**Lightsaber Choreography Contest V Has Begun!**

man, seeing that list makes me really sad we didn't get ours done... It would've been cool to be on a list with all of those fine people... Oh well, I guess there's always next competition. Which is when by the way. lol





-Jacob "Sith-Man" Sheppard

 

Anyone have RVD2 depression syndrome? Ever since the premier I've lost the desire to do any lightsaber fight again...

 

No defenetly not, how come anyway?

 

Yeah, it lowered my self-esteem. And I had to cut out like 3 of my heaps good bits coz they were in RvD2 and I would've been accused of plagerism

 

Really i think all rvd2 did was challenge us to do better and gave me ideas for more choreography

 

Troll

 

what?

 

I agree, RVD2 has actually inspired me to want to do more lightsaber duels, especially now that I'm done with a certain Spoof of some Movies...

 

DON'T! You shouldn't cut out bits just couse RvD2 did it, I mean, RvD2 has it's flawes, and also they are obviously inspired of something and have nicked one or a to things... You should never hold back becouse of fear for what people will say!

 

I know how that is. Pretty much every saber fight I've seen has had moves in them that I had in my choreography... RvDII had quite a few in it... And when I see that I say, "Ah crap, they beat me to it... I guess it's time to rework"...

I mean, great minds do think alike, but when the think exactly the same is when you got to worry...





-Jacob "Sith-Man" Sheppard

 

Individual cases of similar moves are fine, even expected. It?s only a rip-off if you have the exact same set of movies (say 5) with the exact same result at the end. Homages are fine, heck I?d even encourage them if them make sense in the fight?s context, but there?s also a little thing called confluence: you could just be coming to the same (hopefully logical) conclusions to a similar problems.

 

well there were quite a few things in rvd2 that I had been planning on doing for a while, but couldn't because I had no camera. One was the hitting the saber on the ground sending the sparks flying at the other person, and another was when Ryan is up against the wall Michaels saber is burning into the wall right above his head. They did both those better than I could, so I'm fine with it. But moves like that, if I did now, I'm sure that people would think that I was doing it because they did it, which I refuse to copy other peoples choreography, I see that as the easy way out, and I like to do things the hard way...

In any case, I'm kinda glad they did those two things in their fight, because they did it way better than I ever could... Had I done the wall burn thing, it would've looked like crap, lol...





-Jacob "Sith-Man" Sheppard

 

We saw that and RVD2 first, and wanted to do it...so we did. But we put our own twist on it so it's kinda half-homage and half our own

 

It does kind of make sense though. When I am sparring with people at my Sword Fight Club, I'll throw in some moves that I've seen other people do to try to offbalance and get the jump on people. We kind of did that in our entry. The ending move in RVD2 when ryan throws his saber up in the air and catches it to cut off dorkmans hand. I thought it would be cool to do that, but have it end a different way. Plus its a fun move.

 

Heh, come to think of it, I did a little switch like that too, although no limbs nor lack-thereof were involved

 

Hey all, not my first post, but I'm still a newish lurker here.

Just wanted to put in my $0.02. I agree, you shouldn't feel like you can't use something because it was in RvD2 or some other film. Any martial art will consist of a set of well established and time-tested techniques and strategies. And while lightsaber combat is purely fictional, in order to remain believable, it still has to exist within the basic framework of how the human body moves and the physics involved, just like a real sword art, whether or not the tactics are completely unrealistic. So by it's nature, people will come to similar ideas and conclusions independently.

Something that would be refreshing is a more psychological and tactical choreography. More posturing, more usage of the environment. RvD2 did take some steps in that direction, I thought.

I'm not a choreographer, rather I'm coming from a fencing and amateur historical swordsmanship background. Much of the "cool" stuff that ends up in choreography tends to be unrealistic in the sense that it's tactically "bad" from a real-world combat standpoint. Most spins that require you to lose sight of your opponent, however briefly, fall into this category. Locking sabers has a great dramatic effect, and a good opportunity for facial close-ups, but doesn't happen in a real sword fight because it's dangerous and disadvantageous to both fighters.

My point in that last paragraph is that there is certainly plenty of room to be creative if you widen your source of inspiration to include other combat forms and sword arts. Out of the existing historical sword arts, probably one of the best analogs is Liechtenauer longsword (a German medieval longsword system), since it's based on straight blades of the same size as lightsabers (usually a 3' blade and roughly 4' overall length).

Anyway, I'm rambling.

 

Dude you should not have cut stuff just because it was in rvd2 because 1 none of the fanfilms can be copy written for then we would be breaking the law making theseand second everything is inspired by somthing there is a scene in mine that is really similiar to the scene in reign of the fallen and RVB

 

I'd agree with pretty much what you said but this. In my experience in historical combat and kendo, locking a weapon to get a close up grapple is not only a common techinque for me, but it usually ends the fight. Pinning someones sword against my shield in sword and board combat or locking the elbows up high can work wonders if you have the advantage in strength.

 

Joint locks are used more in official japanese sword fighting than weapon locks. A weapon lock in Kendo is usually highly frowned upon as it shows your inability to end the fight quickly and efficiently. however, an Aikido arm lock used to incapacitate an enemy's weapon and then behead them is perfectly acceptable behavior. If you go for a weapon lock instead of the wrists in Iaido, Kendo or Aikido, you're usually disqualified from the match. At least that's how they've always done it in my school.

 

Oh right, immobilizing the weapon is different matter. I'm referring to the moments where both fighters are pushing the blades against each other without the weapon actually being pinned. Inexperienced fighters do try it, we've seen that in our classes. But it's a great opportunity for one guy to go "soft" and pommel-strike the other in the face, and follow through with a cut to the head as his opponent reels back. Since you want to be first to land the blow, experienced fighters will not stay in such a blade-on-blade position for more than a fraction of a second. The guy who's still pushing when the other moves will be at a huge disadvantage and will be off balance.

 

It's a LIGHTSABER choreography contest, dammit! No one cares about 'oh gee that would never work!'.

 

For a bit I was getting worried we would only have 4 entries, but thank goodness for those last second ones. Tomorrow is going to rock!

 

Although I'm not a judge, I'm going to check out the videos and comment on each.

Nothing extensive, just a sentence or two on each entry.
I don't consider myself 'judge' quality.

 

That's what's fun about these contests. Everyone gets in there and gives comments on all the entries, and it's exciting skimming through each one and finding your entry number. It's even better that the judges give highly in-depth reviews and suggestions for improvement