- Hey, guys, what's happening?
My name is Rustic, I'm a professional stuntman,
and today I'm gonna give you some more tips
on filming fight scenes.
(grunting)
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more videos like this.
So today we're gonna cover some basic
movement tips for actors.
These are pointers that you can use yourself
or that you can give to actors
as helping tips on set.
So, number one is being aware of
where the camera is at all times.
Start practicing using your peripheral vision
to feel where it is so you can
make adjustments during the take.
So for example, if you're the person attacking
and you can see the camera with your peripheral vision,
you can make the adjustment for your hit
to make sure that it sells.
Likewise, if you're the person doing the reaction,
and you can see the camera with your peripheral vision,
you can move your face to be just in the right spot
to make sure that the reaction sells.
Film fighting is all about control.
Your fight choreography is gonna look better
with precisely placed hits and reactions,
and you're not gonna have to do as many takes.
When I was starting out as a stunt performer,
I would catch myself going faster and faster
throughout the choreography,
but what that did was make me sloppier and sloppier.
Pace yourself.
You can still make your fight look messy
while being precise and not rushing through your hits.
So even though you may not know this,
but when you see a really good fight,
there is always an irregular tempo.
This means that the fight isn't just
one long exchange of beats, hit after hit after hit,
but rather that it's broken into pieces,
depending on the choreography.
So you can have like a hit, hit-duck, one two three,
so you wanna keep it irregular,
because that keeps it more interesting for the viewer.
And the way to do this is you figure out the tempo
with your partner before
you start recording the choreography,
and you walk it through a couple times
and store it in your muscle memory,
even with all those pauses.
As I mentioned in the first video of this series,
you don't need to be that close
to your partner to sell a hit.
And this is especially true for
longer pieces of complex choreography.
The most common mistake we see
in fight choreography is when actors start crowding in,
they start getting too close.
This doesn't give you space
to throw your punches and look good,
so you wanna be aware of the distance
depending on what your next hit
of the choreography is gonna be.
Being aware of your footwork and your distance
is really important when doing fight choreography.
If something doesn't feel right,
it can usually be traced back to
one of those two being off.
You should learn some basic martial arts
and boxing stances and practice moving in between them.
If you watch a really good screen fighter,
you will see that they switch their stances often,
and they look really crisp while doing it.
Now another guideline to be aware of
is the fact that you can use "45s"
to control the distance between you and your opponent.
This means that you can walk between your stances
while switching your hips to point
slightly away from your opponent,
and that'll help you move forward and back
while controlling your distance
and still looking good for all your punches.
So we have an expression for someone
looking awkward on camera during a fight,
that's called having "egg on the face".
This pops up in every fight scene,
as we always are making constant adjustments,
and we're gonna have new spaces that we need to fill.
What you can do in these moments is
to use your acting and throw in a ghost beat
to help you fix the problem.
So a ghost beat is an improvised movement
that you throw in to fill in the extra space
during a fight.
You can see the guys in the ray
doing this well by moving their hands,
which keeps them from looking awkward
as they wait for the next beat.
You can also see it here as I throw
an extra left punch while Aaron sweeps my leg.
Another tip to help your reactions
is to actually remember that you're acting.
Don't forget about the story in favor
of just remembering the choreography.
Take your time to really feel the character.
Are you exhausted by the end of your fight?
Story should be your main motivation.
My last quick tip to looking better on camera
is to try and stay open to camera.
This means that if you see two fighters facing off,
one of them will usually be in the left stance,
and the other one, for my tastes,
is usually in the right stance.
So they're both open to camera,
and you can see what's happening right here.
If you make this adjustment on set,
your choreography might have to change a little bit,
but the audience will be able to see
what you're doing a lot better.
And that's it, guys.
Remember, these are just my personal tips
from my experience, and I believe that
they make my fights look better.
Alright, guys, thank you so much for watching.
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