Creating Action Investigation

Given the film that I'm interested in making I decided I'd investigate how to write a fight scene first, and then look at how you actually film and choreograph it. I decided to include some of my favorite characters with great action scenes, to give a little spice to the blog.

Writing

Starting off I found a website by a man called John August. It looks like a blog or merchandise sort of thing and looks like he does lessons on all sorts of aspects of filmmaking, so I'm sure I'll use this again at some point. He pointed out a few things I'm assuming he learned in his time as a teacher or filmmaker, or perhaps both. He recommended to keep in mind that you're not writing a screenplay, so write it as if you're trying to experience a movie. He also recommended to keep sentences short and use something called sluglines, which I didn't know about so I searched it up. Sluglines are not headings, rather they're just lines that bring attention to what is important within a scene. He stresses that it's important to describe what should generally be happening in the scene, but keep the details loose enough so the director (which will also be me in the case of my film) has room to work with how he wants to shoot the scene.

Filming

The article I first looked at was created by an author and is for books, however I still believe many of the concepts apply to the filmmaking side of things. The thing that immediately caught my eye about this article is his emphasis on making every fight advance the plot. They should either move the plot along or, this is my own wording, but I feel if the fight is personal to the protagonist, if you direct it well enough the fight can still work within the plot. Another great tip I learned is to reveal character during the fight, show if they're an amateur or professional, show their mercy or brutality, just little things like that you can convey through physical actions. Even though there will likely only be one fight scene in the film I'm making for class, I will likely have multiple in my own film I'm working on so I'm glad he mentioned to keep every fight unique and it will be something good to keep in mind while writing the script.

After reading that article I found a YouTube series created by professional stuntmen showing how to film fight scenes. This series will also lead into choreography, so I will actually likely look back on this series while figuring what I'm trying to choreograph the fight scene. They start off talking about stacking, which is when you align the hit with the reaction in the same 2D space on the camera. They give some tips for the actors themselves about selling the hits with yelling, show their emotions, just kind've treating the choreography like a dance. They said to sell the reaction you want to show a bit of recoil, bouncing away and then back to the original position you were in. They also said not to rush the fight scenes and if need be you can slow it down and speed it up in the editing process. They recommend using an over the shoulder view and keeping in line with the 180 degree rule. You also want to keep the action in the middle of the screen so it's really easy for the audience to follow what's going on. Using a lot of movement really sells the scene, especially if you keep the movement in line with the action, like it's a part of the little dance the choreography. The rest of their second video is basically just going over how to use different camera angles to do action correctly.

Choreography

The third video the stuntmen made basically entirely involves choreography and tips given specifically to the actors. A huge recommendation on practicing with their partner before doing a legitimate take, going ahead and making the fight like muscle memory. You want to make sure to give yourselves space because you don't actually have to be super close, you can make adjustments where you swing based on the camera angle, and the reaction sells the hit. They talked about a thing called "45's", which is when you move your hips to make it easy to move back and forth during the fight so you're not gaining to much distance on your opponent while also selling the hit. You wanna use wave beats which is basically just always doing something while you wait for the next beat, like waving your hands or throwing false punches, just something so you don't look awkward or fake while waiting. A good thing to keep in mind with your reactions is the character, like I mentioned before, your character should still come out at the end of the fight. Keeping all these things in mind, I feel like I should be able to put together a half decent fight scene for my project.

Activity Log 9/23-9/27

Monday 9/23: Absent
Tuesday 9/24: Writing a fight scene/Starting how to film a fight scene
Wednesday 9/25: Continuing how to film a fight scene
Thursday 9/26: Finishing how to film a fight scene/Choreography/Adding extra touches to blog entry
Friday 9/27: Absent

Bibliography

Brown, Michael Ray. “Script Format: Slug Lines.” Screenplay Format Guide: Slug Lines - Story Sense®, www.storysense.com/format/slugs.htm.
“Rocky Balboa.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Balboa.
Ruustic, director. How to Film a Fight Scene (Taught by Stuntmen) Part 01: Stacking. YouTube, YouTube, 13 Feb. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-FMPwJd8iE.
Ruustic, director. How to SHOOT a Fight Scene: MOVEMENT, CHOREOGRAPHY (Taught by Stuntmen. YouTube, YouTube, 2 Mar. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxap6jc9Sbk.
Ruustic, director. How to SHOOT a Fight Scene (Taught by Stuntmen) Camera Tips. YouTube, YouTube, 23 Feb. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcHAi2y9qfg.
“Screenwriter's Guide Fight Scenes.” John August, 19 July 2011, johnaugust.com/2011/writing-fight-scenes.

“5 Essential Tips for Writing Killer Fight Scenes.” Writer's Digest, 5 June 2019, www.writersdigest.com/guest-columns/5-essential-tips-for-writing-killer-fight-scenes.