How to shoot martial arts moves?

lovefilm

lovefilm

Active member
I'm planning to shoot a short that has some knife fighting scenes. Can someone let me know if I should tell the talents to do the actions slowly and then speed them up in post or is there a different way to do this? My concern is no one should get hurt :smile:
 
No one's going to get hurt if they actually know martial arts, and they will be able to perform it at a decent speed. I'd shoot it at something like 22fps to give it that extra zing.
 
taormina said:
No one's going to get hurt if they actually know martial arts, and they will be able to perform it at a decent speed. I'd shoot it at something like 22fps to give it that extra zing.
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Thanks for the advice but my HV20 can't shoot 22fps :-(. My cast are mostly amateur and don't know much about martial arts. I'm thinking about asking them to rehearse the moves until they can do it with a decent speed.
 
I'm thinking you should also shoot with a higher than normal shutter speed (since it will be high action)....maybe about 1/120 or 1/250 shutter.
 
Ian-T said:
I'm thinking you should also shoot with a higher than normal shutter speed (since it will be high action)....maybe about 1/120 or 1/250 shutter.
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Thanks. I'm not really concerned with the shutter speed. My camera has the cine mode which is what I intend to use. I let the camera choose the shutter speed for me as long as it gives crisp pictures :happy:
 
What Ian-T is refering to is acceleration of action. By shooting with a higher shutter speed, you will accentuate the actions, and make the movements seem like they are happening faster than they are actually being performed. Watch any of the Bourne movies for great examples of shooting high shutter speeds, in combination with handheld camera work to make things appear faster.

BTW- Don't let the camera shoot for you, by using the automatic mode. If you are trying to do this as more than just "home video," learn the camera, and its controls. Easy mode is for consumers, who don't know how to operate their gear. Don't be that person.
 
lovefilm said:
Thanks. I'm not really concerned with the shutter speed. My camera has the cine mode which is what I intend to use. I let the camera choose the shutter speed for me as long as it gives crisp pictures :happy:
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Actually, you should be concerned about shutter speed. I think what you may be thinking of is frame rate. What I would suggest is trying to shoot at 24 frames per second with a shutter at 1/120. What that will do is give you a jittery high speed look (much like the start of saving private ryan and the borne movies.) That should add alot of excitement to your final product.

Matthew
 
Thanks for all the advices. I should have clarified a little more. I'm planning to shoot the scenes outdoor early in the morning so I guess the bright sunlight should force the camera to shoot at high shutter speed. 1/120 might be a little too slow and I don't have a lot of ND filters to reduce the light so I worry that the pictures might be overexposed. I'm planning to shoot at 24fps also, which is the slowest frame rate on my camera. I'm wondering if I need to speed up the moves later in post, would it be okay with this frame rate?
 
Your actors need to rehearse , rehearse , rehearse. Oh did I mention rehearse. Since they don't already have a martial arts background it become even more important for then for two main reasons.
1) Safety. Having one of your actor hurt another actor accidentally will not help production
2) production value. Nothing lowers production value on a fight scene then sloppy choreography
 
if you pick the right camera angles, you can make it look like the actors are hitting each other even though there is a safe distance between them. i would tape the rehearsals and storyboard a lot. make sure to get lots of coverage! good luck.
 
Beat Takeshi said:
Ziyi Zhang is a great example of a non-fighter in fighting movies.
"Even though she has been in many kung-fu movies, she is not actually a trained martial artist, so in fact she uses many dance moves in her fight sequences." ~IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0955471/
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You know...that freaked me out a few years ago when I learned that she was only a dancer. Here I was bragging about how she is probably the best female kung fu fighter I have ever seen in films....so convincing. I'm sure that would be an easy transition for her. But yeah...practice, practice practice ...not only with the fighters but also with the camera angles.
 
SilverWolf said:
Your actors need to rehearse , rehearse , rehearse. Oh did I mention rehearse. Since they don't already have a martial arts background it become even more important for then for two main reasons.
1) Safety. Having one of your actor hurt another actor accidentally will not help production
2) production value. Nothing lowers production value on a fight scene then sloppy choreography
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Yeah, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to ask the cast to rehearse a lot. I really don't want them to hurt each other during the filming.
 
kiyong said:
if you pick the right camera angles, you can make it look like the actors are hitting each other even though there is a safe distance between them. i would tape the rehearsals and storyboard a lot. make sure to get lots of coverage! good luck.
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Thanks. I already have the choreography for all the moves. I'll try to tape the rehearsals also.
 
Beat Takeshi said:
Ziyi Zhang is a great example of a non-fighter in fighting movies.
"Even though she has been in many kung-fu movies, she is not actually a trained martial artist, so in fact she uses many dance moves in her fight sequences." ~IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0955471/
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I like Ziyi Zhang. I've read some articles about of her work also. I like the camera angle and the choreography in her moves, which I hope I can master :D
 
Your HV20's rolling shutter CMOS may have some issues with roundhouse kicks and just motion in general.
 
marketmd said:
Your HV20's rolling shutter CMOS may have some issues with roundhouse kicks and just motion in general.
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No not really. Not in terms of general shooting. There are plently of high action,high speed shutter, footage floating around that shows otherwise. Sometimes a shot might call you to jerk your pan around quickly...it's in situations like those you might have a visual problem. But I tend to stay away from shots like those with my HV20.
 
Well, you have to work with what you've got. I have a black belt in Tae kwon Do, and the beauty of choreographing real martial artists is that they can get much closer to each other with their blows and still be safe.

As a matter of fact, in my case I could spar with another TKD black belt and actually LAND the kicks and punches and it would all be controlled. This really ups the realism because the less your fighters know, the further apart they will be and thus you will be locked into certain shots (like the over the shoulder John Wayne Punch) instead of capturing what amounts to real fighting.

Get your actors to practice and it should look plausible.
 
taormina said:
Well, you have to work with what you've got. I have a black belt in Tae kwon Do, and the beauty of choreographing real martial artists is that they can get much closer to each other with their blows and still be safe.

As a matter of fact, in my case I could spar with another TKD black belt and actually LAND the kicks and punches and it would all be controlled. This really ups the realism because the less your fighters know, the further apart they will be and thus you will be locked into certain shots (like the over the shoulder John Wayne Punch) instead of capturing what amounts to real fighting.

Get your actors to practice and it should look plausible.
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I wish I could hire you as the martial arts director or the lead actor :). This lead role is the one that requires a lot of martial art moves.
 
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