What can I do to improve my fight scenes?

H

harmonica44

I was wondering what could I do differently to make a better impression with a much bigger, much higher budgeted project?

Here's a clip of one fight I shot. The sound is not finished yet so please excuse the poor sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQM2_Ytv204

So far I have asked my friends and fellow filmmaking collaborators. They said that I need more camera movement and the violence just doesn't look real enough. Like if I take out frames to make characters look like they are moving faster, they can tell. And I just need to have my actors hit at each other faster and harder.

Anything else that can help? Thanks.
 
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Looks like you learnt some things:
- that you don't want to do audio that way
- that you don't want to use more cameras at once

About the idea I just came up with in my previous response:
you just need 1 person to boom...
The interiour flashback can be improvised with a stand for the microphone.
Maybe you can even decide to record no sound outside and record sounds seperately. Depends on your approach and chosen style.
 
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Read closer... and better...

I gave you a simple idea (with flashback) to gain experience, confidence and to add something to your portfolio relatively quick (no SFX, no difficult time remapping, just a normal edit and perhaps play with colors to enhance atmosphere), so it might make it easier for you to find a crew.
(You don't have to use that idea, but when you read: "in my previous post" you could read it to know what I'm talking about. :p )

Because when you can show something finished, you are more credible than when you say: my first short is still in edit after 6 months. That's why you just need to finish it, put it online and make one or some short thing(s) to grow your skills.
There a lot of dreamers talking about making a movie and they all need a soundguy/girl. That same soundguy/girl has to choose... Working with someone who actually can show something, proofs that person is serious.

(For your car chase project you'll need more crew than you might think:
you need assistents to watch over safety, to maybe temporarily block roads and alarm you when the road is not free.)
 
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Hey, one of the things that would help you is to have quicker cuts, and let the camera shake a like more. It will give an illusion of action happening at a much quicker pace than it actually is.
 
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Okay thanks, but I've tried cutting quicker, but it just leads to continuity flaws. I think quick cutting only works, if the movie was storyboarded to be quicker cut, to begin with. For a future fight, that would require more shots, and that would require more time than I could get on a set, on a shoe string budget unfortunately.
 
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I have to be quite honest with you. That was one of the most horrible action scenes that I have ever seen. PLEASE do not believe the budget makes everything. Because it doesn't. All you really need is to find ONE person that knows how to do stunts and properly teach it to inexperienced actors. My cousin and I have made many inexperienced actresses look good on screen when it comes to action. The best ones are also those that know how to dance. Rhythm is key.

As for the scene itself, you really need to add more dynamics to make it feel like a struggle. The small bathroom space felt more like a struggle to the audience to watch than it was for the characters to act.

One major thing that really made the scene unbearable to watch was that you constantly broke the 180 degree rule. If a character is gonna be framed left, try to keep them framed left on the reversed angle. It'll allow the audience to be in the scene as opposed to figuring out where we are.

I know you had a small space to work with, but there are ways to cheat so that you have more room. Pull the camera back a bit so that we see more of the struggle. When the camera's facing up, have the woman not lean down so much.

During the bat swings... hopefully you have a foam bat to make things easier. If not, it's all about the acting. You could have had the wide of the first bat hit, a shot of her getting hit, and then cut back to the wide where the woman isn't seen in the shot so that the person swinging back can be more aggressive with it. Put pillows on the ground or something.

For hair pulling. Don't actually pull the persons hair. Just have the person ball their fist up and place it on top of the victims head. Have the victim grab the attackers wrist. All that's left is to have the victim control the action.

Those upside down shots.... yeah... don't do them.

And in general.... don't have the camera at head level. Those usually never look good. Have the cam more chest level.
 
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Okay thanks. But in action movies, it's broken all the time in fight scenes, and that's nothing new. Fight scenes are shown from all around in a lot of movies. Most Jackie chan fights for example, will intercut between different shots that go 360 degrees around the room. I was not going for a Jackie Chan style fight of all of course, but a fight between inexperienced characters. And as far as the faces being too close to the camera, that's been done before too, such as when Nicholas Cage fought the last bad guy in The Rock. In that movie they actor's faces were even closer to the camera in those shots. That same fight also broke the 180 degree rule, and had a couple of upside down shots. That's been done before too, so I don't see how I broke any rules when they have already been broken.

I actually had a stuntman teach the stunts to the actors, who has worked on movies before, but I guess he wasn't good enough.
 
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That's the thing, though. Of course, rules are meant to be broken, but you have to be able to understand it first in order to properly break them. While in Jackie movies, as well as other action movies, the 180 has been broken, but what made those breaks work was because we had other objects in the room to help maintain the audiences spatial awareness. In your case, you didn't show us enough of the room to be able to comprehend the space. Your shots, simply looked poorly put together as opposed to doing it wrong in a proper manner.

As for The Rock. I've never watched the movie but I just watched the end fight. Even that was shot horribly. But I will give them the close up shots of the face. Those shots were done right. What a little camera shake can do to a scene. But really, though, try not to use a Hollywood movie as an excuse to do the same. It's like trying to say that all action scenes should be zoomed in and shaky cam because Batman Begins and Bourne did it. Again, understand the rule first before breaking them. If it's meant to disorient the audience, go ahead do it, but it most of the time doesn't look good.

But I'm also not saying not to use Hollywood movies as examples. Use every piece of film media as a learning tool to figure out how you want to do your own films. There are good ones and there are bad ones. Figure out why some things worked and why others didn't. I'll even admit that some of the stuff that I've shot I hate and wish I'd done differently. It's all a learning experience. And it's ultimately up to you to decide the end product.
 
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Okay thanks. I guess I haven't really noticed much of an establishment in some action movies. Bourne Ultimatum I was really distracted with, in the fight scene in Morocco, since Bourne crashes through an apartment, and I hardly get to see it, before the fight starts.

I don't want to copy Hollywood techniques, just because Hollywood does it of course. I just picked the camera angles that emotionally fit in my head.

I showed the fight scene to some filmmaking collaborators tonight. I asked them if they noticed anything strange with the choice of camera angles, and they said no. I then pointed out to them that I broke the 180 degree rule, and they said they thought it was fine, and didn't really notice.

As for that fight scene, I think I will flip the upside down shot, right side up. Thanks for the tip.

I will keep all that was said for the next fight I want to do in a future project. I am very of the 180 rule though, but would still like to break it, as I think the choices of angles will just give me many more options if I break it. I don't want to have to establish much of the location though, as in shoestring budget locations, suck, and are really nothing to see much. I try to hide mediocre locations, by keeping the attention on the actors, if that's okay.
 
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I don't know how much shoestring is to you but we usually find ourselves doing action in our own homes, backgrounds, schools, parks, etc. Easily public places where permit isn't all that much of a requirement. Guerilla style filmmaking.

Take our latest short for example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-TpqrfE1AY

Literally only shot in 3 different locations. The 2 opening shots was the same street shot in opposite directions. The outdoors area is down the hill from our actresses house, and the backyard and indoor is the actresses house itself. I actually don't know if the audience believes it's a different location or not....

You'll notice in the first fight scene that the 180 is broken. But because the actors physically moved themselves to the opposite side of the frame, the switch wasn't as disorienting. Others way to help break it is by moving the camera in the shoot in the opposite 45degrees.

Obviously our way isn't the only way. When it comes to action, my camerawork is a combination of stuff that I've seen elsewhere as well as from working with other indy action filmmakers. It's all about pulling knowledge from different sources and coming up with a way that fits you.


As for the actors. The main actor that plays Chris Marino (Fernando Huerto/my cousin) and the first guy that plays the vagabond (Anthony Noceda) are the only two that are trained in stunt fights. Actually, I wouldn't call it trained. They're both self taught for on screen fighting but Anthony is a Muay Thai instructor. Tara, played by Sarah May Jewell, is just an actress and trained for a few days in stunt fighting by both Fernando and Anthony. Everyone else are either actors or friends that our crew personally knows. Fernando and Sarah literally were just theater classmates and later befriended each other.

The overall point being is that YES things can be done on a "shoestring" budget.
 
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Alcove Audio said:
My thought was if he was exposed to professionals at work he may actually learn something. He doesn't seem to have learned anything after 3,500 posts........
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your wrong, after my allegations of me disbelieving his situations and him making up everything, I too have now learned that afer 3,500 H44 has learned something very vital and really important... and has almost mastered it to a Tee he probably does it better than anyone else in this forum.

and that is...

how to ask question after question after question after question.. and show little for it.
 
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shortboy said:
..........
You'll notice in the first fight scene that the 180 is broken. But because the actors physically moved themselves to the opposite side of the frame, the switch wasn't as disorienting.

......
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That isn't breaking the rule.
You had a transition-shot that moved the 'axis'.
I find the '180-rule' a bit of a weird name. In Dutch we talk about 'the axis': the line crossing the 2 characters you shouldn't cross: unless there is a transition of that line, that places the camera on the other side.

Offcourse there are moments you can break those rules...

To go back to the original question: 'how to improve fight scenes?'
Make more stuff. Even editing converations will help you gain more experience, so you can plan your fight scenes better, because you understand editing better.

So, your first short is not perfect and can not be fixed enough to make it perfect.
We told you :p
Now just stop pondering for weeks about deleting 1 extra frame.
Finish it: do the sound (it won't be perfect either, but that's alright) and move on.

Do!
Go make stuff!
You are looking back too much.
You are daydreaming too much.
You are asking questions too much.

Finding out yourself can't be replaced by any forum.
Find out fast by doing small short projects in a short time without asking everything in here. Just show the result.
While you keep trying to find a shortcut to perfection for your first short, someone else is actually doing stuff.
http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?p=318334
Absolution Films tries to make a (short) movie every week!

If you want to be good, you'll need to do things.
If you want to win, you will have to go further than anyone else.
Everytime you don't do a thing to become better, someone else is probably getting better than you, because he/she actually is moving forward.
 
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H44 is afraid of failure. He feels that everything must be perfect first time, every time.

That's not the way it's done. Edison discovered almost 2,000 ways not to make a light bulb. Even the Manhattan Project (US nuclear bomb research during WWII) had monumental failures time and again.

Did you ever see the movie "Meet the Robinsons"? It's just kids fare, but part of the message is to be proud of your failures, and, as Walt Disney himself says, "Keep Moving Forward."

I screw up all the time - I learn from that. I file away the lessons and, uhm, "Keep Moving Forward."
 
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Okay thanks. I haven't touched this fight scene for almost a year though, and have been working on other people's projects. What I meant was, what can I do better for my NEXT FIGHT, and was just using this older one, as an example of what I have done, and could do differently for NEXT TIME.

As for that car chase short I want to do, I am going to do all the car chase, with green screen, and remote control toy cars. Once I find some cars that look real enough I will get on it. And I am looking for cars right now.
 
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I feel like you really want to go big with very little. There's absolutely no problem with it, but you'll easily notice that this "dream" is bigger and harder than what you may have imagined/anticipated. Once you realize that, then every little mistake will become a lesson.

I'm sure many of us have already told you to start out small. Here's something that you can start with. Find a short story online. Something that's relatively short and only takes up a page. Or even just a few lines. Take that story and construct something bigger around it. Film it, edit it, post it. 3-5min is all you really need. It's okay to ask questions, but experiment first. We all sucked when we began but you can only go so far until you need to start actually doing stuff. We can't properly assess your ability when you aren't giving us anything.
 
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I could do that but the DPs I know, only want to do bigger projects. If I bring just a 3-5 minute dialogue scene to them, they will be not be interested, and told me so before. I could shoot it myself but I lack equipment, such as dollies, etc. All I have is a tripod. And I have no sound person. I tried setting up the camera, then picking up the boom, and shooting a scene with the camera unattended, but then the actor's aren't allowed to move, without me having to reposition the camera each time they walk out of frame, and what fun is that. I vowed never to do that again, as the scene just comes out crappy since the camera is not even allowed to follow someone a little.
 
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I think the best thing for you is to be able to rely on yourself.

All that you have said I have done by myself before. Believe that you can do it. Working the camera while dollying (sometimes focus pulling) and monitoring the audio is the fun stuff. Adding in cranes is where it gets hard xD. But for boom mics, the most sufficient thing to do right now is to just mount it on your camera... or place it on a bag below facing up so that it's off screen. Actually what kind of camera are you using? If you're booming, the characters shouldn't be moving all around to much to begin with. When you start moving, just handheld the shot.

My biggest advice to anything filmmaking is to work with what you have even if it is minimal. Try to become really good with one aspect first and slowly add in other stuff. Trying to do everything at once will only hinder your progression as a filmmaker. I would probably suggest dropping ADR for now so that you have more time to work with your actors on screen.

Btw, clear out your inbox. I have a few stuff I want to send you.
 
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harmonica44 said:
I could do that but the DPs I know, only want to do bigger projects. If I bring just a 3-5 minute dialogue scene to them, they will be not be interested, and told me so before..................
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Probably because they dream of doing such bigger projects.
But are they ready for such projects?
All I read about your DPs is that they can't do things or don't know how to do things... :P
So maybe it's good for them to go back to basics and find the challenge it that ;)

harmonica44 said:
................
I could shoot it myself but I lack equipment, such as dollies, etc. All I have is a tripod.
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I don't have a dolly either...
Use what you have. There is nothing wrong with using a tripod. Actually it forces you to make what is onscreen keep the attention without fancy cameramovements.
If you only look at what you don't have, you can't make anything.

I don't have a RED, a FS700 or a C300, I don't have a MoVi, I don't have a Moco for my Cinevate Atlas, I don't have a RC Helicopter and my DSLR is so old it can't shoot video!!!!
But I do use tripods often :p

Actually my first 'filmproject' was shot with a webcam and my friends computer (in 2000).
My first 'real' filmproject in artschool was shot with a camcorder on a cheap, shaky photography tripod. Sound was recorded with a borrowed cheap microphone on a broomstick and a borrowed MiniDisk-player (in 2001).
It didn't stop us at all.
(We already discovered that a skateboard is a bit too unstable to use for dollyshots :p )


harmonica44 said:
And I have no sound person. I tried setting up the camera, then picking up the boom, and shooting a scene with the camera unattended, but then the actor's aren't allowed to move, without me having to reposition the camera each time they walk out of frame, and what fun is that. I vowed never to do that again, as the scene just comes out crappy since the camera is not even allowed to follow someone a little.
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You can try the other way around: use a tripod or c-stand or just wood and a fishingrod with some tape to set up the boom and operate the camera while you hear the sound through headphones.
It may not be perfect sound, but it can certainly work if you plan within such 'limitations'.
So now you can so simple projects with dialogue :)
 
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