'Practice' with the Fading Fists

Chance White

Chance White

Well-known member
http://www.chancewhite.com/midnight_qt6_med.mov

My fight team choreographed this in one day and I shot it in about 3 hours. Put it together last Sunday.

This is basically practice, gearing up for out next film, which will contain quite a bit of action.

Shot on the JVC HD100 with only available light (no split screen I might add).

I boosted the levels as much as possible in post, as you can see the image from the HD100 holds up pretty well in low light.
 
hmmm this isn't bad. It was very dark though. the blacks were lost and it was kind of hard to see a lot of the action.

I do think it was well thought out and put together considering the timescale etc.

some things to consider. Now this is just from an action viewer not a pro action correographer.

1) a trick i've heard of is slightly increasing the film speed in post of the fight sequence when blows and blocks are being struck. This helps amp up the intensity of combat esp in hand to hand and weapons martial arts.

2) if you want to really dramatise things, maybe try throwing in some dialogue and pauses during the fight. consider it for your final concept. It will really add to the scene if you give the audience beats and rhythms in the fight sequence with dialogue and reactions from the combatants. Just not too much so that it's cheesy!

3) Don't have the camera so close to the action. As we saw with batman begins, it is so disorienting and hard to watch and enjoy. Use it for cuts but try to rely more on angles that show us what is really going on. Why correograph so well only to lose most of the detail in a medium or tight close up?

Just some ideas. As I say, it looks promising. keep it up. you seem to generally produce solid looking products.
 
I really like the cinematography and the color.
- The music went well IMO
- Coming from a martial arts background while weighing in the fact that this was practice fighting , I would say this was very good
- If you added some noise hits everytime the "swords" came together that would really boost the experience

I look forward to seeing some more of your work
 
To update my last post I just watched it again and noticed that there is hit noise. I would increase the sound some becuase it's hard to hear over the music
 
I thought the look was nice. Not too dark for me. I agree that adding a pause in the action would be good. Man, pacing is tough!

-andrew
 
I love the look of the surround woods. I also thought the first two fighters had a good look, the third didn't work at all for me. As for the actual combat, it all felt a litttle slow and soft like they didn't want anyone to get hurt. I would try speeding it up a bit (as someone else suggested).

Overall though, I thought it was a great first effort.

Chris
 
Some good things going on, but...

1. Your actors were projecting the choreography. They appear as though they were aiming for each others swords and not each other i.e. swords hitting should look like a blocked blow, not two swords being banged against each other. I think it will be an easy fix if they can continue to look at each other and do a little more reaction to one another's moves (I hope I'm being clear, basically you can tell its choreographed)

2. Whats up with the double bladed effect of the sword when its moving? Is this caused by the cameras 24 P mode? Compression? Am I the only one who saw it?
 
First 15 seconds or so, GREAT!

Then... the sound came in.

It's fixable though I'm sure.


I love samurais.


Cool vid, sound leaves much to be desired.

Cool talent as well.
 
I love the look. All the telephoto shots and dramatic angles- great stuff. The camera is a little shaky at times though. I agree it could be sped up a bit, only where it needs it.
I didn't like the music at all; I didn't think it worked. The sound effects could be beefed up a bit as well.
The blood spray shots were awesome. I would want to see them hang a tad longer actually. Maybe add a big splurt sound too.
Lookin good!
 
this is something that I have noticed in a lot of indie films...which is lack of or very bad "foley-ing", if that is even a term.

If you notice when you watch the "making of" featurettes, and some one fires a gun, it sounds like a cap gun (because, well..it is.) The in the movie, it comes across as a hand canon.

I am not an expert (resident rookie) but this is just something I have picked up on.
 
Thank you for all of your feedback.

The sound sucks because I have been having difficulty getting my shotgun to work properly with the HD100. For some reason it picks up levels that are way too cold and there's tons of noise. I've adjusted the settings and haven't figured it out yet. Probably something very simple. So it sounds bad because the location sound is way too low and full of noise so I had to extensively clean it up with noise reduction. I also ran it through a compressor, that's what gave it that wierd, reverby quality, tons of noise reduction and a compressor, like the feedback towards the end for instance.

I relayed your comments to the Fading Fists and they appreciate your criticisms as well. I think the choreography is pretty impressive for one day of work. I am practicing shooting fight scenes seeing what works and what doesn't. This one was alot of fun cause I basically just shot from my gut, and I thought it turned out pretty cool, so I thought I'd share it.
 
I agree will all the suggestions here, the guy in the camo shirt ................ really ruined the mood. everything was black and white then some dude from the burbs comes in with his camo ringer shirt to fight.


thanks for sharing your vid. :thumbup:
 
yeah thanks for posting that it was really cool to watch, I have learned a bunch from watching it and the comments above. I agree with the sound, go in and record some grunts and place sword hits in there too from a sound library. I like that the third guy comes in, a bit of a break in the main fight, but yeah the camo has to go!! I loved the look of it, very low key and lots of shadows and black, well done! would love to see your next attempt!!

yaso
 
CMessineo said:
As for the actual combat, it all felt a litttle slow and soft like they didn't want anyone to get hurt.
Click to expand...


yes, i thought the same. i guess that's the hardest part about any fight scenes, but i loved the look, the cinematography, and with only 3 hours, not bad at all.
 
Heh heh thanks for the link to the tutorial. We are thinking about doing a little Star Wars short. I usually have an aversion to doing anything not an original concept but it is Star Wars and it would be all about a badass sabre duel, and it would be more practice for the feature.

And not to worry, I will not have subpar sound in the future.

We didn't put any thought into the costumes, Coop and Midnight usually always wear all black when practicing, and Neil just happened to be wearing that camo shirt, but I'll tell him not to ever wear it again. Ha ha.

Thanks again for all the comments.
 
Cool. I love fight clips and such, and this is one of the better ones I've seen around the forum, especially concerning camerawork/style and cinematography. Does lack quite a bit in performance though-like the others said, there's very little intensity, as well as cleanness in techniques. I'm not sure what general style you were going for with this one (as far as synchronized or unsynchronized moves) because of the performance, but there were also a few areas that seemed like spotty choreography. Considering the time restrictions though, I'd say it's very impressive, especially if it's one of your first fights. I'm really looking forward to seeing this upcoming movie of yours.
 
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