Independent Filmmaking - How to Film Fight Scenes 101

Welcome to the first video of the Do As ASDO Do Fight Scene 101 Tutorial series!We hope you find these videos fun and informative to help you create exciting fight and action scenes on a budget, quickly and efficiently! These tutorials are led by Director Sensei Senpai, Joey Min.

Pre-production is broken into 2 parts: Choreography and Storyboarding. In this series, we show you what we do with no budget, with a small crew, and a short time frame. Obviously, if you have the time and budget, you can take what you learn here and scale it up to fit your production, but let's start at the bare minimum.Fight choreography is the art of non-verbal dialogue. Action scenes are built upon the character development and interactions between parties to set the theme and mood of the story.

Fight Choreography can be broken down into 3 parts: Hand-to-Hand, Weapons, or Gun Fights (which you can check out our Gun-Fu Tutorial as well!) If you are an actor or stunt performer wanting to get into action and fight scenes? We highly recommend for you to get some basic training in martial arts. If you are a director, we highly recommend for you to get stunt doubles or capable actors and actresses. Choreograph to the performers abilities! You want the choreography to look good, not feel good. What we mean by this is that, a performer can feel like a badass doing the choreography, but does it look badass from the camera's perspective?

When you are stuck with choreography and don't know how to continue, use the "Joey Basic." It is a simple combination of high, high, low, high. By stating a simple direction (high or low), I can mix and match different attacks, blocks, dodges, etc. By not being specific, I give myself and my performers the ability to change the moves if need be.In our productions, we emphasize safety! Realistically, on a no-budget set, you can't afford for your talent to get hurt. We don't have the luxury of spending months to train talent or for injuries to recover. Remember, this is acting, not really fighting. Plan your fight in line with the mood and theme of the story. Fight choreography isn't just a set of moves in a vaccuum! Adding acting beats to it like a very strong punch or kick dictates the mood and feel of your fight! This is still acting so implement those into your choreography.

Go slow! Especially during rehearsal and practice. To fully show the choreography and so everyone is safe, distance is very important. Full extensions of punches and kicks while maintaining range will look good on camera and lessens the risk of anyone getting hurt.

Define your 180 line. Though it is choreography, the 180 rule still applies. For new filmmakers who may not know, the "180-degree rule is a cinematography guideline that states that two characters in a scene should maintain the same left/right relationship to one another."

By choosing your angles ahead of time and storyboarding your fight scene, you shorten the time needed on set and you help the perfomers not tire out when it comes time to shoot.

Don't forget to download the DO AS ASDO DO - 3 Basic Angles Handout!
These are just basic angles so remember that you can modify and augment them to get your own unique shots! Get creative and make your action scene shine!

Storyboard is the process of putting concepts together to pre-visualize what the project would look like.

To better fit strings of choreography with different angles, the last move of every string in a particular shot should be the first move in the next string of the next shot. This allows the editing to be cut in motion.

Pacing dictates the flow of the action scene and conveys the mood of your story.

We create previzs and storyboards for most of our videos and films. They are filmed on an ipad and rough cut with iMovie. This is the sample of the real fight scene and acts as a guideline for when we are filming on production day.

Now, we are taking you into the production phase.

The most important thing about a previz or storyboard is knowing your shots ahead of time. Yes, you have less options to choose from when editing but you make all of those decisions during storyboarding phase. Having a storyboard or previz gives you a sense of what the whole scene will look like before you actually film for your project. Doing it this way will not tire out your performers, make your production day much faster, and is a great reference to use for everyone on set.

This doesn't just apply to fight scenes but even to your entire film. We use this method for almost all of our projects. We even have a pre-viz version of our feature film, My Asian Auntie: Yes, Auntie!

What you’ll learn:

• Using your storyboard to adequately plan your equipment.

• Problem solving, tweaking, and decision making on set.

• Execution of your fight scene battle plan.

• The anatomy of a stunt.

While overpacking isn't that big of an issue, underpacking definitely is. It is better to have equipment that you don't need, than needing equipment that you didn't bring.

This is another time the storyboard/previz is helpful. Using the storyboard and previz, you can already foresee what particular equipment, props, wardrobe and other things you may need on production day.

You can utilize the camera position and movement to "stack" the hit. Use your camera to hide the impact and keep your performers safe while still making the choreography look real.

OR if you know there is a fall or stunt, you can plan for it and bring the necessary pads and mats. For us, we prefer the safer route.

Ask yourself these questions:

Do you want your performer to do the fall/stunt/move?

Can the performer actually perform the fall/stunt/move?

Is the performer comfortable and willing to do it?

Is it worth doing?

While many productions would film the same scene in different angles to “cover” for them during editing, we choose to “shoot to edit.” If you are shooting with no-budget, you don't have the luxury to have multiple cameras for more coverage. You would be running with one camera. With "shoot to edit," we’ve essentially made those editing decisions well in advance, doing the hard work during pre-production. This shortens production days and makes post-production a lot less messier.

Plus, having the cuts in mind makes it a lot easier for your performers to remember the choreography. If the choreography is about 200 moves exchanged, it is unrealistic to expect them to perform the entire scene multiple times to cover multiple angles. Doing that will tire them out. It is much easier for them to practice and rehearse the few moves needed for that particular angle, and then move on to the next set of choreography.

You put more emphasis in pre-production to make it much easier for you during production days. Remember what we had covered in pre-production.

• Choreograph within your performer's capabilites

• Go slow during rehearsal or when blocking the shot

• The last move of the string of choreography is the first move of the next set of choreography

Again, safety first! We had already planned to have this slam in the pre-viz, we remembered to pack the mat, and it is well within our performer's ability. Even though our stuntman has experience and was comfortable to hit the concrete, we feel it is important to find safer alternatives. Having a crash mat gives a performer at any level, the feeling of safety. This allows the performers to focus more on the acting and performance instead of being fearful that they will get hurt.

If you know you'll have stunts or falls, please be safe and get the necessary safety equipment for your performers.

With all of footage, Joey will now walk you through how he edited the fight scene. The workflow that we have emphasized relies on the work that was done for pre-production. At this point, we already have our previz/storyboard, which will act as our template for editing our complete finished version of the fight scene. The only thing to mention now is the concept of cutting in motion. The goal is to connect the clips together so they flow seamlessly. At the end of the choreography from one shot, we cut in the middle of the last move.

And remember when we had said, "the last move of every string in a particular shot should be the first move in the next string of the next shot"? Well, here is where we will apply that concept. Doing the fight scenes in cuts also allows the performers to perform at 100%, limiting the number of takes.