Nick Gillard -- Not a Swordmaster

How so?
Just by watching the trailer I see how crap the fights look. Maybe I'll watch it when it comes out on DVD. I'm certainly not paying to see it.

 

Not that one, the one about snobbish and slavish devotion to "how it really is."

EDIT: On an entirely random note, does the title of this thread remind anyone else of Adam Sandler's Hannukah song?

"O.J. Simpson -- Not a Jew."

Maybe it's just me.

M. Scott

 

Not that one, the one about snobbish and slavish devotion to "how it really is."

How is that anymore snobbish than people here bitching and complaining about realism of CG in movies and so forth. Just because I like realistic sword fights that actually look like they are fighting dosn't make me a snob. Hence I dislike RvD. Except for the sabre effects.

 

I've never known anyone refuse to see a movie because the CG looked bad in the trailers.

M. Scott

 

I have...and it wasn't me though

but what I'm trying to say Mike is that Is it really that wrong for me to want to see realistic and/opr intense sword fights only? Honestly I'm entitled to my opinios and such am I not? As are you...

 

I know I'm the newb and my words don't matter, but there's no need to get mad at one another. We all have seperate desires, seperate tastes, seperate goals. Those seperations and to what extreme we take them is entirely the business of the individual.

No point in getting mad at a person you barely know, can't see, and are probably 1000 miles away from. I mean, unless you have great discernment, can see people over the internet without their knowledge and your leg happens to extend across multiple states at a time. Then you might have something.

Let's chill out. It's not like anyones parents, religion, significant other's, or manhood was offended here. Just a disagreement in what you like about a movie.

Dorkman, you think he's silly for thinking the way he does.

Shadow, you're completely comfortable with the way you think.

Deal with it guys.

\__Will__/

 

Kill Bill was really cool.

Arms get sliced off and everything.

 

Shadow_of_evil, it's not that you were stating your opinion. You were stating your opinion as though it was a fact.

<<(discussing RvD)

Yes look how it turned out...terrible. >>


You got anything to show for yourself, Shadow, except for that bio of yours? How come you didn't choreograph the fights in the fanfilm 'HOME' you're involved with?

 

Because my master and the one whos trained me in Kendo all my life did. Hence I figured it should have been left up to him. Not to mention I did about 40% of the choreography and stuntwork.

 

Amen to that William. I have to agree. I love the board where people can state their opinions without others getting offended and getting mad.

Now on a lighter note,

It's not like anyones parents, religion, significant other's, or manhood was offended here

!!! That was good.

 

The entire movie(Kill Bill) was over the top and stylized, just like most of Tarantino's films. If the fights had been more realistic they would have seemed out of place among the anime flashbacks, the eclectic soundtrack and Q's usual bizzare, violent sense of humor. I would reccomend watching it and forgetting about how it applies to real life, because really none of the movie does, and personally I wouldn't have it any other way.

But that's just me.

 

Fair enought

 

"I've never known anyone refuse to see a movie because the CG looked bad in the trailers"

I know lots of people who won't see movies if their best 'trailerworthy' special effects look completely fake.

 

Most trailers put out work-in-progress FX just to get the trailers out there. In fact, almost all of them do.

M. Scott

 

So what.

If the trailer looks bad then the movie looks bad.

But this way off-topic.

 

Trailers do have an impact. They get people to watch the movie or not.

The lightsaber fighting seen so far has gotten a lot of people stoked up about EP 3 which isn't out for over a year.

And several fan films are getting attention because of early trailers.

Looks cool is basically what gets everyone excited regardless of what content there really in in a movie. For sword fighting movies, a few images get people excited. And for SW, no matter how misleading and uninformed it is, actors who make any comment about the lightsaber fighting get people in a tizzy. I don't know how many people kept believe Sam Jackson and Anakin when they said they were going to have great fights in EP 2. And all this talk about winning the MTV best sword fight award. Pish!

And as I'm sure all of you guys can attest, on a set there's this uber-awe in the sword fight choreography. Everyone in the crew says, "wow, that's so cool." Something inside of them says: I want to part of that. On my own fan film, at one shoot where there was no lightsaber fighting, everyone kept asking if there would be sword fighting. I had to say, "sorry, that won't be filmed here." And in fact, we had to save the fights for the end partially because the caves were confined spaces, but also because casual observers get over excited about the fighting when, as you guys know, the actors need a lot of time to prep for moves. And in the end the fights are less exciting when being filmed than when it shows up on screen.

 

Sorry bud..I had to steal your icon man. I'm in love with the ancient Rome armour and helmets and that icon looks sweet

 

Most people watched the trailer for the Hulk and thought 'this movie is going to suck'. Little did they know that ILM was working on it until like a week before the release. Now, the fact that half of America hated it has nothing to do with the fact that the other half at least thought it was good, some even calling it the best comic book movie ever (not so, IMO. I think it's a kind of thing that would have required you to like the Hulk comics as a kid).

Fact is, the majority WILL grade you on your trailer. If you notice, there was no traler for LotR:TTT that showed more than the half finished back of Gollum (which still looked pretty good!). They needed time to rework the face at the time (or reasons explained in DVD documentaries), they couldn't show full progress. In fact, the fact that the trailers DIDN'T show us what we wanted to see seemed to me to make the movie more exciting to wait for.

Then you have the SW prequels. TPM had some of the best and most visually and emotionally grasping trailers I'd ever watched at the time, and I was quite driven to go sit in front of a theater for days upon days waiting for the first showing. Unfortunately, I was in 8th grade, and my mom wouldn't hear of it.

Then there was AotC. The trailers themselves were just as, if not more, anticipated than the movies. I remember walking into english class and the guy behind me asking if I'd seen the new "Mystery" trailer yet.

And then there were all those people flocking to see some movie none of us can remember now, just to catch a trailer.

It is my roughly structured opinion, that a trailer is just as important as any other part of the movie.

Just an opinion though.

\__WIll__/

 

I know I am new to this thread and really haven't done or know much about swordplay, martial arts, and lightsaber choreography but...

"tumblymonsters top ten list of things that make good saber choreography:

1. It looks cool
2. you like to watch it
3. chicks
4. a "highly trained" martial artist scoffs at it
5. witty banter
6. subliminal single-frame porn messages
7. the bad guy loses
8. you enjoyed doing it
9. the more sabers, the better
10. you can never have too many ninjas."

This made my day and I must say. I am reminded of a little known flick called "...And God Spoke" (1994) where they showed 'Nude Ninjas', topless chicks wielding blades. Hell yeah!

 

I believe the actual question was: do you need martial arts training to be good at doing fight choreography?

Hmmm. No. But it'd sure help. You can learn a lot from merely watching people fight, and just from common sense, but after a while you really would need at least a basic understanding of the principles of any given martial art. It also depends what you're choreographing. In the case of lightsaber fighting - it's a hybrid, and as such doesn't have to stick to any fighting discipline in particular.

Fight choreography for films is all about striking a balance - you want it to look good, it simply can't be all about realism. But as with all design, if it isn't functional, people will just laugh.

To Shadow of Evil: I dunno if training in martial arts changes the importance of your opinion on choreography - you could probably comment on it's complexities and overall realism (ie. how much sense all the moves make, and how many redundant flippy fancy stuff the people do). But I wouldn't worry about it anyway, it's only entertainment, and it's their loss if they do substandard stuff (not saying they did or didn't.)

As for RvsD... Well I kinda liked some of the fighting. Some of it made me laugh, but then again I won't comment strongly because exactly what have I shown to prove myself better?

 

Hehe, Serba posted while I was still writing my post. Hate it when that happens.

 

I dunno if training in martial arts changes the importance of your opinion on choreography

That's a fair comment but I'm only using my martial arts background to backup my opinion so as to avoid people thinking im some random guy who dosn't have a single clue what I'm talking about. Not to mention I've spent the last 2 years learning stage combat so I understand what it takes to make a good film duel.

 

Sorry Count. Hehe.

I know there are a lot of opinions and knowledge out there about swordplay, myself who is very inadequate to give any real critique on swordfighting (real or otherwise), with knowledge and skill or lack there of but when it comes down to it, choreography is an organic process and painstaking at times and to give a final result that is as much fun to watch as it is to do is hard. Whether or not the fighting it between to experts or non-experts.

I know nothing about choreography but did a short 25 blow 'kung-fu' fight for a student project and it was pretty grueling. Mostly relied on Woo Ping movies and shots. But, even for experts who train and teach what is done in real life doesn't necessarily come out good on film.

But the line between realism and fiction needs to be smudged in order to carry the plot of the whole of the movie. I guess I can only say that I give tons of respect and admiration to that old coot Bob Anderson (Princess Bride, LOTR). When the question was raised about realism, Bob said, "Hah, my, boy, this is the movies." It's meant to be fun and fun to watch, whether it's good or bad, creative or plain.

 

Shadow of Evil - exactly. While not necessary, a background in martial art is priceless as far as making sensible (and interesting?) fight scenes is concerned (are concerned? unsure of grammar here....)

Serba - hehe. Bob Anderson has long been a big favourite of mine. The best fighting ever? Who knows, I've haven't seen every movie to judge it against. It's a LOT better than most of the stuff I have seen though.

 

"Hah, my, boy, this is the movies."

Bob Anderson also has the privilege of speaking from the background of decades of competitive fencing, being the national coach of England and Canada for a few years, and being friends with Peter Diamond who brought him in for ESB to play Vader.

This man may say it's all fake, but it's informed by hard, disciplined years of Western fencing. If you've seen him training his actors, he's as tough as nails. He was a national coach for good reason.

When you've got tons of experience, you don't need to call attention to it. Your choreography speaks for itself.


Shadow: I guess we have another admirer of Roman culture.