with talent. Believe it or not.......I find training prior service actors (former military and/or law enforcement) to actually be harder than people who have no firearms experience. It's not "detraining" them....it's more of giving them an additional way to do something.
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Sounds like you've got a handle on it. I actually thought you already offered this service, but if you don't I say go for it. The balance of realism to entertainment can only really be answered on a case by case basis. Give them the tools, offer your advice and leave it to your clients to strike their balance.
 
LOL, even if it was, I am still okay with it......:D Seriously....please add to the conversation here.....I would love to hear your POV on this Tipota. Even if it has nothing to do with weapons........any kind of detail-orientation only helps other film-makers.

Egg Born.....I have (not regularly)....but since my move......I hadn't found a location in LA to do it. Now that I have one now......thinking of doing it more often. Maybe with modules?
 
In the few cases we had scenes with weapons (I actually shot kind of a romantic comedy set in a special squad of cops some years ago) I found it absolutely important to have some guys from a real swat team training the actors.

Funny enough we had some extras playing muscle men and money collectors (being exactly that in real life) who trained our actors also about what can go wrong with a weapon in spide of and outside the combat traing in real life too .... Interesting.

Personally I detest actors handling weapons like toys .... Unless the characters are morons who handle them as toys .... Or we are in a spoof. So the realism of the scene or the movie would be the guidance here. Maybe I am one of the few real fans of HEAT who absolutely thinks that the big shoot out in that movie is complete surreal bs while the rest of the movie is superb.... ;-)
 
Doc Bernard said:
Egg Born.....I have (not regularly)....but since my move......I hadn't found a location in LA to do it. Now that I have one now......thinking of doing it more often. Maybe with modules?
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That's a great idea. If you structure it in the form of discrete module with a base package that can be customised with additional specialist modules it will come across as very legitimate. Will make it easier to attract credit/backers when you present a business plan too. Plus the complete list of modules may give clients ideas they haven't even have thought of. You may have someone come to you to train their good guy squad, then get upsold to a different set of training for their baddies and 'inexperience' training for incidental characters. It also gives you the framework to develop other specialist modules that other schools may not be servicing, and possible future expansion into other areas if it takes off.
 
I'm 100% FOR realism. I know virtually nothing about guns and weapons-handling, but whenever I see supposed soldiers on tv show or film firing automatic rifles from the hip, it just instantly rips me out of the film.

One of favourite guiltless pleasures at the moment is the Action TV series Strike Back, which on top of really solid performances and exciting stories, features some of the most convincing military tactics/firearms handling I've ever seen on screen - and it really does make the action that much more compelling, because it makes it plausible.
 
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