choreographed display combat

Wyrm · Post by **Wyrm** » Tue Oct 12, 2004 7:40 am

Myself and my lady are wanting to learn a good entertaining choreographed display fight. Are there any websites for discussing this or perhaps scripts we could adapt and use? We havent decided on what weapons we would use. This isnt anything SCA btw. Any suggestions welcome. Thanks.

Winterfell · Post by **Winterfell** » Tue Oct 12, 2004 8:15 am

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1557834598/qid=1097586629/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-9100360-3984005?v=glance&s=books">
Sword Fighting: A Manual for Actors and Director</a>
A blow by blow manual for unarmed longsword, armoured long sword, rapier and dagger and and rapier and buckler and smallsword duelling.

AllenJ · Post by **AllenJ** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 12:07 am

Ive been hired to do fight choreography for a few films. Film work does get a little different than stage in that we can start, stop and cheat quite a bit more. I've never had any "Formal" stage training....and that, I feel, is my stregnth and where I'm different than the others around here. I have spent most of my time doing period sword training. Studying directly from the period manuals and from those that are experts on them. When I get my actors, I teach them to fight. I start from the begining in whatever period or weapon we will be working with and I will instruct them with that. From there its much easier to choreograph a fight. It also makes the actors much more comfortable with change and experimentation. If we've been practicing a certian sequence for 2 weeks and we get to the day of the shoot, and suddenly the director decides he want fighter A to be more "mean" or "bigger" ( directors always work with such absolutes) we can just say, "OK lets throw that last thrust out and put in a double zwerchaw instaid". We run through it once or twice and we are set to go. So thats my 2 or 3 cents worth. Learn how REAL fights work, then your fake ones will be much more convincing.