Nick Gillard -- Not a Swordmaster

Q in Hyperspace Chat: Other than star wars what was the most extensive sword duel you coriographed?

Gillard: Everyone thinks of me as a swordmaster, but I'm not. I'm a stunt coordinator. I like crashing cars. Expensive cars.


Gillard says that he's not a swordmaster. What are your thoughts? Do you need to have sword fighting/fencing experience in order to do choreography?

Another thought: If he isn't a swordmaster, where does his choreography come from?

 

wrong forum mate...

 

God...lame.

Anyhoo. Whoever thought he was a sword master is a blinded fool. What would make anyone think he is a sword master. Did he ever mention that he was a big martial artist? No. He simple spent his life in a frickin' circus. And you don't need sword training to make simple sword choreography...hence the simplicity of the sabre duels.

 

Damn straight.

And before anyone dares judge my knowledge of the mattter, look at my bio. I know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

 

Ryan and Dorkman both say they have no formal training with swords (iirc) but look how Ryan vs. Dorkman turned out.

 

Yes look how it turned out...terrible.

 

Jeeze, somebody ate their Grumpy-Flakes this morning...

 

He was the guy who got hit in the head by the periscope in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

 

Jeeze, somebody ate their Grumpy-Flakes this morning...

Why you say that? Because I don't like the choreography by Nick Gillard or Ryan-w/Dorkman?

 

Why you say that? Because I don't like the choreography by Nick Gillard or Ryan-w/Dorkman?

And what kind of choreography DO you like?

 

It says on the BTS stuff of Phantom Menace that Nick looked into everything from Kendo to swinging a tennis raquet when choreographing the fights.

 

So what's the best example of lightsaber duel choreography? Is everything lame?

 

I for one am glad that Gillard is not a swordmaster -- and is aware of that. I'm glad he was trained in the circus and not a Shaolin temple, and I'm likewise glad that I'm starting out as neither a sword- nor martial arts master. Why am I glad? Because of exactly what Shadow_of_Evil demonstrates here: the snobbish (and slavish) devotion to "how it really is."

Movies are a fiction. Even when based on a true story, unless the camera was there at the moment the events on which the movie is based took place, they are fictionalized events. Their purpose, at their best, is twofold:

1) to raise (and usually but not necessarily answer) questions about the nature of the universal human experience
2) to be entertaining in the meantime.

Martial arts are real and deadly forms of self-defense designed to end a fight as quickly and completely as possible.

As such, real martial arts fighting is BORING. The fights are over quickly, there's often long pauses as the fighters wait for the perfect opportunity to strike, and even the very skilled can sometimes be made to look clumsy. When watching them, I am well aware that these fighters are infinitely more skilled than myself. They have my utmost respect and in a competition setting, it's all very exciting.

I would never, however, film actual martial arts for a movie, unless it was a documentary about actual martial arts.

Movies idealize everything. Men and women alike wear foundation makeup (at least) to cover skin blemishes. There's light even in places that should be pitch-black, enough at least that everything the audience needs to see can be seen. We skip over the boring parts (ideally) and go straight to what interests us. They have a defined beginning, middle, and end to a specific story, which real life rarely has. They are a more streamlined and refined version of life. All that considered, why on earth is there this constant attempt by self-proclaimed martial arts experts to create an "honest" martial arts style in films?

Many real martial artists know better than this. Jet Li is an actual expert martial artist, but he certainly doesn't do the fighting in his movies the same as he would in real life. Watch "Hero" if you disagree.

For one recent and close to home example of the realism movement, the recent fan film "Planet with No Name." This is not a review of the film and I'm not criticizing it specifically, it's just a timely example. The first fight, as Spiff himself has said to me, was "completely honest." Each strike was a hard strike aimed at the opponent's body.

That being said, it was boring. The moves were slow and looked clumsy. The fact that they were the way it might look in a real fight is irrelevant -- in film, a visual medium, the truth is what you see. It is what it looks like. Not the intention, but what actually shows on the screen. If you see fighting that looks slow and clumsy, the fighters are slow and clumsy -- no matter how good they are in real life, or how honest the fight is. We're kind of spoiled in our little community -- remember that with most movies you don't have the opportunity to defend your choices to the audience. The film has to speak for itself, hence what you see must be what the director wants you to see.

Apply this especially to lightsabers, which are not real and can have no "real" standards of fighting, and you realize that the point, after the story and characters are served, is to look good and, if possible, really cool.

So again, I'm glad Gillard was a circus brat. He knows how to put on a good show without the pretension of "how it really is."

As for me? I've lately started training in Kung Fu. I'm far from a master, barely a beginner and probably will never be anything like a master. But if I keep up the training as I'm going now, I'd estimate that in four years I'll have pretty good control of my body and be able to do some real-world fighting if I had to. Concordantly, I'll have the skills to put on a good show, and the foundation of storytelling to keep entertainment the top priorit

 

Shadow - you are essentially right about gilliard... but you come off as pissed off today, that's what people are reacting to. Oh, and any attack on RvD without propper support an explination makes you look like a dick. Attacking RvD without stating a reason is like walking into a catholic church and screaming "MARRY WAS A WHORE!".

And I have no problems with the TMP 'deul of fates' but I thought the AotC saber fights showed Gilliard's weaknesses.

 

Amen, Dorkman.

 

That was an excerpt from Dorkman's new NOVEL! On newstands now! LOL!

 

I want a copy!

 

AOTC's fighsts were boring and at times funny

 

*shrug*

Maybe he was trying to make them "realistic."

Except of course for Yoda, which I don't think Gillard actually choreographed completely (there were several versions ILM went through, all on the same Dooku plates, when they resisted the idea of having him bounce around like Flubber).

M. Scott

 

GL: I don't know, but I think he needs to flip more in the sequence...

 

Okay, okay, maybe it's just me having this weird thought here but I sort of thought maybe they toned down the AOTC fights just so they weren't always upping the ante and making everything in the OT look rather ho hum. So the AOTC stuff is sort of between TPM and ANH. Or am I completely wrong?

 

the third film is suppose to blow them all away...

 

Crunchy, re: flippage: Sad...but from what I've heard, pretty much true. Except more like:

GL: Make him flip more. It's what the fans want.
ILM: George, that's not Yoda's character. The fans would rather see a show of Force skill.
GL: I own Yoda, I own you and I own the fans, and you'll all do as I say!
ILM: Yes Master. (secretly) We'll do them having a Force battle anyway, just to show him it'd be better.
GL: Wow, that WAS cool. We'll keep that.
ILM: Yes!
GL: But I still want to see him flipping around like a cracked-out Wudan master or you're all fired.
ILM: D'oh!

M. Scott

 

I think there had to be something that showed that Yoda could do it, even if he rarely resorts to it. If he didn't need a lightsaber at all then they wouldn't let any Jedi have them. "No, Padawan. Just use your mind to deflect the blaster shots. You're not going on any real assignment until you can do that."