Hi it's Tod of Tod's Workshop here and today I've got Nick Jeffries,
Master Armourer from Netflix's 'The Witcher' and this is going to be quite a thing,
because I have made a load of the stuff that has been on The Witcher. Nick has commissioned me to
do it, you've all seen it and now we're going to talk about it. So Nick, introduce yourself. Hi,
I'm Nick Jeffries, Head of Department for Armoury for Witcher, series one and now series two.
So we're going to start this whole chat off with talking about Geralt's swords; I mean,
what else can you talk about but the meteor and the silver swords and the requirements about them,
why we need multiples of different kinds and what the swords are all about. Lots of other bits and
pieces of Geralt's kit here that we'll talk about, if we have time, but, let's start with the meteor
sword. So Nick, let's let's have a look at that one. Well ,this is a meteor sword so the the basic
requirement from this is one of his swords and he has two. Obviously one of them is a meteorite
sword, meteorite supposedly being capable of cutting through anything. It's an extremely
sharp powerful sword for fighting people but not monsters because that's the thing about monsters,
or some monsters, it takes silver to kill them, so you can fight some monsters with this and you
can obviously chop pieces off them, if you chop enough pieces off, i'm sure it'll get
close to killing it. Now, when we're talking about the use of metals in swords most people
don't really know the difference between steel and silver for instance if it's shiny
but there is actually a colour difference if we you're used to it so we could have
done this just as polished steel but they weren't they're actually genuinely these are
silver plated steel swords so they are real weapons and that was something that that Nick
and i were both really keen to do is to make these as real weapons that could have been, would have
been used, had this parallel universe existed . You could call it a prop sword but I want it
constructed as least like a prop as possible. These get a tough life so, you can't beat doing
it for real. You cannot beat making it for real because of course, this ended up in a lake didn't
it ? the silver sword, first time around, the sword spent a couple of days being slashed through
debris-laden water and all the marks on the blade then obviously penetrate through the silver layer
into the steel below it and we got lots of rusty lines on it. That had to be redone but that
repair is a constant thing to us. I think my philosophy as well is really very, very much
that the subconscious mind has a big part to play in what you're seeing and so joe bloggs
out there might not know anything about swords, he might not know all the geeky stuff about
centres of gravity or points of balance or distal taper or whatever but he or she
is aware of what looks right and what feels right, yeah, and if it doesn't look right even on the
subconscious level under there it's telling them that it's not right and the sword is not
just an object that looks like a sword it is a working tool. You know, absolutely, it needs to
feel like a sword, it needs to feel like something you can use and that's a very good point about the
subconscious. That is why i don't have anything machine made as in, i don't have anything cnc'd
everything I have through the series is a unique manufacturer for the Witcher world and that's,
you know, that's where i've come from because, my background is in weapons making in historical
reproduction stuff and that's, this is just from a history that has never existed. That's all it is,
they're still real, absolutely, You could argue well there's a mixture of dates in there
that you know there's a mixture of looks but it all has a reasoning. The tips for example, there's
an easy answer to tips on swords. We have to copy these in rubber. If we put a long slender tapering
tip, that is very difficult to then make rubber without it snapping off every time and also, a
hard rubber spike is still a hard rubber spike you know, it's not as nasty as it being a steel spike
but it's still, you know, a point so we have to bring that in as much as possible. One of the
comments of course is that this is a really short blade for a two-handed grip and it is. You know
there is no mistaking that and that's something that is very difficult for us to get around in the
film industry is that we want Geralt to be able to use his swords in different ways and if he wants
to use it with two hands well so be it but, if the grip doesn't allow you to do that, you've painted
yourself into a corner. Absolutely, and if we use too big a blade, we're then in the problems
with the distance between ourselves it'll be more difficult to get that wide shot, it'll have to be
further away, plus, the set, you'll hit bits of the set easier. Fundamentally, it has to work
on set it might borrow a uh that one there the one that's actually been used this is one of
the Blaviken swords so it's a bit tired, that one yes, it's a bit tired as you can see but,
this was actually used in the Blaviken fight. One of many that get into this condition. We had
15 hard swords and four soft swords standing by as well as both hero swords so we had approaching
20 swords just for Geralt and then of course, we might have something where it's threatening his
eyes or something like that we go to a soft. So, we could easily use three or four different swords
in in that fight. However, every time we repeat that we might have a sword looking
like this. Yeah, so we need to start it with a new one and so on so you can see why we need the
quantity. Yes. We're wearing them out very quickly. Tell me, what we haven't actually
mentioned is the difference between hard, soft and real. So i'll just show you here.
So, we have this sword here. It is a real weapon. Everything about it except for the edge, which is
just slightly blunted, but not very blunt. So it looks sharp on camera. Everything else about this
sword is a real sword. Then, we have a hard rubber. So we take that and we mould it in
a polyurethane with a carbon fibre rod down the middle and you end up with something that looks
very much like a sword. It's art worked and painted brilliantly by the company that does these
and you end up with something that you can have a sword fight with that is not going to
overly injure people if something goes wrong. But I can tell you now, if that hits me hard
i am going to regret it but, then you have the third kind of sword which is a soft rubber
and so this one is flexible, just like the hard ones are, but this time you can see
that the edges actually do flex and this one is much nicer. Still not nice, but much nicer
to get struck by if that's what happens. then of course we have the cut down swords Nick. So,
those are basically the rubbers which have been cut down for the fight scene this illustrates the
point well this is a visual effects sword and it has the tracking markers still on it which,
frame by frame, visual effects can lock the blade back onto it and put it back into the fight. So
when for example Henry is slicing through someone, it lets him do that action which i think he's
spoken about in a couple of videos actually for this and then we put the sword blade back on,
so it just gives us a lot more options and makes it look much more realistic. It's the sort of
thing that now is just very very easily possible, yeah absolutely, 20- 30 years ago that would have
just been mind-blowing. Absolutely, for stabs, we used to use retractables, yes, and such like,
with a collapsing blade, with a spring in there so it springs back out when you draw it back,
that's the problem, hopefully, if you get blood , fake blood on them, or anything else they have
a tendency to stick and of course a retractable sword that sticks, is not a retractable sword it's
a sword and it causes the problems that you would imagine it does. So, you always had to wear body
armour, yeah, yeah you need a plate, stab plate in case. Absolutely, you know, so they were not very
easy to. Nowadays, we either do it with a plain sword like this, just cut off for the slashes,
if it's a stab, what we may well do is we have collapsible telescopic six ml with a larger button
head on them that we set to the original length so we would cut this sword down for example,
to there. We would have on the back here a collapsible, I don't know, you think of the word,
imagine it like a car ariel, again, it isn't, but, imagine that it was with a button on it
we would set it to that length so then you get two things happen. For a stab, first of all the stab
has some effects on the material, so they can, you can, actually see a result on the person.
Also it's a straight stab, what can happen when people stab without anything, because you get this
and then that throws everything to rubbish. It just looks weird on the visual effects they
really struggle. It gives them 20 times as much work to try and stabilize it where we can simply
make it a straight stab. Now the two swords are different but they're basically the same sword.
They fit the same profile so the actor can learn to use one and he learns to use the other. He
doesn't have to think, oh it's a totally different weight balance, length, width of sword which makes
his life easier - makes our life easier, it makes designing and building the sword carrier, yeah,
easier and of course and the back scabbard, I mean I can't remember from the first series if the
silver sword ever went in the back scabbard or not but the bottom line is even if it didn't, you're
future proofing. Yes, you are and just because there's nowhere that you can see it in the script
doesn't mean on the day the director might go 'oh, can we put that in there?" i've done this for a
long time so, if i can make it work, if i can say to the director or the first AD or wherever when
he asks me a question, oh could you do that ? if i can just go , 'yeah, we can do that' everyone goes
'fantastic!' and just gets on with it. So, it's my job to see that coming and make that ability if we
can, yeah, actually that brings us absolutely into the next point that i'd like to talk about which
is the back scabbard right and and that forward seeing only works to a point because sometimes
curveballs come in. Yeah, so we have the legendary back scabbard. Which, this is a very tired very
beaten that one that has really been through it and it's seen some action, seen some monsters,
this one. Yeah, it has but what was really important to both you and me, throughout this,
is to make it functional and the thing about back scabbards is, they weren't historically used,
in medieval Europe anyway, and so it's a hard start point and the reason they weren't really
used is they're very difficult to make them work properly, yes, it certainly is , but like with
everything else we wanted this to be a real thing and so we spent a lot of time actually
trying to make this thing function and so we have this little hinged panel on the top here
and so the sword goes in and as you draw it, obviously your arm, the whole body mechanics,
don't work anymore and so you have to move your arm down, like that but the scabbard is fixed to
your back so the scabbard can't rotate up so, this little section of the scabbard does so i
don't know if it's ever really shown in the in the series or not but as a functioning back scabbard
we got the thing to work. In the stories the youth of Rivia they wear their swords on their
backs so they had to have back scabbards that was just the way it was and so if we're going to have
a back scabbard we want to make it work Yeah absolutely, so it has to be a thing. But, also
you see on that, a little bit of movie hiddenness as in the hinged layer actually has a lock on it
so this locks the hinge in place to stop the sword moving about. Were we ever able to get to the
point of drawing it we would remove that locking stud and then it has the hinge and that able to
do so there was quite a bit of work in that but i'm sure you and i remember this one it was a
difficult couple of days we arrived on set with the scabbard for day one and we fit it on Henry
in the morning we get it to fit. It arrives on set, that's all fine by the afternoon, something
had changed with the armour I think and then the scabbard hadn't worked and then the armour had to
change and all these things were going around in a circle weren't they and that lasted the first
few days. You've been on different productions as well. Some are very nice. Some are harder, yes,
and yet he was such a gentleman throughout and that actually reflected the whole, the whole set I
felt. You know, it's just really nice, I mean, as you say it got complicated with the back scabbard
but due to requirement changes and everything once we've started filming but changes filming
is about changes and and issues it's filming is about coping with things I think there's a
big misconception as well I often hear it said that filming is really chaotic and it's full
of really flaky people. It's not, it's absolutely rammed full of professionals who know exactly what
they're doing but the problem is if one link in that chain changes, for whatever necessary reason,
that can knock on right down the list and it means that suddenly I have to go out to Hungary with
an hour and a half's notice for six days when there was never that intention. Oh yeah,
certainly, I think that the, I think if you're saying about film crews, especially for those
in the higher positions, in all different departments, as a problem solver you cannot
go "I don't know. I don't know how to do that." I can't think you have to come up with an idea.
There's an answer, to a degree, always in there and our job is to strive to find that. Yeah and
the back scabbard is an excellent illustration of that. Henry was the soul of patience whilst we
pulled him about poked him with things, measured him, cut bits about on him and everything.
So, obviously Tod, Geralt has a few other items. Um, he has his boot dagger, of course, it's
a non-traditional obviously medieval style, but there's nothing in there that couldn't have been.
Yeah, it's small, it's thin, it's hideable. Built in a couple of catchers here, just so it gives it
a bit more versatility it's small enough to appear anywhere. Appear off his ankle, appear
off his wrist, appear from the side, wherever. So, can i just borrow that. Of course you mentioned
the catchers on the side i've completely forgotten about that because I've made this
year and a half ago two years ago now but this is really interesting that you've got these little
tiny groovy cutouts here which, on one level, you go well that's just stylistically interesting,
well fine, but on the other if you take that sword there , Nick, yes not that you are going to defend
yourself with a dagger like this against a sword like that, but, against another blade. So, if you
come in, that slides down the blade but actually, what it does is it catches the blade there and it
stops it then skidding onto my knuckle. So, they do actually have a little purpose and it's these
sort of things that we think about as we're building these these weapons these props it's
not just there for no reason at all. Absolutely. You know, absolutely, it has a little bit more use
to it if that's needed. Then of course, uh, the other item is his chain, yeah, real and rubber.
So this is the Geralt, Witcher chain that he uses against the Striga. This is the real chain
and this is the rubber. The wonderful thing about this chain is it's dismountable. So, we can easily
add real to rubber to real. Whatever we need to do, this does it we can have any length of it,
we can have any type of it so that's, fundamentally, a silver chain, absolutely
and it is good against, in that case, Striga you can wrap them with silver, it burns into them,
causes them weakness discomfort, pain whatever, um but unfortunately, as we saw with the Striga,
some monsters are angry enough just to break it apart and some monsters are more monster than
others. Now as a nice little touch with this, what I did was we have some armoury wolves,
particularly for Geralt. So the chain ends for there I made a pair of chain ends that actually
have the wolves on them so the little wolf head that's it if you watch very carefully you can just
see them it's hint of wolf head on it a running theme for us on some of Geralt's equipment so it's
not the only thing that has this in it I can tell you a lot more about that but i'm not going to.
So, yeah, so there you go. Nick, thank you so much for coming down and bringing all these props that
we can talk about. I mean most of this is stuff i haven't seen for quite a long time actually
but anyway um really enjoyed talking to Nick today and talking about Netflix
tThe Witcher and if you haven't seen it, I mean for goodness sake, go out and watch it
I mean what are you doing ?! but, anyway. Join us again, in the future for another
session talking about different aspects of the Witcher with different props thank you
Tod Todeschini - Armourer. Nick Jeffries - Head of Armoury