Once again I've been negligent in cross-posting from WordPress.  Here's the last few:

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Deny it though I sometimes try, I am at heart a sword geek.  Exhibit 1?  This sort of thing makes me vicariously giddy- I'm hoping it can come visit us for the upcoming 4W workshop, since it's just a short ways up North:
Unboxing of Achille Marozzo's Opera Nova Second Edition

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Seattle's own historical Western martial arts workshop has added a theatrical track this year:
http//www.4wseattle.com/

   The Martial Art of Stage Combat
    Brad Waller
    Jared Kirby

    This class is an intensive immersion into staging historical combat for the stage and screen. You will learn how a foundation in martial intent helps to create extraordinary fights. Whether your background is in Western Martial Arts, Stage Combat, Stunt Work or Dance you will benefit from exploring how to transfer historical combat styles into safe and exciting performances on stage or screen.

    Each day will focus on a different weapon, beginning with Unarmed/Dagger Combat before moving into the Longsword and finishing with the Rapier. As we progress you will find the fundamental principles of safety distance, cooperative energy, planar geometry and the process of developing physical actions are applicable to a variety of weapons. After learning how to work together to create a safe fight, participants will choreograph short fight scenes. We will then dissect each scene in order to apply a strong martial foundation to the actions and see how this makes the fight extraordinary. Suggested equipment: Longswords, Rapiers, Dagger, a fencing mask, jacket, glove and chest (for women) or groin (for men) protectors will be helpful but are not necessary.
    Equipment:

    * Longsword
    * Rapier
    * Dagger
    * Fencing jacket or doublet
    * Fencing mask
    * Leather gloves
    * Groin/Breast protection (men/women) (recommended)

I cannot recommend Brad and Jared highly enough, from my experiences with them at Paddy Crean workshops, at ISMAC, and having taken my first stage combat classes with Brad back in 1998.

Life permitting, I'll be assisting with videotaping in exchange for a discount on my own participation.

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Oh, to have the time to actually write thoughtful, insightful commentary... to be able to process the experience of a couple shows I've gotten to catch in the last month or so- the stately exaggerated mask work of Lullaby Moon, the fun romp through Zastrozzi that Balagan Theatre put on, or the experience of my first purely acting audition in years.  To be able to share my DIY camera rig and sample footage, to report that I've done the website updates I should, and to talk about the gigs I've done and have upcoming.

But no.

You may think I'm teasing you with this incomplete post, but really I'm just teasing myself.

Forgot to cross-post the last couple blog entries over on the new Wordpress FightDesigner site.  Here they are:

Passing on the good news and updates:

Bullets, Blood & a Fistful of CA$H has gotten distribution in more countries, including (finally) the US.  Will come out on DVD as CA$H, in the somewhat censored version as screened on STARZ.  Comes out in Japan as Bullets Break

Zombies of Mass Destruction will also have distribution, both theatrical and DVD.  Was only on set a few days with that one, plus some involvement in pre-production.  Still haven't gotten to see the darn thing- looking forward to it.

Had a morning last weekend teaching stage combat at a ballet conservatory, a first for me.  Fun little gig, and different than my usual demographic.

First rehearsal tonight on a short fight for a short web video piece.

Now if only we can all stave off the H1N1 plague in my family, things will keep progressing!


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So I've been a bit preoccupied this last month plus, so while my own life has been anything but quiet, I've fallen far behind on blogging and other social networking.

Along the stage combat, stunt, and props fronts things have continued developing with only slight pause.  I was able to finish up my SAFD renewals with Geof Alm just before the twins came, excepting Smallsword, which there just haven't been enough other people to bring about a renewal for yet.

Did fights for No Exit with the Wrecking Crew.

I've had a number of meetings about working on films- an interview for a gun-wrangling gig on a film that wants me, but called the next week to say they're postponing production from this month until at least next Spring.  That means it may or may not happen while I'm still in town, but we'll see.  I've been in contact about a web series that may or may not come together.  I've had an interview for fight choreography and stunt work for a web pitch piece that may or may not come together later this month (I've come to think of pretty much any gig that way until I'm on set).

I've gotten a teaching gig with a Ballet conservatory later this month, continued some discussions about workshops, made a custom prop (Luger-shaped metal housing for a .22 starter pistol for a production of The Producers), had a number of rentals, and sadly had to miss a few stunt practices and a burn gig.

I'm also in the midst of a slight re-tooling of my camcorder setup, so hope to get to play with that some.

In my copious free time, as my wife likes to say.

Something tells me it might be a while again until my next blog update...

First the good:
An article on Garrett Warren, in which he talks about the artistry of movement in stunts, and also appears to be getting good recognition for it.  This is nice: stunts have traditionally been the gimp in the basement of the film industry, not something they want to acknowledge- especially in terms of stunt doubles.  Concern it will 'break the illusion' or some other such silliness.  Okay, so there's legitimate respect for folks like Jackie Chan and Tony Jaa who earned their stripes by doing cool stuff on their own without doubles or CG (albeit still by making stuntmen go flying, smashing into walls, etc).  Still, especially with things like mo-cap animation (which may be why Garrett's easier to talk about?) I don't think anyone's going to be too disappointed to find out that a specialist portrayed a known actor in some scenes.  Granted, it may still be a while before we get to have an Academy Award for stunts instead of having just the separate Taurus Awards, but hey, at least we're getting good press here.

The bad and the ugly are one, today.
Cross blog-posting with a martial artist:
Wm Demeere's post on brutality.
Martial artists and stage combatants alike will at some point (or perhaps regularly) be challenged by someone going hey, that stuff's not real/that would never work/what if I did this?/I could totally kick your ass.  Now in stage and film there's a decent chance that the proper answer is just to say yes: yes, it's fake, it would never work like that in real life, but it looks pretty and it's what the director wants so shut up and do your job.  Except said more politely and tactfully.

There are times though when to one degree or another, it helps to convince actors, stuntmen, or even directors you're working for that what you're portraying is at least to some degree legit.  Without getting in to actual damaging or painful techniques, Canadian stunt coordinator Rick Skene has also talked about the usefulness of legitimate takedowns (done safely) on actors or stunt guys that just aren't cooperating mid-shoot.  Of course, afterwards, you help them up, tell them they did a good fall, that they are really great stuntmen... and then just don't hire them again.

So as with martial artists dealing with the walk-in random self-proclaimed expert's challenge to their legitimacy in training, there's that very fine line to be walked, of how much is too much, be it of pain, humiliation, conflict, etc.  You never want to get caught in a straight-out pissing match about ego, especially with folks who are overly tense (which often these guys are, making them more liable to get actually injured), drunk (opposite of tense, but means they may not stop when they should), or mentally unstable (such as the guy in the video above, who thinks Jesus gave him his red belt).

Always have to stop in the moment and think "what am I trying to accomplish here?"  I know in college I was more used to martial arts, especially where grappling is concerned.  When a stage combat instructor (I believe it was K. Jenny Jones) came in to help stage a show I was working on, and I was fight captain, I remember holding an arm bar thing on her that half second past when she tried to get out- something passe in a martial arts context where you need to know the technique actually will hold someone against their will, but which I immediately regretted- not because Jenny was anything but gracious, but because I just had a sudden feeling of "wait, wrong context, that probably comes across here as just me being an ass".   My martial arts instructor back in College (yes, I studied a Ninjitsu art in the town of Arcanum, in Darke County) talked about one drunk challenger who walked in to his dojo and wouldn't stop fighting even with the instructor's thumb halfway in his eye socket.  For the record, my instructor chose not to permanently blind the guy, but to back down, say yep, you beat me, you sure are tough, congratulations now go away.  And that was the right choice to make.  For actors and stuntmen, I'd expect that line to be drawn much more on the side of conflict avoidance, but I think for a martial arts instructor he did fine; no serious injury, he took it as far as he was willing to go and then backed off.

It takes a certain awareness of the rules of engagement, the levels of force... but then, any fight choreographer worth his or her salt should be aware of that anyway, and making character choices about it in their work.

Fortunately I've yet to be truly confronted by anyone out of context- there was a drunk one time I was rehearsing in public who was trying to tell my partner and I about how samurai fighting was the only real fighting, and those sam-you-rai could have kicked our butts around China (we were rehearsing for SAFD Sword & Shield, back in 2001).  Smiling and nodding did the job, and he soon moved on -especially after being told firmly that no, he could not play with any of our swords.

Anyway... play nice, play safe; speaking pragmatically, hurting someone else, whether you think they're asking for it or not, can put you out of the game even longer than getting hurt by them.  And stomping on someone's head without damn good cause?  Not cool.

Oh, and the lesson from Garrett: Be careful who you marry!

Tested for SAFD Quarterstaff renewal on Monday night.  Boy... you could tell that's something most of us very rarely use.  Sword & Shield next week- I expect that one will go a bit more smoothly for most.  Off the top of my head, I can think of a grand total of... one play in which I used quarterstaff (Robin Hood).  One movie that used spear (Gamers: Dorkness Rising), which maybe is close enough, and one play that had a brief bit with a shovel (Holes), but really, quarterstaff's not too popular.  Still, worth d0ing, as it teaches you different ways of using your body and tools than you learn from edged and/or one-handed weapons.  Besides the space requirements for using a weapon that size, I suppose it's also less bang for your buck, danger-wise.  That is to say, it doesn't look or sound more dangerous than it really is; it's a stick.  The things that make it hazardous aren't things you can change about it readily for the prop versions: it's a stick, it has heft, and when you swing it the end gets going pretty quickly.  At least with a sword or a gun, you can pretend it's even more dangerous than it really is.  Sticks?  Not without having foam props or breakaways to switch out for, and that only works in limited shots on film.

Got to see District 9 last week.  Gotta admit, the film style threw me a bit at first, probably because I'd been so attuned to the premise of The Hunted from working on my episode for the contest.  Most of us worked hard to honor and justify the cinematic premise: it's all found/captured footage.  District 9 starts out with a mix of TV Documentary style footage, security camera footage, interview cut scenes, etc- all very believably done.  Then they start using footage that there's now way anyone was videotaping, and they switch back and forth throughout.  It works, and I don't think it bugged anyone else in the theatre, but to me it seemed odd- why bother making half of justified footage and not all?

I suppose there's parallels in theatre, where characters break the fourth wall and address the audience briefly, the rest of the time pretending the events on stage are really taking place.  The lines' a bit fuzzier in film, with more levels of storytelling versus direct address: there's the complete address, ala Ferris Bueller talking to the audience, then imitations of documentary film or staged interviews/newscasts/security cameras, use of POV camera angles, but then also smaller touches that just give the nod to the presence of the camera, like mud or blood splattering on the lens, intentional loss of/rack focus, or even lens flare.  These days the latter two are often used to try to ground CG in a more familiar and therefore 'real' style, as though instead of a CG spaceship you'd had a mediocre cameraman video a real spaceship fly-by (as seen I think first and best in FireFly).  It's still not saying 'hey, this is home video', but trying to ground in that same reality while not denying you're telling a story.

This kind of artistic 'flaw' is nothing unique I suppose- musical instruments often try to add 'breaths' as though they were voices of flawed creatures with limits on lung capacity, while chorus singers try to do the opposite, trying to hide and stagger breathing so the real voice can come closer to the perfection of an instrument.  Paintings sometimes try to look like photos, and photos sometimes try to look like paintings.  People like to transcend their medium.

To bring it all back to stage combat, there's a similar premise that many of us use in trying to make fights more believable; people make mistakes.  For something to be more 'real', make it less perfect; have people screw up, build in character flaws, etc.  It tends to not only make us more believable, but also more sympathetic: not only is it then more like life, but it's more like our lives.

Often it's harder to successfully create those artistically chosen screw-ups than it is to be textbook perfect.  Tends to be worlds more interesting, though.

Re-post from the WP blog:
Finally made it to one of Seattle's iconic tourist attractions, the Science Fiction Museum.  The prompt for the family was the final day of the Jim Henson exhibit (okay, so there's sorta sci-fi stuff there...), but it was definitely fun to see some of the costumes & props from all sorts of classic sci-fi, from Bladerunner to Barberella to Battlestar (the original series only, I think.  Did you know it was a chimp in a suit playing the cybernetic ewok kinda character?), and get to learn a little more about them along the way.  Also plenty of literary sci-fi, including manuscripts from local author Neal Stephenson (who incidentally also is a sword afficiando and student of martial arts).

Shame they haven't updated to include much that's come out since their inception.  SciFi seems to be coming back big.  Nobody really expected the success of Firefly a while back (and Nathan Fillion had his own little Twitter rant about the Seattle Science Fiction Museum when he visited), but nowadays, SciFi is riding high on the coattails of the new Battlestar Gallactica, Terminator Salvation (and the Sarah Connor Chronicles), Star Trek, and most recently the big success of District 9.  Coming up we've got more big names like James Cameron's Avatar , Bruce Willis in Surrogates, and of course  TRON.  Okay, so half are remakes or sequels, but still...  add in the rumored Aliens prequel, the upcoming V remake, and one wonders if folks are going to burn out on SciFi at the same rate they seem to have done with Pirates.

From a props and fight choreography standpoint (as well as many others) Sci-Fi as a genre allows for a great deal of creativity in design and execution.  How would an alien move, interact with tools, fight?  What about a robot?

Locally our biggest low-budget (completely volunteer) independent production is Star Trek: Phoenix.  It's becoming sort of Seattle's equivalent of Law & Order: almost every actor or crew person you know has either worked on it or is only one step removed from folks who have.  Except Law & Order put bread on the table for many an actor or actress, and I have to wonder what the payoff might hopefully be for the Seattle Film scene at even a wildly successful fanflick.  Hopefully it won't just mean that half those people get recognition... and move to L.A.

Here's wishing us all luck with our projects;  may the future be full of rewarding creative challenges, be it in making things more realistic, or more fantastical.

We went to watch a Tae Kwon Do belt testing last night, to support a preschool friend of my daughter's who was trying for I think his yellow belt- it's a bit easy to loose track.  Far too many different belt colors, stripes, bands, etc for my taste.  You shouldn't be able to tell how many weeks someone's been training by counting the rings and colors on their belt, if you ask me, but then I spent most of my time in Bujinkan where the belts just went white/green/brown/black.  Sure, we had kyu and dan ratings within that, but it was a bit more subdued, more personal, more dignified I felt.  Or just more a sneaky-ninja thing...

It was interesting to watch.  My daughter had taken classes here for a while as well, because at the time a bunch of other kids from her preschool were.  It was a social thing, and it was cute, but I had my misgivings about the quality of instruction.  My poor kids will have to deal with so much baggage from their old man if and when they do martial arts!  Probably doesn't help that their mom used to teach at a Tae Kwon Do camp, either.  On the plus side, maybe we can help steer 'em in a healthier direction.

The testing bore out much of my suspicions.  It was much like watching a community theatre do a Shakespeare production: There were a couple folks who weren't half bad, a few kids who just looked darn cute trying, and the majority of folks can at least get out most of their lines in a recognizable fashion... but it's painfully aware to me that most of them have no idea the meaning behind the words they're speaking, and very few are actually listening to and playing off their fellow actors on stage.

There was a mix of floor routines, board breaking, shadow-boxing, and 'free sparring' (out of distance, taking turns, etc), but by far most of the people there (including the one who'd been teaching the kids) just didn't look like they understood what was behind the moves they did, really knew how to use their bodies to make those moves make sense, or were paying attention to the context in which they used them.  Like bad actors just waiting to say their line, they'd throw a kick because it was what they felt like throwing, not because the person opposite actually was open there.  At times it started looking like Star Wars Kid.

I'm not saying this to bash this particular school or any of the people in it- and no, I won't name names.  We all do martial arts for different reasons, and as a parent I take no issue with this school's focus on telling kids to listen to their parents and study in school.  If they want to give stripes for things like being able to stand at attention, cool- standing still is probably a lot harder for my daughter than throwing a kick.  The constant reinforcement probably helps especially the younger kids, although I noticed my daughter getting pissy if she didn't get a stripe every lesson, and the focus quickly shifted to getting the next rank rather than personal improvement.

I'm sure there's an entirely valid range of opinions on training philosophy.  I'm an analytical person in general, and like to know why things work and why I'm doing something.  That imagery helps for forms or kata, although I readily acknowledge there have been times when over-thinking held me back.  Sometimes if I could just turn off my brain and do it, it'd work, but because it still didn't make rational sense to me as to why, I would get tripped up.  The antithesis of this might be the old Mr. Miyagi paint fence/wax car trick (RIP Pat Morita), where you're teaching someone to use their body in a valid martial way without them even knowing it has anything to do with fighting... and I can see how that could work.  Still, that requires good supervision and a genuine physical task; I think if Daniel-san had been asked to just mime waxing and painting for hours, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well, yet that's what some martial arts essentially do- especially prone are these big chain franchise places, I think.

So how is it different training actors versus martial artists?  I do think actors need to be more deliberate and intentional in their movement- martial artists may not need to know why they do something well, just that it works.  Martial arts instructors are probably much closer to choreographers and stage combat instructors; they need to also be able to understand why something works and what the common mistakes are, and perhaps alternative choices to accommodate different body types and contexts.  Without knowing why things work, you won't know how to adjust them for different students (or actors, or characters), what sequence to teach things in to best develop the student as a martial artist, etc.

While taking the time to explain the why may not always be something directors are eager to do in a busy rehearsal phase, but I've found the actors always enjoy and benefit from it, as does the performance.  While I am by no means a martial arts instructor, as a student I like to think the same holds true in the dojo.

Tomorrow morning my daughter and I will be checking out the "Tiny Tigers" class at The Seattle Wushu Center.  I trust Rusty, and took a wushu sword workshop with her a while back.  I think it'll be good.  My daughter's going to have twin baby brothers soon; she'll probably need both discipline and the ability to block low kicks.

Didn't win the Hunted contest- was a very close fourth place after the judging.  Thanks to those who watched and rated- if they'd gone with that as the judging criteria, we'd have gotten a pretty solid second place.  As is the results surprised a lot of people, including Bob Chapin, whose series this was for.  Still, response and feedback have been good, and I think my volunteers are still all glad they participated.  I've gotten tons of complements from Bob Chapin, good words from the wife of one of the judges (Anthony DeLongis), and apparently the stunt coordinator judge liked it.  "...most notably “Fuzz Meets Fangs” for action which caught the attention of our stunt coordinator Jeff Pruitt."

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Seem to have developed this in the last half a year:
http://allergies.about.com/od/urticariahives/a/coldurticaria.htm
Been trying to figure out what the heck I was having occasional skin reactions to.  Something in my shop, metal or wood shavings on my hands and bottoms of my feet last winter?  Vegetables I've been washing?  Water from the Puget Sound?  I think the outside of a cup of ice cream was the thing that finally made me decide there was no way in hell this had anything to do with an allergen, and was just cold.  Haven't been able to determine any cause or cure or suspected duration or anything, though.  Cold's a pretty lame-ass thing to be allergic to, I've got to say.  Why am I mentioning this in a stunt and stage combat blog?  Because I was worried it would keep me from doing anything further with stunt burns.  Fortunately it doesn't completely preclude burns, which are usually done using very cold gel.  The team here in Seattle made a few minor accommodations for me and it worked fine:
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I'll be doing safety on a film burn gig this coming weekend.  Still can't prep others with the cold gel, or go completely cold with my own, but hey, it's better than I feared.

I'll probably be downsizing... everything... in the next half year or so.  I'll try to get more organized about things later, but in the meantime, if anyone's interested in things like bouldering crash mats, safety harnesses, airsoft guns, armor, tools, etc, let me know.  Still trying to figure out how much of the rental business or general toy inventory I can keep, and how much I need to unload.

Hit count and/or ratings may or may not be factored in to the final judging, but for those so inclined, please go to the YouTube page to cast your "vote".

Judging takes place on the 18th.

Huge thanks to all who volunteered on this project!

-Kevin


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhafrYj6GZs

Article's up, under the News section on my website.

Since I couldn't secure rights, and the images got cut down anyway in editing, here's some of the references I mention:









Stances look familiar?

My uncle's apparently gotten his old AR15 out and put a new site on it.  Yet another reason to want to go back out and play at his place in Yakima.  He was also the photographer for the article, has a forge, horses, a gorgeous property... and yet we only make it out there every few years.  Last heard he was taking up bullwhip too...