How to choreograph a fight scene

[WonJohnSoup]

Hi, guys. A couple of us started a tutorial series awhile back on action filmmaking and I'm fulfilling a popular request on how to choreograph a fight scene. It's a huge topic so it'll be a multi-parter, and I felt the most important problem to address is actually mostly directing/writing rather than choreographing per se. So the first part is dedicated to appropriateness of the choreography to the film, something I felt belonged in this forum. Feedback/requests welcomed! An don't forget to subscribe if you like it!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBXFIrkfx70

 

[Nick Wernham]

Thank you for this. This is an area of directing that I know very little about at all. I'm excited to put some of your advice to use.

 

[Doc Bernard]

Good job. I love the humor you threw in this.

You probably already have it planned, but along with the directing and choreography, I would suggest explaining camera angles for filming a staged fight as well. Too many well planned fight scenes are messed up by having the camera at the wrong angle for the "hit".

And as a suggestion........you should probably tell people that stunt fighting is not just something anyone should do without proper training and supervision by competent choreographers/coordinators. Take it from one guy trying to work with an untrained actor........I got my bell rung, when they got inside my "safe zone". LOL, enthusiasm and lack of training ain't fun when it comes to stunt fighting.

 

[Branstock]

Yeah. That's a good video I've saved it into my favs.

I've been tried to coreograph medieval fights, not for films yet. But, I see it's true if when fighters only memorize their moves, then the fight looks mechanical. You need to make them know about your intentions, movie intentions, scene intentions, character intentions. What do the characters want? why they want that? what is happening with them in that precise moment? and then the coreography is being created by actors, director and coreographer in oder to achieve some kind of naturality I guess. Thank you!