most adverts pass into my eyeballs and out of my brain without leaving any kind of trace behind
them but then there's the Wilkinson Sword advert from April 2015. it's called 'swordplay' I see
what you did there i would like to congratulate the agency responsible for this quite old advert
and Lieven Van Baelen for choreographing and directing it because clearly they were just like
you know how the 1998 movie the Mask of Zorro has this really sexy sword fight where they cut
each other's clothes off a bit? and you know how the brief is 'free your skin'? and you know how
wilkinson sword has made a lot of things over the years like motorcycles and typewriters but also
swords? well... I mentioned in the video i did about the mask of Zorro's flirty fight that this
fight clearly drew some inspiration but for those of you who haven't seen the longer patreon version
of that video and even for those who have let's go into it in even more detail it is flirty fight
february after all I'm Jill Bearup i do stage combat i love fights that tell a story welcome
this fight is memorable not just because very attractive people cut each other's clothes off
though obviously that helps but because tonally it sets it up perfectly for you. it achieves
just the right level of tension and it also cunningly disguises whether or not the actors are
any good at sword fighting not that it necessarily needed to but we'll come back to that later the
most important aspect for tone in this instance and in a lot of flirty fights is the enthusiasm
of both parties and this is why they needed to cast people with experience of physical
storytelling because the location is great and the music is great but if the acting was not great
then that would... not have helped. we start the advert with this chap played by Benjamin Kahn
walking into the abandoned mansion presumably because of a text and being provided with a
sword. obviously this is necessary because even dudes who wander around abandoned mansions don't
generally do so armed that said it's still not as suggestive as Zorro's sword just popping up from
the bottom of the frame anyway now that we've given him a sword let's introduce another sword
no wait another sword being held in a clearly threatening position by our actress Inge van
Bruystegem Bryce-tegem Bruce-tegem?... i looked on google but there wasn't a pronunciation guide
sorry Inge, I did my best anyway this is also familiar. here's the very necessary difference
though it's obvious right off the bat that this is an established thing. Either they've done this
before or this was a text which specifically said come duel me because he doesn't look surprised at
all he looks delighted and he doesn't just smile he takes off his jacket before he picks up the
sword and that's such a brilliant character moment because it tells us so many things before we even
start. First he's obviously into this whatever this is, second he doesn't want to wreck his
fancy leather jacket, third he knows he's going to have the time to take it off because: duel. Now in
the mask of Zorro fight they don't start taking clothes off until the end of phrase two when
Elena has already ripped his shirt and they break apart mutually to do that because having tested
each other out they've decided that oh actually yes you are a significant threat but the order
in which things are done in this fight suggests i know how well you fight and so i know i need
to take off my jacket otherwise it's toast and it's also i trust you not to slice open my skin
during this fight and i trust that so implicitly that i'm going to take off the layer of protection
that i have and then proceed to fight you with a very sharp sword. you nutter. but
also storytelling and without a word of dialogue not that i don't love interstitial dialogue in
this sort of flirty fight but it is really hard to do well and also this is an advert
an advert that you can now show in any country where they'll allow it with minimal localization
because nobody speaks. And then the first attack continues this theme of mutuality because
it's hard to tell who moves first now particularly in theatre we usually want people to know who is
attacking and who is defending at any given moment otherwise it can look a bit messy see for example
this spear fight where you can usually tell by who has bent arms and who has straight arms who is on
the offensive and who is defending and yes that is me and yes that is a crown i wanted to know if
i pinned it correctly would it fall off it didn't! but this opening move is a meet in the middle
thing because we're so in sync here he pushes her away and then we continue with the woman attacking
in a phrase similar to phrase two of the mask of Zorro though obviously much shorter and also
much harder to see until oh shirt ripping just like in the mask of Zorro fight, first point to
the lady. there are i should point out a lot of cuts in this fight i would say too many i guess
because it's an advert we need to maintain the audiences even shorter than usual attention span
but i feel like there are too many cuts. But i saw a behind-the-scenes clip and i saw their fighting
and it looked absolutely fine you could have done it with much less cutting if you'd wanted to
just never mind but since it's an advert and the thing that we're supposed to be focusing on
is the faces and the emotions and the clothes ripping you know you do you i guess they circle
dramatically which slows the pace down again and ramps up the tension a bit more and then scruffy
now shirtless chap is like come at me so let's have some unnecessary spinning but really it
was his plan all along to get her in close so he could slash at her skirt just like in the... never
mind and then get in really close as if kissing is about to happen but don't actually do that
because again we're trying to maintain the tension not decrease it in any way and then more fighting
and then he slices her top i'm saying nothing and then her skirt and then she takes her hair down
which is hilarious and clearly only works because the vibe is very much what if Gomez and Morticia
Addams were in a razor advert and then she charges right in at him and the leather jacket's gone
and then his trousers are gone and so obviously his socks and shoes as well and then we change
environment and fight up the stairs and oh there goes the rest of the dress and there goes his
beard and now we're outside on the roof and that bed is full of glass you EEJITS it we just really
have to assume at this point that the pitch was mask of Zorro meets Gomez and Morticia Addams
because otherwise the only place these two will be going is accident and emergency. But that aside
it is still such a great piece of storytelling the ending shot is of course of the swords because i
mean it's a Wilkinson sword advert so you know whatever they wanted something to do
with freeing your skin and they wanted something that would appeal to men and women and i feel like
they achieved that it does have a ridiculous number of cuts which makes it difficult to
tell what the choreography is with any degree of certainty most of the time but because they use
so many of those cuts to focus on the faces of the actors and the emotion of the scene
still works especially because i'm also reasonably sure that in every single one of those shots
it is those actors i don't think they used a stunt performer anywhere in there it is clearly
taking inspiration from the mask of Zorro but even though it has a number of very similar beats some
of which come in exactly the same order it very clearly tells its own story. And all it's doing
is trying to shill razors so please don't tell me that fights in movies which have established
stakes and established characters can't do just as well not bad for a full breakdown of the
mask of Zorro's clarity fight click on Catherine Zeta Jones's face otherwise i will see you soon