Show Notes:
Guests Filmmaker John Lyde and Fight Choreographer Justin Lee
Quentin Tarantino has said, “Real life violence is real life violence. Movies are movies…It's not the same thing at all.” His films are pretty violent, so he gets asked about violence a lot. He has also said, “Violence is so good. It affects the audience in a big way.” And lastly “Violence is one of the most fun things to watch.”
Sponsored by BBMTY studios
Theme music by Gordon Vetas.
“In the Telling” is hosted and produced by Liz Christensen.
Full Interviews available on Patreon.
Show Notes:
Guests Filmmaker John Lyde and Fight Choreographer Justin Lee
Quentin Tarantino has said, “Real life violence is real life violence. Movies are movies…It's not the same thing at all.” His films are pretty violent, so he gets asked about violence a lot. He has also said, “Violence is so good. It affects the audience in a big way.” And lastly “Violence is one of the most fun things to watch.”
Sponsored by BBMTY studios
Theme music by Gordon Vetas.
“In the Telling” is hosted and produced by Liz Christensen.
Full Interviews available on Patreon.
For instincts and soldiers too. In the fight. It's a, it was like a raw and gritty fight where, I mean he had to use his hands to kill somebody and where that takes him as a character, and I mean in it like he bites my neck, you know, like we hadn't that he uses his net cause I am about to kill him and the only thing you can do is bite me. So that's what he does. And then he pummels me to death with his fists and the other characteristic come and pull him off and kind of bring him back to reality because it took him to such a violent place. But that was one where, you know, end game of Thrones, they would have shown my face with the Fisk going in and go, you know, just making it so disgusting. Whereas on this one, the camera's just below the camera, or excuse me, the camera's below the actor. And so his fists are just going right past. But then soundwise it's still pretty gross, which is a lot to the imagination. You don't have to visually see it. That's one where that fight took this character to this place. And then you had to, you know, the repercussions. How long did it take for them to recover? Does it affect them that much or because it's war is it, he has to get over it real quick and move on.
Speaker 2:The voice you just heard belongs to filmmaker John lied, whose experiences with violence and filmmaking come from? Many angles. Viewer in the audience, director, director of photography, editor, stuntmen and stunt coordinator. Join John.
Speaker 1:I am a want to be filmmaker. John lied. I've been trying my whole life and hoping one day to succeed.
Speaker 2:Um, if the bar that we need to clear is that a film was actually made, I think you've cleared that
Speaker 1:well, I'll have to be a really good thing.
Speaker 2:And Justin Lee.
Speaker 3:So I'm Justin Lee. Um, and for the purposes of today, I am a fight choreographer slash bike director in theater.
Speaker 2:Yeah. What does that mean for someone who's not a theater person?
Speaker 3:Um, so if there is violence that happens in a play, someone like me gets called in to make sure the violence, um, is both safe and looks real simultaneously or as real as you can get it.
Speaker 2:And today's exploration of violence and storytelling. I'm your host Liz Christiansen and it's all in the telling. Welcome to episode nine. Violence is sometimes the answer. This episode of in the telling is sponsored by Bebe, M T Y studios, a space for independent creators to bring their work to life and show it to the world. Their first comic. The box is available for free on web tunes and Tappas and updates every Friday get drawn into the suspense and horror of the box. Listen through to the end of the episode to hear the episode extras. A variety of stories from Justin Lee and John lied or stunts or combat choreography went wrong.
Speaker 3:People will forgive killing a death all over the place. Like we could have a body count of 30 people in a show. Um, and I can think of shows for that to happen. Like you're just three Musketeers is a great example. There is someone who dies or like 10 people who die almost every scene of that show like it is. It is almost on the level of gratuitous and it's from the heroes, just killing people left and right. And people bring their eight year old kid, whatever. See those guys are awesome. They're the heroes and it's like this death and may happen everywhere. But if you have like a kiss, people freak out. I'm like, Oh my gosh, there's kids in the audience. So I don't know. It's, it's a weird thing and I think that is, I'm sure that exists other places, but yeah, violence, you know, and really bloody violence even, which in some ways you can't do on stage the same way that you might, you know, in film. Um, but yeah, I think violence gets a lot more of a pass then, you know, sexual things do
Speaker 4:well. I wasn't trying to figure out like wrap my head around why that is. Is it just because like we really know that obviously they're not dead. Okay.
Speaker 3:I think that's part of it. Yeah. Everyone knows it didn't really happen. If people kiss on stage, they really kissed. Even if you know it, stage kiss, whatever those people kissed. If people swear on stage they swore, they said the word really came out of their mouth. If I stab you on stage, no one thinks I actually stabbed you. That's part of the, you know, kind of the conceit when you go into the show is you don't think the violence is real. You know, no one is dying up there. Um, but the other stuff kind of happened.
Speaker 4:So we were in Germany, um, a long time ago and there was just a lot of um, sexual marketing everywhere and I just remarked to somebody who was living there that was like taking us around. It's like there's like, it feels a little bit like Vegas, although you know much, much more dignified than Vegas. But just the amount of opportunity to see stuff that I'm not used to seeing. Cause I walk around Utah at the time and they said, Oh that's Europe where more sexual, your more violent. Do you think that that's a thing? How is that like why
Speaker 1:Americans like their violence, like UFC wrestling, football, that's all violent, but throughout history people have always enjoyed violence. I think it just depends on what level and what you're accustomed to and what you see as a child growing up. So what you take Israel when you take is fake.
Speaker 4:Do you find that reflected in how your films do in like a national market versus an in international market?
Speaker 1:Depending on who's picking it up, but a lot of times you have to tone down the violence for the foreign market depending on who it's going to. So like sometimes when you do like a thriller that's going to play on lifetime. Here you can have a stabbing or certain things, but the market for the foreign, they wanted to play it on TV during the daytime. So they would have, there was like 42 seconds a cutout for the foreign market.
Speaker 4:Is that like destructive to the story though? That works out okay. And that in that case, but I would, I was picturing like if somebody got stabbed and then they had to go around the rest of the time with that and bloody bandage, right. The person who was so it doesn't really matter then. Okay. There. Yeah. I mean there's some stuff you just can't
Speaker 3:make it look completely real. Um, you can't stab someone on stage and have that look real. Like you've got to do a weird angle and you don't have blood gushing out. I mean,
Speaker 4:so real to an extent. But you know, like PG, PG 13
Speaker 3:real, not like R rated real with blood coming out of someone's throat if their throat gets cut or something.
Speaker 4:Do you feel like there is a real lack of horror in theater because of where we live or because um, if theater, and that's just tricky, I think, I don't, I don't think it's so much where we[inaudible]
Speaker 3:live. Um, I'm maybe a little bit, but people around here are weirdly comfortable with violence when they won't be comfortable with something else.
Speaker 1:I personally, I have found like when I was, it's easy, it's super easy to film violence because it's super fake and funny. But viewing it is different.
Speaker 4:So you're, you're behind the camera and it's not doing the it factor for you
Speaker 1:when filming. It's usually silly because you have like for example, when you have people get splattered with blood, you know, there's some lady there with like plastic[inaudible], she doesn't get dirty and she has a little survey engine. She sits all smiling ready to shoot and she pops it and bloke, you know, and then it's like syrupy. So it's not, it just seems silly, but then when you watch it in context and the sound effects and it becomes gross. Okay. So grow up like growing up I saw lots of violence and it never bugged me because I always watched the behind the scenes of movies.
Speaker 4:Yeah. You wanted to know the mechanics.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so I taught like, even even like, uh, like scary films where they'd show Gore to me, I'd always be interested on how they did it. But as I got older and had children, I like to like it less and less and less. I'm old, I guess it's just grown like for me. Like I can't, I can't watch the surgery. I get grossed out by real violence. But then as I get older I find that even like movie violence, I don't like as much.
Speaker 4:Just getting sensitive in your age. I guess I'm getting old. Oh yeah. So that's why I do a lot of more family films now. Hallmark is your jam. Well you'll see, I like the dramas. Okay, so why is that your favorite genre right now? It is. That changes.
Speaker 1:It changes. Like growing up it was always action films since you know, I still love my John Wood movies, but like lately,
Speaker 4:drama, like between the oceans, that kind of show I really like, I like to cry. Not necessarily cry, but I like raw and real acting with real stories.
Speaker 1:Cause it's not, there's nothing gimmicky. It's not, it's not about stunts. It's not about action. It's not about special effects. It's just
Speaker 4:a real problem. You know, something that you can relate with in real life that tells us good story. Do you think that might have anything do with the fact that you liked the behind the scenes and mechanical stuff and there's just less of that involved in a dramatic moment?
Speaker 1:It could be cause a dramatic moment just takes two incredibly talented actors with talented director and a talented cinematographer
Speaker 4:and no ladies squatting down with the blood syringe place. That's awesome. Terrible plastic.
Speaker 1:Well I think, I think like the first time it really, I really noticed was when I was watching a TV show is probably 10 years ago and in it a body had been decomposed in acid and it just, it drips onto the ground and like teeth hit the tile. Oh so, but, and watching it, it was disgusting. But then I thought about the people making it and you know, there's just like three special effects guys up top ready. And they dumped the buckets and they just dropped, you know, Chiclets or their fake teeth. So filming it, I can see how it's not, you know, it's going to fun. But watching it, I was like, it was disgusting to me and that's when it started to change. I noticed I didn't enjoy the violence as much.
Speaker 3:Reached your threshold,
Speaker 1:but then I still have lots of friends who like seeing gory stuff and they, they thoroughly enjoy that. They like the Gore or they liked the violence.
Speaker 3:Some of what you do on stage looks realistic, but so I can just work around a little but also a little bit stylized. Real violence is messy. It's fast. It's not always easy to to see what actually happened and anything you're doing in the theater, you want the audience to understand what is happening. That's part of your goal. So the same way you know, you may, you know, people cheat out as actors because you want the audience to see what's going on. Same thing with violence. You want them to know what happened. It can't just be like tussling and wrestling on stage, which is what a real fight looks like. A lot doesn't play well to an audience cause it doesn't tell a story. Nothing's happening. So you want it to look, I guess theatrically real, not real life real necessarily, because real life violence isn't the same. It's ugly. Most punches don't land it. It doesn't look super cool. Even if you're doing a good job, even if you're a good fighter. Yeah. Um, go watch. I mean, a good example is if you go watch a Rocky movie, um, or you go watch a Kung Fu movie and you see, you know, karate kid, you'll see the fights and you're like, man, those guys are great martial artists. Or they're great boxers. But again, you're showing a little bit of a fight. You're showing snippets, you're editing it. If you go watch an actual boxing match, it's boring. 15, three minute rounds with guys circling each other. Sometimes landing punches most of the time, not, um, same thing. You go watch like Olympic TaeKwonDo or something, a lot of good stuff. But you know, that would be really boring in a play. It doesn't tell a story because that's a sport. Um, real
Speaker 5:violence isn't trying to tell a story. It's trying to injure someone. If it's on the stage, it should be telling some kind of story and something about the characters. So it's, it's got to translate so the audience can see it. It can't just be messy.
Speaker 4:So what is, what is the story of violence like?
Speaker 5:It depends. This, I mean, violence needs to be driven by the characters. Violence should always be personal. There's a reason that person is being violent and there needs to be a reason that characters being violent in that situation, in that play to tell that story.
Speaker 4:How do you feel fight choreography or stunt work? Cause that's probably not always the same thing.
Speaker 1:They're very close though. Like a stunt is basically, so fight a fight scene is just throwing fists or feet at each other. And then a stunt is if you fall down, if you were firing a gun at someone, if there's an explosion, a car crash, those kinds of things are considered stunts on horses jumping over things on horses. Right?
Speaker 4:Sure. Um, I feel like it would be rare then where a fight doesn't include a stunt, but there are lots of stunts that don't include fights. Correct. Okay. How do, how do those moments fit in the greater story? How should they fit in?
Speaker 1:Depending on the director and depending on the story. So for example, in the fighting preacher with TCS film, the fights in that are designed for a specific audience. So the people that watch TC Christianson films aren't going to go there to see super big falls and T flying and blood flying. It's more of 19 you know, early 19 hundreds style boxing. And then, you know, there's no blood, their sweat and there's bruising, but then the punches are violent. So even sound effects wise, it doesn't feel overly violent. It's toned down. Okay. And so that's, that's what's required of that show. Whereas a movie like John wick, it's all about as much action and stunts as you can put in it.
Speaker 4:It's that, and that's based primarily off of like audience expectation.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And who the audit, who the audience is.
Speaker 4:Do you feel like that's tied? I mean in that example it's tied to the filmmaker, but I feel like it's almost tied to like the genre. It's like a Mormon type film or like a religious type film. So do people expect
Speaker 1:it depends on who's making it. So if you're Mel Gibson and making passion of the Christ, but that's ultraviolet. Yeah,
Speaker 4:right. We expect, even though it's a religious film,
Speaker 1:even though it's a religious film, but what they're showing is the suffering of Christ. And so like when Mel Gibson, he shows violence and Gore a lot to tell the story. That's how he does things. And it's effective in Braveheart, Hacksaw Ridge, Apocalypto all it's that way. It's for, uh, because a lot of things, it's not sugarcoated. You know, if there's someone invading a village and they slaughter everybody, he shows a slaughter or in Hacksaw Ridge, he shows the Gore of it. And that's his storytelling technique.
Speaker 4:So fighting preacher for example, it's more about, uh, like plot level, just delivery. Like this guy beat this guy. That's kind of all we need to.
Speaker 1:And for humor, like there's parts of, there's humor in it. You know, like there's, there's a really funny scene where someone's squirting him with the hose saying, you know, you blue Mormons believe that you guys, you know, baptism of water, he comes in and punches the guy. But if you look at it, the sound effects, you know, not that heart and you don't see blood, it's done for comic effect instead of violence. I can
Speaker 5:an instance where I've ever choreographed something, you know, directed a fight that wasn't character-driven
Speaker 4:and that wasn't easy to get from this group.
Speaker 5:I'm trying to think of, I've ever just kind of gone blind into something and they're like, do this. Most of the things I've choreographed for, I don't know. I think he's just lucky. Honestly. I know the show before I go into it, like who the characters are or what's going on. But for me it's always got to come from the character. I mean I eat is maybe a good example where a very star I eat as you know, brought in and I'm talking, not the opera but the musical, but I eat as brought in, she's, you know, bound. And then she gets into a fight with like three guards. And so do the guards have a specific, you know, have I thought through their character whole lot and no, but it's not their story. It's her story and I know who I eat. It is and so I can work that into the show.
Speaker 4:What were you trying to say about I, you just characterized
Speaker 5:strong. She wasn't, she's not going to back down. She is. Even as she's in chains, she's stronger than these people around her and I have a chance physically to show she's not going to back down.
Speaker 4:So this is, this is not a fight where she gives up or she surrenders. She's got to know how does that fight end?
Speaker 5:Well, because the script that fight ends with someone, you know, having the drop on her. But that's by virtue of the numbers of people around, you know, who has the weapons. But she kicked three guys bonds before that happened and it's awesome.
Speaker 4:Do you feel like there's some, I don't want to say rules because I don't think it's rules, but there's some audience expectations that come with others on reds. Like, like a romance. Like how, how much do we care and expect to see violence and stuff in a romance?
Speaker 1:Usually it depends on the kind of movie it is. So like a hallmark film, I've done stunt coordinating on hallmark films and those were the best because the stents are minimal and it's usually required from the union to have a STEM person there. So like if kids are on ice skates, you have to have a stunt coordinator there just in case, just in Cape volts. I mean, it's just to talk to them about safety because you can't prevent them from falling. It's more of don't be stupid if you feel yourself falling, do this. So you kind of the safety guy. Yeah, it's just for safety. Okay. And, and then, um, but for hallmark films, like the violence has been, will, and sometimes they try and push things, like on one we did like a kid punching another kid, but they cut it out. Oh, it's gone are one, we did like a girl on a bike crash, but that was part of the story. But she flips over the bike but they, you know, you don't her hit the ground or anything. She disappears behind. Like there was a converge in front of us so you can see what happens. Okay. So there's no like violence, but there are some stunts or like, you know, one of the actresses jumped out of an airplane but the airplanes parked and we just have her jump onto a pad.
Speaker 4:But she went like skydiving or something. Okay.
Speaker 1:And then they just, they bought like skydive and footage. Yeah. So there's ways, but yeah, there's, there's a way to tell the story and how it's used and sometimes it's violent, sometimes it's action, just depending on the genres.
Speaker 4:Okay. So then like other end of the spectrum, I don't know, action or fantasy or are they both on the other end of the spectrum?
Speaker 1:Well, I, I, it depends. Like game of Thrones is ultra gory, so they have violence, but they use Gore to tell the story. But a lot of that I feel is this showman I was trying to push and get away with whatever they can.
Speaker 4:You think some of it's gratuitous. I've never seen it so I don't know. Okay.
Speaker 1:So four cause all the times you can get the same story with the edited.
Speaker 4:Okay. So talk to me. So my, my level of blood comfort is like Lord of the rings. Loads of people die but there's not a lot of red around cause there's no blood and black and blues sometimes like not here our reading. Right. Cause if you have black blood you don't get an R. interesting. Okay. So like they have separate heads of orcs. Yeah. So you don't get an R, which is fine with me because I don't really, I'm like buddy, they are just muddy. It's not bloody. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5:Violence is rarely gratuitous in theater as much as you see on film because it's, I don't know, people just, you can't do the fake violence that long and I don't like it. There are some instances where I think you maybe have gratuitous violence, but for the most part, violence just, it tells the reason that character is an angry person. The character wants to hurt that other person. It's not about the violence, it's about what they're trying to achieve through the violence.
Speaker 4:Okay. So it's um, it's an objective or a tactic maybe.
Speaker 5:Either way. Yeah. Objective or tactic to get something they want. Okay. Just like any other thing you're doing in theater, it should be moving that character[inaudible]
Speaker 4:Serbian tonight you said it's not really gratuitous and I'm thinking of the most violent shows I've ever seen and probably talk, they're like Sweeney Todd, a Jekyll and Hyde and your Musketeers. Robinhood. If you want to laugh at your violence a lot, you know, like there's some comedic ones where the violence, there's a lot of violence, but it's funny. But yeah, I can't really think of,
Speaker 5:I mean, yes, we need taught to a good example. I mean that's integral to the story that's telling who this person is and what they're doing. That is the story.[inaudible]
Speaker 4:is the entirety of the story. And so
Speaker 5:is it is a violent story. Sure. But is that story violence for the sake of violence? No,
Speaker 4:it's not. How does Gore help you tell the story? How can it, how can it be used in a way that's not gratuitous?
Speaker 1:I think it's mostly gratuitous.
Speaker 4:So then it's like they're after like an[inaudible] factor.[inaudible] okay.
Speaker 1:So four, there's a whole genre of that. They're torture porns like that's what they're called. So like the hostel films are the soft films.
Speaker 4:Oh, I've seen like a poster. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So those, and even like, I mean, and game of Thrones especially, it's extremely well-made and extremely incredible storytelling, directing, acting. But they put as much gratuity as they can to get away with it
Speaker 4:because, because they want to make you uncomfortable. That or people like it, so on. Okay. One or the other. And that. Do you think they care about which response they're getting? As long as they get views. Okay. So why does violence get so many views? People like thoughts on why?
Speaker 1:Well, there's, there's, there's people who like violence. There's people like go war and there's people who like good storytelling and are willing to accept the Gore or the violence as part of the storytelling.
Speaker 4:Okay. And so if game of Thrones is doing all three, then their viewership goes way up.
Speaker 1:And part of that, because it's HBO and it's basically pushed boundaries, get away with what you can
Speaker 4:like that. Yeah, that's the premise of the channel. Right? Okay.
Speaker 5:I mean I think you could have a show that is violence for the sake of violence. I know they exist out there. Like I saw one, um, I didn't see the show but I saw about it back in Washington D C area. They had basically it was, you know, like a video game type thing, like a street fighter RO mortal combat and they piece together a really stupid story about some fight tournament. And the purpose of the show was to show off, you know, fighters and stunt people and all of that. I mean that was the purpose of the show. It sounds like WWE. Yeah. Kinda kinda like that. And so I think if you have a show that the violence is the purpose, you notice to showcase a certain talent set, I could get behind that. But you rarely see violence just for the sake of violence in other shows, you know, woven into a normal piece of theater
Speaker 4:in an action movie or fantasy movie where we care more than just who won the fight or the tragic incident that led to whatever. What else, what other purposes can this serve a story
Speaker 1:so you can do that. You can use action to tell the story. So the fast and the furious films use action to tell the story where they're kind of silly and over the top, but then that they have a huge audience for that or the John wick films use action to tell the story pallets through.
Speaker 4:It's moving the plot forward.[inaudible] do when you're coordinating or choreographing or directing even, I dunno from any of the angles that you're looking at this, are you trying to show me character in the violence too?
Speaker 1:You need to, otherwise it becomes boring and mundane. Like John was probably the perfect example of using the story or using the action to propel the story forward through entertainment. Perfect.
Speaker 4:Having not seen John wick, you're going to have to elaborate. There's bit angel, you can use Vinay, angel[inaudible]. So,
Speaker 1:uh, for example, like the, you learn the character, it's a lot like WWE. So WWE, what's the wrestling? They tell a story through their fighting. Yeah. And it's usually the same, you know, who's gonna win? Gonna lose. They always make it where the good guy's about to lose. But then he comes back. So there's always that storytelling in there. And the same with a good action movie. They tell more about the character through the action, what he does and the choices he's made during the action sequences.
Speaker 4:Okay. So we're going to see like his level of honor,
Speaker 1:honor, weaknesses, strengths.
Speaker 4:So as a stunt coordinator or director, are you, what are you looking at from other parts of the script that you need that context to, to do this
Speaker 1:for one w one firm, I did a riot, which was basically non, it's fight scenes nonstop for 80 something minutes. So best that I got from it. So that one, it was, the action was gonna sell it by having dolphin hungering for Rocky four and then that would help sell the film. And then my stunt fight choreographer, Braxton McAllister, he went through and design the fight scenes beforehand. And so like on page, for example, it was in one eighth of a page that said, I'm the main character fights[inaudible] versus 20 people in the hallway. And so I gave that to my stunt coordinator and basically let him design the fight of interest
Speaker 4:and he knows all that he's getting the full script, right? So he has all of the script analysis,
Speaker 1:he has all the script analysis, which is like on that film, it's so simple as just revenge is the story. So you know, this guy goes to prison on purpose in order to get to the bad guy who's in prison to get revenge for killing his wife. So it's very simple and straight forward. And then there's 20 men that are obstacles in his way of trying to present, you know, prevent him from getting at least at this portion of it. So on that, like we spent, you know, over half the day filming just that one eighth of a page of that fight sequence, but he had already shot, like pre-visit it beforehand with the stuntman. So he knew what it was going to do. So I just left. I let him take care of the storytelling in that aspect.
Speaker 4:Okay. And then it's just a matter of how much fun can you have finding 20 different ways to get past a person. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or it's one person versus 20 getting yeah.
Speaker 4:Hopefully he doesn't do like the same thing every time. Right.
Speaker 1:It's different during and do something different every time. That sounds really fun.
Speaker 4:I can see why. I can see why you like this.
Speaker 1:It can be fun. I'm kind of blanking. I can't think of one where like the characters is so hard to[inaudible]
Speaker 4:pull out. Have you had one where the actor was well cast for the character but not cast for the biting? Yes,
Speaker 5:absolutely. Um, yeah, all I've had people that just, I'm going to plow to eat again cause it's one that just jumps to mind. Yeah. Where yeah, one of the guys just, he, he's a big strong muscular person. He just has absolutely no, I don't know, violence in him. Just like nice of a person. Yeah. It just does not like violence was just not even natural for him at all. Yeah. I just did just kind of movement. Like it just, it didn't make sense to him. Like why would I ever fight someone like wealth cause your characters in the situation. So they would fight and usually I didn't, you know, I know I don't get, why would I do this? And it's like, because someone's going to attack you with a sword, you would probably block that, you know? And, and yeah, sometimes some actors just don't, which is good. I wish, I guess I didn't get violent so, well cause it's kinda creepy and the ways that I do, but yeah, some actors, violence doesn't make sense to them for whatever reason. And yeah, you have to work through that and teaching them movements sometimes and hopefully then the character catches up to that movement.
Speaker 4:How do you, how do you cast somebody to do that if you haven't worked with them before? Like do to make them dance differently.
Speaker 1:You, you, uh, you go through a process of showing them how to do a movie Vida and movie punch and just to see if they have control over their body. Some people can do it in some pink can't tell. It's like, is that part of the audition process? Usually I know beforehand if they are athletic or not.
Speaker 4:Do you, do you know that from like resume or they're just around the community. So you have this peripheral knowledge, right?
Speaker 1:It's a seeing other stuff they've done or seeing just how they move or sometimes Instagram. Yeah. Not, not just something, there was a Castic girl because she was doing a flying knee on Instagram for fun. Like jump up there, use the Nita, smash something in the face and they look really good. And so I've, I've put her into a little music video I was doing. So your Instagram stuff people, it's not stock. You just scroll and Oh there's something interesting. There's something you Instagram note. Yes. Okay. That's a lot of times I'll cast when I watch someone on YouTube or I've seen something they've done before cause I don't, I don't usually do auditions.
Speaker 4:Friendly. Yeah, that would seem tricky I think to just be like come in and punch this person.
Speaker 1:And then like for the stunt coordinator though he's in charge of these are the people who knew how to do fights. What's tricky is when the producers are, someone's else says okay we need all these people to be fighting in the background. A lot of extras, a lot of extras cause then cause then like some pick it up real quick and are good at it and others just, it's never going to be safe or look good and you just put them in the very back and yeah they're blurry and hope no one gets hurt.
Speaker 4:Do you, do you get the time to spend with extras like rehearsing the way you would with principals?
Speaker 1:Not at all. It's usually five minutes in them. We go.
Speaker 4:Do you, so you kind of do, you can like leave it up to them or you're like you punch you and you fall.
Speaker 1:It depends. Like, so if it's swords, then we show them like here's some basic moves and let them figure out what they want to do. Just keeping it simple.
Speaker 4:And then there's a whole lot of trust in the props department that the swords aren't gonna hurt anymore.
Speaker 1:Well, usually we use the[inaudible], they're like LARPing swords. I don't want to use metal ones. Latex. Yeah. Yeah. Or like an outpost. A show that I'd worked on. They were custom built, but that, so like in closeups where they're not hitting, it's real metal, but in the background it's just hit each other. Latex replicates. Yeah. Okay. Which were great, especially when you get hit in the face. Yeah.
Speaker 5:There are so few actors who I meet that I would call combat trained. Okay. There's just not a lot. And even some that have that have taken, I don't know, they taken the stage combat class somewhere. I don't know. There's, there's just, there's kind of a killer instinct that some people have. Honestly, people, dancers, trained dancers, usually female, I have no problem teaching violence too because they get movement. Um, so the movement translates easily, especially actually sort of fighting a female. And I'm not saying this wouldn't be true for a male, I've just gotten sample size. There's more of them. Females that are trained dancers are easier to teach, sorting sword fighting to then just random actor guy.
Speaker 4:So it sounds to me like you have to have a sense of humor. Um, a little bit of agility, a whole lot of luck and an adventurous soul to do this sort of thing. That's a good summation. Yes. Anything else I'm missing?
Speaker 1:It takes a lot of athleticism. So a real fight compared to a movie fight, a movie fight usually hurts worse. Why is that? Cause a real fight gets over and under a minute and the movie fight, you do it over and over and over and over and over again. Like the fight and saints and soldiers too. I mean it's a minute and a half to two minutes on camera, but it took a week to choreograph from practice and then all day to film it. And you basically, when you're doing it over and over like that, especially if you take lots of hits to the face, you get whiplash. Oh yeah. Cause you're basically, and cause most, most stuff man stopped by like 35 and then they usually coordinate. Are they, are they become second unit directors or directors themselves?
Speaker 4:Is this don't coordinator in film? Um, when I could I use that word choreographer or director, like a, like a fight choreographer or fight director. Is that the same kind of idea?
Speaker 1:Smaller films, they usually do the same but most of the time they're separate. So the stunt coordinator is the one that oversees everything, makes sure that everyone's going to be safe. Then they'll do all the hiring. They usually say, okay, this person, they'll review the script and go over with the director and say, okay, for this we need a body double for this actor. So the stunt coordinator is the one that usually knows all the people. And says, okay, this person will be great for that
Speaker 4:part. Casting director, part stage manager
Speaker 1:a little bit. Yeah, just overseeing all this, all the stunts. And they usually come up with the budget as well. So they'll say like this stunt right here is going to cost this much money. And then when the director says, well I want to do it this way, and he says, Oh, it's going to cost this much more
Speaker 4:when the director, like the film director or
Speaker 1:the film director, the film director, and then the fight choreographer is the one that goes through and knows all the moves and comes up with like the, the dance. Because fighting is, it's pretty much like a dance, right? So a lot of times real fighters don't make good movie fighters, but dancers make great movie fighters
Speaker 5:cause they get movement and there's so much more movement choreography involved there. Athletic guys are usually helpful because if you swung a tennis racket, I have a lot easier time teaching you how to swing a sword. Then you know, someone who's just never done something like that. But it's not really about being combat trained. There's just kind of, you know, movement awareness, knowing how to use your body to helps a lot. Military guys are awesome. I've had a few military guys, ex military guys and they give violence and they are awesome to work with. Cause they'll say no, if I was really gonna do I do it this way? And then I said yes, but we're not really doing this and I need the audience understand what's going on. And um, and they get that, but they get the intention of I need to go harm this person
Speaker 4:so that they get it both on a physical movement level and on a psychological objective techs.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I'm going to one is the movement when the second parts, the acting portion of it, what's the objective here? What's the intention? Even if an actor gets the intention, they may or may not be good at the movement, but I don't know. I would almost always rather have someone who I can work with someone to get the movement. If someone just cannot grasp violence for some reason the same way, they may not, you know, grasp anything else as an actor for whatever reason. They just don't get that intention. It's to note through or, and it's not as much my job.
Speaker 4:Do you do though? Like, I don't know, look at people after you've worked with them and been like, I definitely have trust here and over there and less so. Yeah. Just based on their ability to keep it safe. Any other things that you're looking for?
Speaker 1:Well, especially with like if they're stealing with actresses or kids, then it's certain people only use certain people. Like there's the CBR stunting that I work with all the time. Like I trust any of them. Cause a lot of times now it's, it's like there's lots of females invited, uh, involved in fights. Sure. And so certain people, I will only have fight the females because they're safe. So like for example, Braxton McAllister, I would have him fight any girl because when he's doing his blocks[inaudible] it's not a real block that's gonna damage their arms. And, and so it's more of just, I don't want my actors to be hitting the face. And so I trust him and the other people on the CBR stunt team to do a fight scene where no one's going to get hurt.
Speaker 4:So the, so the very best of the people that you work with sell it in the safest possible way and they're the ones that you cast to fight with women and children.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And same thing, I mean like, so he married a stunt woman himself and so they do fights all the time.
Speaker 4:I bet their Instagram is very interest[inaudible]
Speaker 1:it is. It's thoroughly entertaining.
Speaker 5:Most of the time when I go in to do a fight, I have way less time than I should have to make a fight work. It's almost always an afterthought for directors to bring in a fight person. And so I don't have time to dig into their character. And so, I mean, I do my research beforehand. I try to get who I think the characters are. I tried to take in a lot of information really quick, you know, watching that I'll try to have discussions with director beforehand if I can.
Speaker 4:What are you asking? What information are you trying to take in?
Speaker 5:Who is the character? Like how do you see the show? Cause the director is the one who has the overall vision. Right? So what's your take on this? How do you see this playing out? Cause I don't want to impose, you know, some assumption I may have about a show or if I were directing a show how I would approach it. But yeah, what's what their take on this. What are they trying to get from this scene? Half the time they don't give me great, I'll be honest. They just, and they're like, yeah, I just need some eye. There's a fight here. It's in the script. Can you do something with it? But yeah, usually I get one or two or hurdles and not a lot of time to delve into character with people. So I got to teach them the movement and then hope the character shows up at some point.
Speaker 4:What kinds of stories can you tell me about times where it just didn't work out according to plan? Either humorous way or somebody got hurt or
Speaker 1:and doing an action or a stuff. Tell me about when it goes. Not right. When it goes not right. Every time. Every time goes wrong. No, it usually, it usually, uh, the people are skilled enough. So when you practice it and know what you're doing, then things go fine. And it's, it's more about, it's not rushing it. That's the one hard part with, with stunts is a lot of times directors are inexperienced with stunts. So they'll film something all day and then when there's an hour left, okay, we have to hurry and get this. So it's a rush, rush, rush, Oh. And that's usually what always happens. And so it's trying to get squeezes saying before in the end of the day, and that's where injuries or things can happen. But as long as you take the time to repair our site, there's not time to do this right? Sometimes. And sometimes they say no and they say, well, this is what we can do for you today because we can't do this. And so it just depends on what's going on.
Speaker 4:What's the process in teaching the movement? Like do you start with safety? Do you start with[inaudible]
Speaker 5:let me do the perfect world process. Okay. If I get brought in early into a show, which is always the preference, then yeah, I'll have discussions with the directors. I try to get the script early, you know, I'll give them, here's my thoughts in this fight. What are you seeing? Is there something that you're not catching here? Because the fight, like I said though, I want the fight to tell the story. Even if it's, or at least the fight itself doesn't tell the story. If, you know, the one or two violent movements should integrate into the story. It should never feel like we're doing a scene. We're doing a fight, we're doing a scene. It should just flow. And so yeah, there's discussion. If it's a heavy fighting show, three Musketeers, West side story, um, then I'm going to ask if I can get a least one rehearsal to teach people how to fight, how to fight, how to fight, how to fight. So, um, I call him bootcamps, I bring them in three hours and just fighting basics. Here's how you do stage combat. Um, whether, I mean if it's a sword show then that's going to be different than, you know, hand to hand kinda show. But if I can just basically teach them the alphabet, rudimentary language of fighting, when I actually get to the rehearsal and I'm teaching a fight, it's going to go so much faster if I can say, remember I showed you this punch, I want you to do that one.
Speaker 4:So part of that is a, is a linguistic vocabulary and a part of it's a physical vocabulary.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'm using that vocabulary both ways. Both. Yeah. Explicitly certain things. And there's certain safety things that if I can teach you early and I can teach the whole cast once, I don't have to spend 15 minutes at the top of any fire rehearsal with new people going over the safety rules, which are important and I will always do but they take time and if I can just do it once, it's going to be going to be so much better.
Speaker 4:I want you to keep going on the process but I want you to tell me like what,
Speaker 5:what are the common
Speaker 4:like no matter what I'm always, this is always the safety rule or this is always the principle we talk about or this is always the vocabulary. Like no matter what we're doing or who we're doing it with,
Speaker 5:no matter what we're doing or who we're doing it with. Trust is the biggest thing for safety. And the biggest way to get trust, um, between two fighters is eye contact. Whether I'm doing sorts hand to hand, whatever it is, I teach them, have eye contact with each other cause you're going to be able to communicate a whole lot about where you're at, timing, spacing, all kinds of things. Um, and the other thing is it's so sort of a process oriented thing. Um, I tell them we're going to go really slow for a really long time. What usually happens is naturally the speed just catches up to where it should be. And I tell them, okay, we're doing it half time and they're actually doing a real time. I just, sorry, a hundred, here's this. It does fight to the interview teacher, but by the time I'm like, okay, we're still doing it half time. And they've just got the movement down so much at that point that they're usually doing it at the right level. Um, and then I drop it on them like a week before. Like, yeah, halftime is actually realtime. That's how you're going to do it forever more. I just don't want them to get really excited and think they're going to go go faster. But just stuff like that. Like, we're going to go slow, we're gonna make sure this is safe. I always put out there a disclaimer. If something is just not working for you or you do not feel safe doing this as a performer, you need to come tell me and we'll do it in such a way that is safe. You know, there's, there is no move that is so sacred that must be performed on stage that I will not adjust it so that an actor feels safe and comfortable. That's your process. So back to the process. So, um, go through a fight. So usually one or two, depending on the show, whatever, they'll give me fight rehearsals that are strictly bootcamp teaching you how to fight so that when we actually get into the process, you know, it's, it's quicker, it's more efficient, they know the rules. Um, and it also gives me a really good opportunity to fill out my actors and see who actually can move. What does that look like? Do they have tendencies? Do they have strengths? Things that I can look at them and say, okay, this is how that guy moves. And, and there's always a level of how a certain person moves translate into how their character moves. I think there's very few actors who completely transformed, you know, movement patterns and you know, ticks and things that they have. And so if I could say, okay, that guy is good at that kind of punch and it makes sense for him, but man kicks are just off the table, then let's play with the strengths and find out what looks good. So it gives me a chance to teach them but also gives me kind of three hours to test them out and see what, see what they can do so that when I come back I have a good idea of who I'm working with. Would you have like choreography sort of preliminarily
Speaker 4:sketched out prior to this and then you're adapting it or do you wait until this point to even start like,
Speaker 5:uh, it depends. I mean if I've been brought in this early, I probably have a good idea of where most of the fights are or at least some of the fights are at, um, any given show. So I'll probably test some stuff out. I've been to shows where you have a fight call back cause it's just such a heavy part of the show and I'm absolutely testing out stuff in that to see how it works. And none of it's, I mean just with any choreography, nothing's set in stone until we choreograph it and see how it actually works in the space. I'm flexible that way after bootcamp. So after bootcamp, um, yeah, then I go back with, I mean with the data I've collected now knowing who I've actually got, what it looks like. And also I guess the other thing from bootcamp is if I have a double cast show, I now know that, you know, West side story is a good example. I had one guy and he's big, tall, strong guy and then for whatever reason his double was like eight inches shorter than him and not. So I'm like, well what might work for this guy is not going to make sense. You know, physically, you know, the audience will just buy certain things from a big strong guy. They won't buy from somebody else. And so then I also have to go back and say, okay, I was going to have this happen, but if it's got to work in both casts then I've got to rethink that and then I go, I'm a sort of long hand write out my fights. I write like a story. Kind of like a story. Yeah, kind of right out. This is the story of this fight, this is what's happening. And then I translate that into shorthand movement notation for when actually coming to teach the thing. But I want to make sure there's actual story arc there and it's not just cool movements thrown together. The way I do that is by writing out kind of story form to see if that makes sense.
Speaker 4:Like at T like lots of adjectives or like,
Speaker 5:yeah I mean whatever. I just depends on thing. I don't have like specific style that re written out and it's not like long prose necessarily, but you know it's not like a 10 page, you know, story on a two minute fight. But yeah, I mean, I'll write up this happen and then he comes in and fights them and then he sees his buddies in trouble. So he over here and, and depending on how complex a fight is, three Musketeers as good example. There's huge melee fights. We've got 1315 people out there fighting and that means a lot of crossing. And so there's a lot of smaller stories that each character has that overlap and transpose West side story is another good example where we have two gangs with depending on your cast, five to 10 people out there on each gang. So 20 people on stage fighting simultaneously. And there's a lot of, you know, Hey, I'm going to punch this guy and it's going to make you land over there and you're now fighting this person and you know the reactions and why would that guy decide to fight him versus that character? And you know that stuff has to matter. You don't just randomly, I mean some characters may just randomly pick someone fight, but other characters are going to be looking for the guy. They like to go fight. Who's the enemy? Who's the weak one or do I want to go prove I'm tough and go hit the big guy in your gonna determine some of that.
Speaker 4:Are you writing this down with like arrows and stick figures or like
Speaker 5:there's a few different ways. So usually I type them out just because I type faster and then when I actually start doing the geography of the fight, it's X's and O's and it would look a whole lot like what people you see at football, like play calling thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah. You said it's got like[inaudible]. That's exactly what, like it's exactly
Speaker 5:psych depending on how long the fight is. Um, I'll break the fight up into phases, you know, for this amount of time, this is where it is. And then it sort of transitions over to this bite. And then I have a new page that shows where everybody's at and I got to make sure I get everyone to there so we can do that fight portion and then, you know, that may transfer over. But um, it's a lot of moving parts and so it's, so yeah. Then it just becomes really these kind of pages with X's and O's and, or if they're not X's and O's, you know, maybe character of letters or whatever it is. But just tracking where everybody is like a playbook. And then once I have the geography down, so there's the story, there's the geography then actually put the moves in, the moves come in. Um, I mean they may be in the middle of that, but if I know, for example, that there's music to a fight, then I know I have to hit a fight in this amount of time. And so I've gotta be here, here, here and here and done. So the geography matters to me first there because if I have to start here at point a and I have to beat a point B by the end of the music, then I've got to figure out how all those people landed. Like seven brides for seven brothers. Um, there's the big fight when they're doing the barn raising and everyone's starting here cause that's where the director had them. And the director wants them all to end here
Speaker 4:because they've already blocked, blocked that most of the time because you're coming in late so I'm coming in later than, yeah, the geography matters a whole lot cause I've got to get[inaudible]
Speaker 5:you there and some directors care a whole lot about, no, that's how I blocked it. It must end like that then yeah, the geography matters a ton and then the movements they get thrown into the middle or my last piece that I add in, if there's a lot of people involved that there's like two people involved, then it's, it's not as complicated of a process. So what's the story? But then the geography is not quite as important as the movement, so I probably just jumped straight to movement on that case and then it just is and then it just naturally happens with two people. It's, it's just more organic. It's easier to figure out.
Speaker 4:How did you start into stunt coordinating?
Speaker 5:That? I blame on my dad because he took me to movies since I was little. Took me to a lot of Jackie Chan movies. And then my cousin introduced me to John Claude van Damme, I think when I was 12. So I loved action martial arts movies, and I started taking martial arts just to do fight scenes with my friends. And my friends took martial arts. So we recreate the scenes that we saw in movies. And that's how I got into it. And we saw your backyard, my backyard and my house, much
Speaker 1:to my mother's dismay, since we damaged, we broke multiple phones, put holes in walls, and we had to fix them.
Speaker 4:Have you broken yourself in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:I've never broken a bone, ever, ever. But I have gotten hurt stents. And then, uh, I did go through a windshield once when I was, I think I was like 16 or 17 doing a stent for a movie. I'll tell that story. So that one, um, my buddy and I, we would watch behind the scenes of movies or we figure stuff out. So one way to get hit by a car is right before the car hits you, it slams on your brakes and you jump and that where the force takes you in, like go clip the bottom of your feet and you'll hit the hood and then roll off cause the car is stopped. Right. And my buddy who had done it before, uh, left on a service mission for his church. And so I asked my mom to drive. So we were, so she was driving and my buddies in the front seat with a VHS camera, he's in the passenger seat and she's looking down the road and I run across the street and instead of hitting the brake, she hit the gas cause she freaked out. So I'm glad I jumped because I jumped and then like the hood clipped me really hard on the bottom of the feet and spun me and I went through the windshield right in towards the camera. Did she, did she know what she was agreeing to do? No. I mean yes and no cause she, I mean she was trying to help out. Well, she just got scared hitting the break, you know, break gas, which one did and then the first thing she said was fine. How much that's going to cost to fix, cause there's just a little bit of blood from my elbow, so nothing bad. And so I learned a valuable lesson of calling to find out because the first place was 500 bucks and then eventually found it for 100 bucks. And then I had to go into work that afternoon too.
Speaker 4:When you say your buddy had done it before, he just like done it with a car and a friend with his truck. Okay. Meaning like he's hit me before. Oh, okay. Yeah. This was your second time getting[inaudible]
Speaker 1:well, we've done it a couple of times. Like we would, we would experiment with stunts,
Speaker 4:broken a single bone. I hope I'm not joking.
Speaker 1:I've gotten stitches. Lots of stitches like being punched in the face.
Speaker 4:Well sure that the, that has to then wrong every once in a while.
Speaker 1:Every once in a while you get a, you know, you see your bone underneath your chin stuff. Like,
Speaker 4:how do you go from getting hit by the cars, by people who love you to this as a career though? Cause people start paying you for it. Oh, we're kind of indestructable let's use you.
Speaker 1:No, it, it was, uh, a lot of it was when I first got married, I was working as a painter and not enjoying that very much. Not you. Ever since I was little, I knew I wanted to do film and I sent out query letters to everyone I could find. Um, before there was the internet, you had to go to the library and look up stuff. So I found all these different places produced so they can send stuff to telling them that I wanted to do action movies. Got like two responses, basically saying, no thank you. Out of like 50 letters. And I decided I would just go out and make movies myself. So I asked all my relatives for a loan and ended up getting$5,000 from my aunt and$5,000, sorry, 5,000 from my grandma and 5,000 from my uncle. And I went out and did a$10,000 action movie with my same buddies that I grew up with, the one that split my chin with his fist, he was in it, he was a lead and we went out and did a$10,000 action movie. My boss at my work let me take three months off because he knew that was my passion. He was my scout master growing up. And he pulled me aside one day and said, I know this is what you really want to do, why don't you go try it? So he gave me three months sabbatical so I can keep the insurance. That's awesome. Went out and did this movie and then afterwards he goes, I don't think you're coming back. And I said, no, I want to keep trying this. And so that movie actually made no money but it opened doors for other, other projects. So then, cause I on on that project, I was the producer, director, editor, writer, like tried to do everything cause we had, and the crew was Kells Goodman, who's a filmmaker. He came in and shot it and then he brought in Paul Green, who was this young, early twenties kid and he worked for 25 bucks a day. But then I have since used him on every project I've done and he gets more than$25 a data. But then from there that led to other work. So, um, hell storm entertainment was doing sons of Provo and they saw that I could shoot at it. So they hired me to be the DP and the editor on sons of Provo, which led to more work for hailstorm editing for Kurt hail doing all of their trailers and commercials and kinda went from there. But mostly like the stunt wise, I would do stuff on my own just to my own films. And then that led to meeting other stunt players and stunt coordinators. And then I'm like Ryan Little and the film age of the dragons to use me as a stunt guy. He tried to give me lines but they dumped them over later, thank goodness. But basically like got beat up and then killed by Danny Glover. So that was fine. Usually when a director wants someone to beat up and die, they, they asked me to do it. They find, I think joy in punishing me. Like TC Christiansen hired me to be the fight coordinator on the fighting preacher comes out this summer and then he told me I'd be in it. And so it was basically to get beat up by the main actor. What's the most interesting way you've died? A harpoon to the back was from Danny Glover and then in saints and soldiers to Corban. Alfred's character basically punches my face to death. So, but uh, my buddy growing up who does sound now, so he does sound mixes for most of my films who works for Warner brothers. So he would die in every project growing up. And he had the most interesting deaths. We threw him up with room off a cliff. He got a car that pulled the Jack out of the car and it fell on him. We had a stitching needle. He was on a phone conversation and someone like put a stitch in needles for the phone on one end. It came out the other end
Speaker 4:to his ear,
Speaker 1:pulled it out. You got shot in the head. He's he, I put a compiler[inaudible] once for him of all his deaths.
Speaker 4:I feel like that's very, that's sweet. It's very tough on you. Yes.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to think of,
Speaker 4:sure. How do you handle the endurance part of that? Cause I, I see actors who come to film sets from like a theatrical background or whatever and they are not prepared for the mundane routine repetition of it. Do you find that as the same problem? Like how do when it's so physically engaging, how is that fun though? So like adrenaline,
Speaker 5:it's adrenaline, but also like for me, I always love to show if I'm shooting it as well, I always like to show what we did to the cause then it's all worth it. Okay. So like here, you know, we film a high fall where someone falls. Then I want to watch the footage and let them see what they did. Cause then they cause like, Oh I can do that better or that looks great, let's move on. Or that hurt too much. No, we're not going to do,
Speaker 4:do you do that as a director as well or only when you're doing steps as a director? A lot as well. I'll show them the same like this is how often this looks. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Okay. Cause then it's worth it because filmmaking is so hard. And so for me, when at the end of the day, um, when I'm backing up the footage, I'll look at it and like, Oh, it was all worth it for me. Or sometimes I'll look at it then I'm like, Oh no, we've got to do better.
Speaker 4:Would you, do you have like a year supply of icy hot and cold compresses at your house?
Speaker 5:Ibuprofen. Okay. I don't do this stuff as much stunts anymore. Just the coordinating, uh, coordinating when I can. Okay. All right. Hire younger people who are better at it to do it. I actually do a thing when I teach some five classes, sometimes I call it a wizard fight where I make them stand 10 feet apart from each other and do the fight because I want them to be able to do the fight. I want the sword to stop at a safe place without that other person blocking it. Like you should know when you swing your sword it stops at that point. Um, it's a safety thing. But yeah, the muscle memories gotta be there. Cause when someone, it's when someone forgets their thing, when someone gets lazy, when someone gets casual, that's when people get hurt. A, that's not anything, any fight director fight choreographer wants, you know, safety's always number one. But I heard actors are also don't help a show at all. Her doctors are really bad for production.
Speaker 4:Okay. Is there anything that you've thought about that I haven't asked you that you're like, I kind of want to talk about this though. Don't like to talk that much. Yeah. This is not your thing. And
Speaker 1:that's my, not my thing. But I like, I mean I enjoy sharing stories and experiences and hoping that people can learn from them. Cause I like most of the stuff action-wise it's self-taught and just experimenting with my friends and figuring things out and what works and then meeting other people who then, Oh that's how you do this. And then they ask, well, how do you do this? And just figuring out what's the best in and safest way of doing things. And then by meeting different, uh, different people like to be a stunt coordinator initially like sag, you have to do stunts in a sag film.
Speaker 4:Okay. It's the same way that you joined the union as an actress.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Same kind of thing. But then you have to be qualified or to be like an a hallmark stunt coordinator, you have to be approved by hallmark. So you have to prove that you, you know, show them what you've done before.
Speaker 4:Is that a certification type thing? Like is there,
Speaker 1:you basically have to submit your resume, submit your reel, and then they say yes or no.
Speaker 4:So there's a standard, but it's kind of a subjective standard.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's basically does this person know what they're talking about and are they going to keep the people safe?
Speaker 4:Did it look good? And we can't find when we Google this, no one died.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Probably sounds like reasonable standard, reasonable standards. No one died or got injured or sued.
Speaker 4:Okay. There are multiple ways that can go wrong and get it.
Speaker 1:I mean cause if you, I mean simple things like if you're having your actress jump out of a plane and it's just a five foot fall onto a pad. If she gets hurt just doing that than the person. But then the production shut down cause then you can't film and then everyone loses money and then it may not be finished on time. So that's why it's important to keep safe even if it's just, you know, a simple stumble to the ground, whatever it is they need to be kept safe.
Speaker 4:Do you prefer to have body doubles or to let people do their stents?
Speaker 1:It all depends on the show. Certain people body doubles as much as possible. Others just let them do it
Speaker 4:depending on the,
Speaker 1:but the, the ability and depending on the show. Okay. So like for in riot, the main actor, he did all his own stunts
Speaker 4:as part of that just because it's easier if they can.
Speaker 1:It's easier if they can, it looks better cause then you don't have to try and cheat it and depending on, so like if, if someone doesn't know how to ride a horse very well then have a body double to it. Cause that's one where it takes a specific, or like for a car chase or a Carsten, a double,
Speaker 4:that's not something they're going to learn very quickly.
Speaker 1:No, cause yeah, no. Some people go learn quickly, but others and some things take a long time.
Speaker 4:I feel like people would think that a car chase though would be easy because they've had a driver's license for like five years or whatever.
Speaker 1:No, those are, it depends. You can get closeups of them where you just pulling them on a trailer and they can get all the closest thing on a blue screen. You know? And it makes it interesting. But at the same time sometimes you plan and plan and plan. Like with horses it can be dangerous no matter what.
Speaker 4:Quintin Tarantino has said, quote, real life violence is real. Life violence. Movies are movies. It's not the same thing at all. End quote. His films are pretty violent, so he gets asked about violence a lot. He's also said, quote, violence is so good. It affects the audience in a big way and quote. And lastly, quote, violence is one of the most fun things to watch. And quote. Stories are fundamentally about conflict. And violence is a great way to create conflict or resolve conflict or escalate it. Blake Snyder, a highly influential screenwriting instructor explains how great stories are. Primal stories with stakes that even a caveman can understand.
Speaker 2:And what's more primal than life and death. Fighting for survival. Something anyone can understand and far more comfortable to enjoy from the safety of our cinema and theater seats. Violence is
Speaker 5:not always, but a lot of times I climactic moment in a show. So it needs to be good. It can't just be sight though. Oh, that little violent thing happened. Like that is the huge thing. That's the, that's the climax. The character died, you know, the bad guy was finally taken down. The good guy, you know, got stabbed, like really big things. And so it, it can't be sloppy and messy. It's gotta be a climax because it's usually written into the script to be something climactic.
Speaker 2:There are four stories at the end of this episode about stunts or fights where someone was injured. Nothing deadly. Everyone's fine. And do you know what, hearing those stories may just be your favorite part of the interviews. I know I was highly entertained doing the interviewing. Thank you to my guests, John light.
Speaker 4:Thanks so much John for letting me interview. Hopefully you don't have to delete much. I'll leave the name of that TV show or the name of that TV show. And Justin Lee, thank you so much for letting me interview you today, Justin. Yup. Happy to. Thanks for having me. Thank you for not destroying my room. Mentally it's complete isn't shamble picture and it's a total. Matt and I could have made a way longer, but then it would've been like I have to tell an actual story and be with it enough time.
Speaker 2:This episode of in Italian was sponsored by BB MTY studios as space for independent creators to bring their work to life and show it to the world. Their first comic, the box is available for free on web tunes and Tappas and updates every Friday get drawn into the suspense and horror of the box theme music by Gordon Bettis in the telling is hosted and produced by me. Liz Christiansen, thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:We had a one actress who's been writing professionally since she was a little girl for at least 10 years, does national shows. There's one where she was riding bareback on a horse across this field and the horse she, they decided and did not want to stop and she's written this horse in half dozen other movies like the horse just decided it wasn't going to stop and no matter what she did with the rains or anything, the horse wasn't going to stop. And we were doing this drone shot where we pass by her. So we got, we got the coolest shot and then we looked and saw that the horse wasn't stopping. And then there was a Barb wire fence at the end, which was still like a a hundred yards past where the horse was supposed to stop. Right. The horse finally saw the barbwire fence and just stopped immediately and through her and, but, and she was smart enough to turn her body, sort of faced in hit it. But her back went into it and then she fell flat on flat on the face and being the tough girl that she was, we know we took her, she wanted to keep filming. We said no, we're taking you to the InstaCare. So she had like stitches in her arm on her bottom while we were filming, cause we kept on filming with the other people that were there. I get a text from her, can I come back and finish my fight scene?
Speaker 5:What did you say? Of course. So she came,
Speaker 1:she took some like some pain pills that the doctor gave written InstaCare and she came back and finished her fight scene that day cause she had come from California just to do this, you know a couple of days shoot and it looked awesome. And then the next day I get photos from her mom.
Speaker 5:What did you do to my daughter? Cause she did
Speaker 1:brews until the next day and so she had like bruises across exactly where the Barb wire hit her and then she hit her face when she came down. So she did.
Speaker 5:So that's my bruise later. Yeah, it's a good thing she came back that day. Then you wouldn't have got
Speaker 1:it was all up to her. I wouldn't ask her to come back. Okay. Brad known her since she was little and she said she wanted to come back and I knew that she would be happy if she got a fight. So we made it work.
Speaker 5:Okay, well I'll take it. So the very first when I was in high school, I was in seven brides for seven brothers park to the city community theater. They just let us choreograph our own fight, which is a horrible idea. Um, cause we were, I mean almost across the board they had cast, it was almost all high school kids as the brothers and the townsfolk and they said, you guys go and make a fight. This is where you're getting that dude. I can tell them to take it. Well that's exactly where, but I actually learned so many things from that. Not in a good way. Um, just, yeah, I mean and we, there were some, I would love to actually see the fight. I don't think an a video of exists, which is probably good, but I'm sure there was things that were really cool that looked great. Like there was this guy that was, he's a tall guy, like six foot four and I was, I mean I'm five foot six, like 115 pounds. So he actually like grabbed me around the neck and I grabbed his arms. It was actually a say, but he lifted me overhead and then threw me, which I'm sure looked awesome. It would terrify me as a fight director now to like figure something like that out because it's just inherently so unsafe the way we were doing it. Okay. So out of nowhere, one night Adam jumps into the fight in a place he's never been in before. Turns me around and punches me and it's not practiced. I'm the spacing, the everything that I go. It had never happened before. It was an improv punch, which is from adrenaline. Like I don't know why the guy was, I mean I was, you know, 16 and the dude was like, I dunno, he was probably like in his late twenties, but he seemed really, really old and I wasn't going to question him like, what were you doing? That was weird, but I got punched, which then threw off other spacing and then I got punched again. So I actually, and I got punched. Um, and I was off balance when I got punished. So I actually hit the ground hard, honestly that stage. And so I was like literally, so my nose is bleeding and I'm literally kind of in shock cause I just got punched twice. I was the second one at him. No, Sarah was a different guy, but just because the spacing had gotten off and yeah, and I think the adrenaline, I don't know what was going on that night, but he, he, so I got punched once in the nose and my nose is bleeding and then I got punched in the jaw and I literally hit ground and so, and then I'm, I'm kind of, I'm kind of dazed at this point. And so the, the girls are supposed to come pick us up and like bring us off stage. I remember just like muttering, Oh my gosh, they approach me one, Oh my gosh. They pushed me. She's like, should I quit talking so completely like thrown off at this point that I'm just, I'm so, I'm no, I'm sure the audience is like hearing me say this because she's actually miked. And anyway, it was just, it was so, so bad. And so that was, that was my first experience with how to absolutely not let a fight happen. That's where I learned you actually need fight. Crowd prefers cause it matters a whole lot. So that, yeah. So there's a horror story.
Speaker 1:I think it hit in the face once. Okay. Yeah, that was one. It was with an actor who, um, hadn't done a lot of fighting before and we had a big fight scene. It was when I was directing, but then my, uh, the guy who's going to play the part with six so he couldn't be there. So I played the part and had someone else shoot that day. Then there was one where he was supposed to come down horizontally across my face, so I'd move this way and he went in the complete opposite way or I'm wearing a mask and he clocked me super hard right there. Head went one of the metal ones. No, it wasn't metal wood inside, like it's a good sound. I'm glad I didn't go unconscious, but he also stabbed himself in the foot too in a non stent with a real sword.
Speaker 5:Okay. At what point do you go? Okay. I think probably not you again.
Speaker 1:Well he was, the executive producers hired him, so he just, he's good. He's a fun guy in a good actor. So you just go with it. But no, there was one thing where he says supposed he's talking to someone who steps the sword into the ground to continue talking.
Speaker 5:That's correct. Did he continue talking? Did he go, we had to cut. So that makes get outtakes good. Well, okay. I guess getting stabbed in the hand is one we should probably bring up. Yes. So, and this, this is actually, this is my own fault, so it's probably justified, but, so I'm in Robin hood and I'm playing Robin hood and on the fight choreographer, the guy playing guy of Gisborne and I'm going to let him remain nameless. The guy playing guy gets worn. We're in this huge fight and this is, this is a huge fight. We're, we're at the archery tournament. I've been unmastered Robinhood. I mean everybody's fighting everybody. It's total insanity. And the first time, and this was, this is again, this is my fault. There was this cool move that we'd worked out and we'd done it a bunch of times where he stabs at me and I catch it with the bow and I his sword out of his hand with my bow stirring and catch it. And it was super cool. Um, and we had done, I, I don't know, like dozens of times with the practice sorts and we'd never worked that through really good with the actual metal sword. And this is, this is my fault. I actually should've said before we do this, let's work it through with a Montessori. And he, he got in his head and he said to me right before, I'm just really afraid, I'm gonna stab you in the hand with the sword. And I'm like, well dude, you've never stabbed me in the hand before. We've done this dozens of time. It's going to be fine. And so sure enough, because he's concentrating on not stabbing me. And they had, he stabs me in the hand with the sword and that's a blunt blade, but the skin's really tight on your fist and he hit it. And so my, my hand tears open and I know he hit me in the hand but I don't realize he's actually pierced my skin. So I finished the fight like, and as I'm walking around the stage I'm watching people's reactions like on Ivan character I'm going, cause I'm Robin hood and I'm saving people and, and I see people just like I'll run over and do a thing and then the actual just give me this really weird look and I'm like what is wrong with everybody? Like I'm thinking in both my act, your mind and my fight director, my like what is wrong with you guys? Like do this scene. Then at the very end of the scene I pull my bow into his face and so my bloody had is inches from his face, dripping blood under the stage and he just goes like completely white, just ghastly white. And that's when I realized something's actually wrong. But there is a lesson from that that I've you sense is that when you, even if you practice the movement a bunch of times when you get new weapons in, cause a lot of times you'll have practice weapons then you know, you'll give the actors the real weapons or knives or whatever it is, make sure that you take a step back when you get those real weapons in there so that you take those slow and you work it through and you get comfortable with it. It didn't bug me. I use sorts tons of times and it didn't phase me at all that we were now going to have metal swords, but it freaked him out cause he didn't have that background experience. So I should've slowed down. I should've said, okay, let's take a step back. Let's walk this through really calmly with real swords and you know, make sure everyone's cool and comfortable with it. But I didn't. So
Speaker 1:trying to think of when someone got hurt. I know like I know one was when we were choreographing for a fight, uh, we were just in my backyard, me and the actors. And the producer going through the moves, like you get whiplash as you're doing it. And I remember laying on the ground and the producer comes over, now your head needs to be this way. And he grabs my head and moves it and it basically like snaps thing
Speaker 5:like chiropractic is style.
Speaker 1:It was more of like a nerves and like, cause I think I already had whiplash. And so when he moved it, when my neck was already super tight, like it took like a month to recover from that. I just basically being, so that was one. Uh, I'm trying to think of where other people got her cause he usually, it's like this, like in that, in the my one action movie riot, there was a broken rib and then a torn meniscus in two non-students. So how did they happen? So we had fight after fight after fight where people were being thrown, you know, into ceilings onto hard tables. We had 50 people fighting all at once. And in all like the what technically what were call stunts, no one got hurt. But then what happened on one is we had a bunch of people running down the hall. One person tripped and as they fell they landed like on their arm on the rib. Oh they broke their own rules. They broke their own rib on that one. That sounds tricky. So that point it was like, but I was like, Oh that could happen on anything. And then the other one was in the background, someone fell down cause they were like wrestling someone else. And someone who was standing in there got hit in the knee, just wrong. Just barely by the person who fell by the person who fell, which you know, they weren't even in the testing posts to fall either. Right. Well they weren't tussling with them. The other just supposed to do their own little thing. So that was another ax where the tournament is SKUs and the guy's knee. Oh yeah. So it's usually like on those where people get hurt, not on the bigger things, just people more attentive when they're really doing something, they feel like that or they just practice because a lot it's, it's like a dance. Like you hit your Mark and you, and you need to know how to control your body and always know what your body's doing.