This is me.
Getting punched in the face.
And this is J.J. Dashnaw, stunt coordinator
from Spenser Confidential.
It wasn't that hard to get this shot, because I was actually
getting hit. And yes, it hurt, bad, by the way.
Legend has it that that's how a few movie punches
were done in the beginning of the medium.
But, now, most of the big, cathartic,
painful-looking punches that you remember are actually
intricate, carefully planned dances between performers and camera,
choreographed by a guy like this.
He'll help us break down all the many steps needed
to capture the perfect movie punch —
and, fighting gods willing, help us fulfill a dream
by filming our own.
So the heroes in the Boston action flick
Spenser Confidential solve crimes and right wrongs and drive
all-black vehicles.
Two grown men running around playing Batman!
But they also punch people. A lot.
Our unofficial fight score came in
at 68 punches thrown
throughout the film.
There's even a subplot about learning how to punch.
Turn your hips.
Boom. Turn, turn, turn. Turn.
That makes Spenser Confidential part of a
beloved American tradition: great movies with great punches.
I mean, you probably already have a favorite
movie punch, right?
I do, actually.
Da da da da, da da da.
But punches didn't always look that way.
In the earliest days of film,
there was a school of thought that on-screen punches
should be more real,
possibly because the static, unforgiving cameras of the era
exposed performers when they tried to pull their
punches or aim at a shoulder.
Funny thing, though: the beginning of the movie punch as we
now know it - the one that looks good but doesn't
hurt anyone - was actually
ushered in by legendary
tough guy John Wayne.
He and his long time on-screen
adversary invented a system of
film fighting - the pass system - that
effectively hid missed punches.
So we ended up with harmless but brutal looking
punches like this.
And eventually this.
Although, to be fair,
some performers have a high tolerance for...reality.
Oh, I've done movies
like Broken City where,
punching people with no gloves, or Four Brothers,
and that's why I got broken bones in my hand now.
But how?
How do we get real looking punches when the actors aren't
hitting each other?
This is where the dance comes in.
That is, action, reaction
angles, and edit
all moving together for one explosion
of punching passion.
Action, of course, refers to the punch itself.
For any kind of realistic result,
the person throwing it has to
have some kind of credibility.
So we looked at the writings of the ultra-credible
Heavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey,
who said that all you need for a good punch is for your
lower half to set your weight in motion,
and your arms and fists to deliver that weight
to a target.
Okay,
easy right?
No.
What we try to teach actors and anyone involved in the
fight is to set the punch up first.
I try to get a good foundation, just like in any sport,
whether it's baseball, whatever.
All your power and strength comes from right here.
So if I'm gonna throw a punch, I'm gonna set this up.
I'm gonna do that,
I'm gonna throw,
and if I'm gonna throw a left next,
before I throw it, I set my feet and I'm ready for it.
I make sure that this is ready and cocked and loaded,
to throw that.
Otherwise, if I just come and throw a punch like this,
and this is off-balance,
it looks really weak.
And it's also a little bit dangerous 'cause you're off-balance
and that's when you could tag somebody.
So you might be tempted to think that one
punch is as good as any other,
but punches have personality.
They can reveal an aspect of character,
like how these sharp, wild punches show Spenser's rage
at his corrupt captain.
But punches are also part of broader trends in public taste.
John Wayne and co used flailing haymakers.
I mean, seriously,
they have a windup like a baseball pitcher,
because they're theatrical
and read well on camera.
But as society got wise to martial arts,
more recent movies, like
the John Wick trilogy have
moved towards more realistic action.
Which punch you throw is a question for the coordinator
and actor to answer–
and in Spenser Confidential, they answered it by
putting realistic boxing techniques into jailhouse brawls.
And I'm there for it.
But whether it's a mighty wallop or a surgical hook,
a good actor is nothing without an equally good reactor.
You need a partner that can dance.
You can throw the best punch.
If the person messes the reaction up,
it’s no good.
That's why the eye contact is so important,
that's why the spacing is so important,
that's why me and you are in sync.
When we're fighting, we're acting.
And if we are not in sync, or we're not doing it the right
way, it doesn't work.
It's like our brains are somehow trained to understand
the underlying physics of a punch.
We just instinctively know that the angle of
the reaction has to be the exact same as the angle of the
punch or it'll look wrong.
Just like we know that a
tiny jab doesn't usually
knock you loopy unless you're fighting
a superhero or something.
Energy needs to be
proportional in your reaction.
And cause always precedes effect, of course.
Don't be like me and react before the punch, people.
But besides jerking your head and body around,
it's the little touches that make a reaction.
Maybe I've watched this movie too many times by now,
but Mark Wahlberg is weirdly good at making
you think his nose is broken.
Like how he checks the bridge here to see if it's straight
or how he subtly blinks away tears after a hit there.
It's good stuff.
But even if you punch like Tyson and act like Brando,
there still might be a gaping hole in your punch scene.
See, safety dictates that performers stand apart
from each other.
You shouldn't be able to touch shoulders.
Even though it looks
like you're hurting someone
onscreen, the major and
most important thing is that
no one gets hurt.
But, with certain camera angles, any gap between performers
is exposed. And this was the problem with old movies.
So the camera needs to be part of the dance, too.
When we have the actor going in,
we're getting his coverage,
that's when we'll really set up hero camera angles
to make him look awesome and make the punch look awesome.
So say we're doing Mark's coverage on, let's say,
taking a punch and also giving a punch,
we'll do a tighter angle right here. So let's move you
around right here.
I'm gonna have you give Mark a punch first right here,
so we'll get to see his face getting punched right here,
so let's bring that arm out. Boom.
You just saw that Mark got punched in the face right there.
And also from this deal,
we will have Mark throw the punch and we see it's his face,
so it works really good for this,
especially for his left. I'm open to the camera. I see. Bam!
You go out, and you would probably go this way, and you
see that follow-through.
You get that hero moment that he just, you know,
knocked the crap out of somebody.
It's a great magic trick.
From here, the camera essentially compresses
the 3D space between the two fighters into 2D,
a trick which you'll see repeatedly the next time
you watch an action movie.
Even at a quote, unquote “safe angle,” though,
the camera can still expose you.
What you just saw is an example of failing
to “break the string.”
Try to imagine there's a string that runs from the lens of
the camera directly to the face of the
person getting punched.
It might sound basic, but for a punch to look
like it connects, that string needs to be broken by
your swinging fist.
In other words, the punch needs to cross over,
like this one does here,
for the illusion of it to work.
Which brings us to the edit of a fight scene.
We could spend an hour on what editors do,
but if an on-screen punch is like a dance,
editors are like the DJ.
They control the rhythm of a fight.
They can shine a spotlight on a certain dancer.
And maybe the coolest thing they can do for a punch
is to warp time around it.
By subtly increasing the speed of a clip around the point
of contact via a software tool called a speed ramp,
or by actually removing frames of video,
you can make a punch look that much more
powerful and painful.
And this one already hurt.
But nearly as powerful is an editor's ability to
reposition an errant punch.
See, even with all the good techniques we've just explored,
sometimes a punch is just a bit off.
If that happens, an editor can use visual effects tools
to literally move a fist to a better point of impact
on the face.
They just move it and it's over so quickly on screen
that our eyes can't tell something's a bit odd.
Finally, audio happens in the edit.
And I don't know about you, but I never really thought about
how punches on film sound before this.
But just listen:
It's not just the sound of a punch.
It's fabric rustling. Wind whistling.
Bodies falling. Voices grunting.
There's probably more that
I just can't hear.
So while a silent punch may be beautifully shot and acted,
it's basically like, dead inside.
You need sound effects.
But much like stunt coordinators and punching style,
sometimes sounds fall out of fashion.
During the John Wayne era,
fleshy sounds were considered dull,
so punches were accompanied by the sounds of belts
whipping or billiard balls cracking.
Now, though, there's actually a lot of food that gets
mangled to provide a punch's audio track.
Frozen turkey can sound
like meat being pummeled.
A green pepper has the crisp
sounds of bones breaking.
And if you punch a watermelon,
you get something that
sounds really bloody.
By the way, how you hit them also matters.
But don't neglect all those sounds around a punch, either.
They make it more real.
Speaking of: action, reaction, angles, and edit–
we've covered the basics of making a punch look real.
There's nothing left to do but dance.
That's how you throw a fucking punch!
Favorite punch of all time...
Fight Club had really great fight scenes.
Maybe that scene where Ed Norton said “I wanted
to destroy something beautiful.”
When he like just destroys Jared Leto's face.
That one was a pretty good one.
Rocky had some really good fight scenes.
Another face destroyed after every movie.
“Adrian!”
Those are some of my favorites.