I've got an idea.
No, no, no. Not the laptop.
No?
This, then.
Seriously?
A pillow?
Just the hands.
I'm sorry.
Hmm...
I hope the Joker won't be mad now that Harley Quinn and the Cinecom team are getting so close.
On the other hand,
let him come.
We have all the superpowers.
No one can beat us.
But if you know one superhero that could,
well, let us know in the comments below.
But keep in mind,
we have the power of editing.
Hey guys, I'm Yannick from Cinecom.net
and welcome to another Copycat Friday.
Last Wednesday we did some team building,
and went to the cinema to watch Birds of Prey.
This inspired us to make this video on how to shoot a fight scene.
Personally,
I didn't like the story that much.
They tried a little bit too hard to look like Deadpool.
However,
the fight scenes.
Oh boy, the fight scenes.
They were finger-licking good.
From the cinematography to the juicy sound effects,
everything was spot-on.
And,
let's be honest,
who doesn't love Harley Quinn?
Come on guys,
everybody does.
The fight scene I liked the most was the one in the jail cell.
I'm not going to spoil anything, but those slow mo shots with the water...
Mind-blowing.
Now enough talking,
let's start with our 10 tips on how to shoot a fight scene.
First of all, I would like to say
guys be safe.
Don't do anything stupid, and remember, safety is the main priority.
If you are doing punches,
keep a safe distance between each other.
And when hitting the body, you can connect.
However, do this with a loose fist,
this will make the impact less hard.
The first tip is going to be an easy one,
maintain eye contact.
This means that your actors need to look at each other,
like in a real fight.
If they are looking around,
it doesn't look real.
So keep them focused on each other.
The second tip we have is a preparation tip.
Plan your fight choreo as good as possible,
don't overdo it with the crazy stunts.
These of course look cool,
but only if they are done right.
Sometimes less is more
and more realistic.
Then another thing about the fight choreo,
try to prevent waiting moments.
You often see bad guys waiting in the back until it's their turn to strike,
however, you can easily prevent that with some good planning.
For example,
you can let the bad guy lay on the floor a little bit longer,
catching his breath,
or you can let them look for a weapon.
Just give his non attacking stance meaning and don't just let them stand there.
The third tip is something very crucial when you are doing a punch.
Always make sure that the punch is on target
and crosses the imaginary middle axis of your victim.
For example, we are punching someone in the face,
first make sure that we won't hit and while we are swinging,
then look for that imaginary line in the middle of his face.
This line we are going to break with our punch.
Try to swing in a big arc,
so it's super obvious that we are breaking that line.
Then with some good acting of the victim, the punch will look real.
So now that we know how to punch,
let's hit some people in tip number four.
And we are even doing it two times.
When showing a punch to your audience,
you can film the same punch from two different angles.
If you then show these two shots in a quick succession
and with only one sound effect,
the audience will perceive it as one punch.
This is an easy tip to make sure that the audience really takes in the punch,
and helps with selling the impact.
And now for the most important aspect of your fight scene,
tip number five,
the angles we shoot in.
It may sound ridiculous,
but the angles you pick can make or break it all.
This is because we are going to use specific chosen angles
to hide the fact that we don't have an impact when punching.
For example, this over shoulder shot of a head to the face.
We know we can't have an impact,
so that's why we need to hide the swing and the miss.
If you place a camera behind the attacker,
you can't see the gap between the two fighters,
making it seem that the punch connects and making it real.
But the angle doesn't only hide the fact that you miss your target,
it also contributes to the story.
A low angle can give us the feeling of having the upper hand,
and thus, winning the fight.
While high angles do the opposite,
making the hero feel small and vulnerable.
These angles are a more stylized Hollywood way of filming,
while filming on eye level would give that extra touch of realism and brutality.
Girl, seriously,
I just want to borrow the laptop for one moment.
People want to know what this thing is all about.
Hey guys,
this right here is the brand new MSI Prestige 14,
which is a super portable, lightweight
and very stylish laptop from MSI,
with some serious power inside.
This thing right here is packed with the latest six core Intel i7 processor,
a dedicated Nvidia graphics card,
which makes creative work perfectly on this laptop.
The MSI P14 is made for Visual Effects and After Effects and 4k video editing,
and its color accuracy scores a Delta E < 2,
which is insanely good.
You get some Thunderbolt connections on the sides, as well as USB 3,
to get blazing fast speeds or to connect external devices to it.
There's also an SD card reader right inside there,
so you can transfer your footage or photos without having to need any dongles.
And with its creator center you can actually prioritize certain apps to get better performance within them,
and if you'd like to change modes
you can just do that with a press of a button
and that way you swap to high performance, balanced, battery save, etc.
And on top of that, there's also a fitting pink mouse and carrying bag,
or you could also choose the pure white or carbon grey edition.
So guys make sure to click the first link in the description down below
to learn more about the MSI Prestige 14.
So boys, you know what to get your loved ones for Valentine.
Let's continue with tip number 6, and this is going to be a quick one.
Do you know camera bumping?
Well, we call it that way, I don't know the original name.
It's simply adding a small movement with the camera on the moment your actor punches his target.
Just move your camera in the same direction as the punch,
and then go back to your begin framing.
Make your movement small and quick and this will enhance the impact of the punch.
Now speaking of enhancing the impact,
in tip number seven we are going to show you how to do the
five point palm exploding heart technique!
Perfect for a killer fight scene.
Maybe not.
That technique is super secret
and lethal.
Instead, we will show you how to make the impacts more violent.
It starts with a realistic reaction of your actor.
These can be a little bit exaggerated,
not too much, but just enough.
Then in post-production we are going to cut away some frames.
And you can do this for both the punch or kick and the impact.
For the kick you can shorten the travel of the foot,
making it go faster.
Just make a cut in the middle of the kick
and remove some frames.
For the impact, it works the same.
Just look for the moment just after the impact.
Here you can make a cut and again remove a few frames.
This will increase the violence of the punch and impact without making it look fake.
So, what are you gonna do? Buy roses for your girlfriend?
I stole this laptop for my girlfriend
and I'm gonna score tonight.
Oh shit, Harley is back.
Tip 8 will be an editing tip.
In our fight scene you can see that it starts with a fast paced edit.
After she finds the baseball bat,
the editing pace slows down and it's all for a reason.
In the beginning, she doesn't have control over the fight.
Everything is chaotic and we are showing it with a fast paced edit.
Then after a short struggle,
she finds a baseball bat, which is her weapon of choice.
After this break, the fight starts again,
but this time she has the upper hand.
She has a weapon and is winning.
This can also be seen in the framing and editing.
The shots are more low angle, and the edit is also more slow-paced,
giving the audience a subtle feeling she is in control.
We are going hard guys,
but stick by me only two more to go.
In tip number 9 we are going to need a little break.
A break from fighting, of course.
If you make your fight scenes too long and with non-stop action,
they will become a little bit heavy to watch
and sometimes even boring.
That's why you need breaks in your fight.
For us this break is a point where she finds the baseball bat.
So you first have a fight,
then she stops for the baseball bat,
and after that they start to fight again.
This break will let the audience catch their breath and keep up with all the action.
Now if you want you can add some more breaks in the scene,
like a bad guy getting up from the ground,
or the pillow joke we did.
But of course,
don't overdo it,
otherwise you will break the power of the fight scene .
The last tip,
and this will be an injury preventing one,
because
who likes injuries?
Try to fake the crazier stunts in editing.
With this I mean the stunts that could really inflict some damage.
For us this was the shot where we threw the baseball bat.
We faked this in post production with just combining three shots.
One of Harley Quinn,
one of the bad guy,
and an empty shot.
Then with some clever masking and animation,
we let the baseball bat fly against the bad guy and back into Harley's hand.
To be honest,
this stunt is near impossible to do in real life,
so we had to do it in post.
However, we have another example.
This ground hit,
which looks really hard and painful.
However, it's completely not.
We filmed this in two shots.
One where the bad guy gets hit and flies away,
and one shot where he lands on the floor.
For the flying shot we of course used a mattress to catch the bad guy off screen.
This way he could really act like he was hit so hard he flew away.
Then for the landing shot we went really close to the ground and the action.
Let the actor hover over the ground and when you start filming,
let him drop and thus faking the hit.
If your actor plays this realistic, and with editing and good cuts,
you can really make the impact to the floor look violent.
And that was it for today guys!
However,
I still owe you a
Yannick's Fun Fact Fountain!
Here is one I didn't know either before this week.
Did you know that Harley Quinn has real superpowers?
Like
real, real?
Apparently she has super strength, agility and is immune to toxins and acids.
Who knew?
Well,
probably all you guys who read comic books.
But it's still a fun fact to know.
Thank you so much for watching.
Thank you MSI for the support
and the very cool laptop.
And like always...
Stay creative!
Hello friendly people of the interwebs!
We'd like to thank Cinecom for hosting us,
it was a great fun getting our ass kicked
Our YouTube channel is Pilkington United,
we do comedy in Dutch.
Lisa has an Instagram.
Yeah, my Instagram is @lisa.moerman_
Underscore.
Peace.