New York-based Rick Sordelet seems to be the most prolific fight director in America right now. The certification of Fight Director is a lot easier to attain in the U.S. than in Canada, so most of those certified aren’t really worth a damn. Rick is the opposite end of that spectrum: he has an excellent philosophy which he puts into practice getting phenomenal results in a huge number of productions every year.

Rick Sordelet is not only an excellent fight choreographer, he’s incredibly articulate. In this video, he says it better than most:
Sordelet Fight Director Video

Rick is in the news right now for his Romeo & Juliet, which he directed and fight directed in Philadelphia. Here’s a snippet from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

‘Romeo & Juliet,’ splendidly staged
The sexy, passionate Romeo and Juliet that opened last weekend at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival is just what R&J should be: a mix of potent chemistry between the two teens that rips through a starry-eyed first half and a star-crossed second.

It’s directed with a command of both the characters and the language by Rick Sordelet, who also happens to be the busiest fight choreographer on Broadway; this season, he’s directed the brawling in the revival of Fences and the new musical The Addams Family. Sordelet also provides a historic link to this production: He did the fight scenes for Romeo and Juliet at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, on the campus of DeSales University near Quakertown, in 1992 – its inaugural season.

This time, he does double duty as director and fight director, and expect to see lavish swordplay, at one point with a Tybalt (Mike Rossmy) who brandishes a weapon in each hand as the characters swoop through Steve TenEyck’s simple but evocative set.
‘Romeo & Juliet,’ splendidly staged | Philadelphia Inquirer | 07/27/2010

We’ve got to get this guy into Fight Directors Canada. I think an invitation to teach at next year’s Nationals would be an excellent opportunity to share expertise.

Update: Due to scheduling conflicts, the first day of class is July 13. The course will be 3 weeks, 2 hours per day: 5pm to 7pm. Since the time is reduced, the price is reduced to $250.

Are Your Stage Combat Skills Rusty?

How long has it been since you took a stage combat class? Have you ever? Most theatre schools in Vancouver don’t even teach stage fighting. However, it is a fundamental skill for the performer.

Get a Refresher For Your Physical Performance

Stage combat is a shortcut to mastering your instrument by incorporating:

• moving around the stage with purpose
• interacting with another character in a life-or-death situation
• playing fear, anger, injury, effort while still concentrating on the choreography
• staying aware of your environment
• breathing, yelling, speaking your lines while exerting yourself

Don’t Accept Less Than FDC

Learn the foundations of Fight Directors Canada:

• Unarmed combat
• Quarterstaff
• Sword

It’s not just weapons, FDC emphasizes:

• Safety: You need to move with high speed and intensity, without risking any kind of injury.
• Storytelling: It’s not a game, it’s part of the play/movie… learn to incorporate combat into a scene.
• Style: Techniques change based on history and geography. Learn a versatile system.

Fun and Intensive

This is a jump-start program:

• 3 weeks
• Monday-Wednesday-Friday
• 3:30-6:30 5pm-7pm
• Starts July 6 July 13

Convenient

Any actor can do this:

• Afternoons: So you can get to other jobs in the evening, or auditions during the day
• Short duration: You don’t have to plan for 4 months of classes
• Affordable
• Downtown: Getting to Richards and Hastings is so easy

Get in gear, get an advantage over the other actors, get real safety and FDC standards (internationally recognized quality), get to Academie Duello.

Only $499 $250

Register Now – Call 604.568.9907

Drop by Academie Duello 422 Richards St. (upstairs)

The first class is July 13!

ps: Are you auditioning for Bard on the Beach in August? With this workshop on your resume, they’ll know you can handle a sword.

My mentor, Daniel Levinson, has spent the last few months choreographing the stage combat for Julius Caesar at the Stratford Festival. He is also the associate fight director for Macbeth.

The Stratford Festival website recently ran an article about Daniel and his work. It’s a brief look at the ideas that a fight master can bring to a show, and a little about the process of building a fight for a specific production. Here’s a little excerpt from that article:

Stratford Shakespeare Festival – Scene Notes

At its most basic level, the job is to choreograph fight scenes. But to do this effectively you need more than an arsenal of combat skills. You need an actor’s understanding of character, a director’s eye for story and a dancer’s feel for movement.

Go read the whole interview, because Daniel is articulate yet brief in his comments. In every interview I’ve read with him, he has so clearly captured the importance of stage combat and its effective use on stage. There is also great footage of a fight rehearsal embedded on the site. Stratford.ca: “Will ye, like soldiers, come and fight it out?”

I’ve always admired Daniel for his pragmatic approach to every problem and his attention to what really matters. As you read in the interview, and saw in the video, he does not go on at length, but chooses his words well. He also doesn’t cloud the issue, but is always clear yet friendly and very funny.

He’s everything I aspire to be in a teacher and fight director.

Daniel’s website is RapierWit.com, which details the goings-on at his studio, Rapier Wit, located near the corner of Bathurst and Wellington in Toronto.

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YouTube link: David Carradine 2007
The sad news is that David Carradine was found dead in a hotel room yesterday. There is an ongoing investigation and there will be an autopsy, but there is already wild speculation around the web.

Here is a good article that both details his life and the circumstances of his death:

Actor David Carradine Murdered Or Asphyxiation?

If it’s true that he didn’t commit suicide and he wasn’t murdered, then what, an accident? That seems a bit difficult to understand. I mean, how does a curtain cord accidently get taken down and wrapped around the throat of a nude person; unless it is something called the ”choking game”.

In short, he was found in a closet, naked, with a curtain rope tied around his neck. He was in a sitting posture. There were no signs of a break-in or any struggle. There are conflicting reports of whether his hands were tied behind his back or not. There is also no word if there was a suicide note or not.

Those close to him say that although the past couple of years have been hard, and he has been in debt, that he was not suicidal. He had been addicted to alcohol, but was happily drink free for a while. He also had a career slowdown, but he was in Bangkok to shoot a new movie, so being out of work is no argument.

Some have speculated about murder, but absent signs of struggle, it is hard to see how. Remember that there’s always a “why”, the difficult (and more relevant) question in any murder investigation is “how”. Why? Some have mentioned his debts. But that’s irrelevant compared to: How? How do you gain access to a man’s room, subdue him without causing any signs of struggle, then choke him to death and leave without a trace? Consider that compared to the “easier” means of dispatching an enemy.

The article I cited above hits what may be the best hypothesis: erotic asphyxiation. There may or may not have been a partner.

However, let us remember that anything we theorize at this point is pure speculation. We only have brief descriptions of the scene plus his personal history to go on. And any information about his personal life is suspect because he tried to stay out of the tabloids, and anything you read in the media may be sensationalized. So, please wait for the police report and further information before drawing your conclusions.

And let us remember the enigmatic David Carradine for his work and his qualities as a fine human being.

Last Friday, I had the honour of meeting sword master F. Braun McAsh. His claim to fame is the Highlander TV series. And that is how he is introduced by everyone.

Highlander TV SwordMaster

His pledge to the producers was that he would provide an original move or way of using a weapon in every episode. “Original” meaning that the technique would not have been previously seen in film or television. He was also given the artistic freedom to decide on the weapons used in each fight.

He talks about that time, when they filmed an episode every five days, as a fight director’s dream. Always learning and implementing new weapons and styles.

Intimidating By Reputation Only

McAsh is a tremendously nice guy with a strong hand-shake. He smiles a lot and has an avuncular manner that is easy to like. Barrel chested and deep-voiced, it is odd to hear him talking about the book he is writing or the hours he spends in the library doing research. You expect him to be brawling with ruffians. Even to hear him talk about the history of swords is a little unnerving.

He has a deep knowledge of swords, military history, and the use of weapons through time. To understand a particular sword shape and its proper use is intimately tied to the armour used, and both exist in a context. To truly master any individual weapon, Braun recommends researching every aspect of its circumstances. And he exemplifies that advice, a veritable encyclopedia of arms and armour.

Head of the McAsh Clan

Yes, he has a castle or two. We talked about our Scottish ancestry and the fact that he is the eldest of his clan.

Stage Combat and Stunts

We talked for a while about the sad state of stage combat in Vancouver. (More on that in another rant – I mean article). Suffice to say that he echoes a sentiment I’ve heard before: that Vancouver is dominated by stunt coordinators who can get away with injuries and breaking weapons, leaving no room for the safe fight choreographer. He is careful not to cast stones and never mentions names, but can barely contain his contempt for movies that have 300 accident reports.

Sword Research Yields Practical Hilt

At the end of the evening, he showed me his custom hilt with a thumb ring. The image to the right is a thumb-ring on a different sword, just for illustration purposes. The thumb-ring on his side-sword was not a closed loop, but a U-shaped side ring on the thumb side of the hilt. He said that all kinds of cuts are improved by taking advantage of this shape.

I did a couple of moulinets to see what he was talking about. To be able to suspend the sword on the thumb at the bottom of a vertical circle gives a lot of mechanical power to bring it back around the rest of the circle. I was sold.

He theorizes that it developed from the scimitar, and other curved swords used by mounted cavalry. It is most often found in German swords. From its usefulness in completing big circles, one can see how horse riders would love it, but also understand why it fell out of use for infantry. It is useless for thrusting.

Keeping Up

As I alluded to, he is in the middle of writing a book, though computer problems have interrupted his process this week. He is still working on films, and spent this week on set. I met him at Academie Duello, where he organizes their Stage Combat Study Group, and drops in for other classes as often as he is able. Come by on Friday evening for free sparring, and you might meet him yourself.

Why reading a book on a new martial art or stage combat will do very little for you:

The Cone of Learning

This image is from an article called Learn Anything on Litemind.com

Why People Put Down Book Smarts

Learning from a book is often frustrating precisely because it is limited. You know that you can’t fully learn a skill from a book, especially if it is only described in words. Many classic books on slight of hand have few images, they’re all description. It’s up to the illusionist to interpret the words, and work in front of a mirror to achieve their version of the trick.

Fortunately, producing images in books has come a long way since the first magic manuals. New books have lots of pictures and diagrams. But if you’ve tried to learn a complicated skill from a book, such as a martial art, you know that you still need description, because you can’t get a good sense of movement from still pictures.

Video Training

So, knowing that people are frustrated with books, a huge video market has sprung up. This is not just a “money grab” by marketers… learning by video really is better. They teach all kinds of skills by video, even accounting and psychology. And that works because of the learning pyramid: the combo of hearing and seeing (and reading slides if they use that) means that you remember things better, and for a longer time.

The biggest value comes from learning physical skills from a video because you can see the movement. You don’t have to follow picture 1A, 1B, 2, 3… and read the descriptions of each one to get the flow of a technique. You watch the expert and listen to the voiceover simultaneously. What an excellent way to learn!

But that’s not the best way…

Teaching

It has been said that to truly be a master at anything, you must teach it. That’s because you actually learn by teaching. If you’ve never taught your skill to a student, try it. You’ll find that you have to explain things in more than one way to get them to truly understand it. You may have to invent a metaphor by saying “It’s like painting a fence… up, down.” And by trying different approaches, you solidify your own knowledge.

Just Do It

If you like the shiny books, put them into practice with a training partner. Better yet, take a class. Your instructor will be able to correct your form… the book just sits there. Video instruction is obviously better, given this learning theory. Still, the video can’t correct you. Only an expert instructor with a good eye can tell you if you’re doing it properly.

When you think you’ve got a combat skill down pretty good, try simulating a real fight scenario. It will teach you where your skill might be weak, and solidify the motion into your body even better.

Warning:
Never start learning a skill in a high stress situation or when tired. You’ll learn it wrong and teach your body to do it badly. It will be difficult to correct yourself later. When learning a new skill, warm up (not to exhaustion), then slowly perform the movement. If you have a teacher, get corrected on your form before you try to go faster. If you have a book or video, watch yourself in the mirror and see if you match the image. When you think it’s right, go faster. Then do it with a partner slowly. Then faster and controlled. Only after going through these steps should you try to do it “for real”.

This is a fight scene from the movie Serenity, as the fight director designed it.

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YouTube link: Serenity Bar Fight Rehearsal

The stunt woman’s name is Bridget Riley. Chad Stahelski was the stunt coordinator.

The Value of a Fight Director

One thing you notice about this clip that is different from demo reels of most stunt teams is this: editing. A martial artist wants to show off the height of their kicks, their flexibility, their accuracy with a partner, and they set up a camera to best show off their assets for a series of moves. A fight director knows how to use the camera to tell the story as well as capture the correct angles for the strikes. Most martial artists and fencers have no idea how to frame a shot, what camera moves accomplish, or why film is different from a live performance.

Filming Rehearsal

You’ll also note that this is a recording of rehearsals. From the cuts, you know that this wasn’t one long take, but the camera was repositioned for each sequence. In this way, the stunt coordinator can show the director what angles would be best, and how he would direct the scene. The director may disagree, make suggestions or cuts, but at least he can decide before the day of the shoot where the camera should be angled, and where it should move.

Recording your rehearsals the way they will be filmed (in shorter sequences, with the camera moving in an appropriate way) will allow the performers to see where they need to change their particular moves. Shooting on digital and playing back on a large monitor immediately allows the rehearsal to continue with little interruption. Does that kick need to be higher to sell? Does that punch need to be extended? Seeing the recording immediately tells the performer how to improve in a much better way than verbal notes.

Be A Director

Plan your shots. Plan the fight in general shape, then start deciding on moments that you want to show, and decide how to show them. Shooting a “master” with a still camera at a long distance will help you remember the shape of the fight, but should NEVER be used for actual footage.

Once you know each shot, drill them one at a time. You think the Serenity team ever performed that fight from top to bottom? I wasn’t there, but I can pretty much guarantee they didn’t. First of all, look at all the wire work. If they didn’t have people flying the way they did, the fight would be entirely different. Take the cuts as a blessing. A cut allows you to optimize a sequence of one to ten moves in isolation. So isolate them.

Changes

Deal with feedback from the director or the DP before the shoot days. I’ve seen too many arguments on the set. If you film the rehearsal with the angles you think are best, you don’t have to let the director imagine what it will be like.

And if the DP has a way that he thinks will improve it, you can try it in rehearsal rather than having a fight with all your performers waiting around in costume.

A Note to Producers
If your production has a fight scene, it will suck unless you do the following steps:

1. Hire a fight choreographer or a stunt coordinator who has fight experience. Do not hire a martial artist or fencing master to design the fight. They can perform it, but they don’t know angles or storytelling.
2. Allow time and rehearsal space for the fight to be designed and rehearsed before filming.

The following article is based on a the 25 April 2009 episode of Quirks & Quarks on CBC radio.

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), otherwise known as “Ultimate Fighting” is the fastest growing spectator sport on television. Many find it the most exciting thing to watch. Stage combat is often the most engaging part of a night at the theatre. And any observer of current events or the history of the human race can attest that we excel at doing violence to each other. So we perform it, and we enjoy watching it.

Why? Is it biological or cultural?

Do our ancestors share our violent tendencies?

The Violent Time Machine

We can look at chimpanzees to see what our evolutionary forebears would have done. Jane Goodall watched the chimps, and noticed that they had clear territories, and when they got near another tribe’s border, they would shout at each other and occasionally charge, but don’t actually fight very often. So although they intimidated members of other groups, they were relatively peaceful according to these early observations.

By the 1970s, the view of chimps changed. Researchers witnessed a kidnapping of an infant chimp by a neighboring tribe. The baby was murdered, and then brought back to the center of their range. Then in 1974, a small party of chimps invaded the adjacent territory and found a male eating alone. They sneaked up to him and ambushed him, beating him so badly that he died within two days. Further study revealed that this was not a rare behaviour.

Human hunter-gatherer tribes seem to behave in similar ways. It makes sense. The best way for most animals to have healthier lives is to have more food. For territorial animals like chimps and humans, that means expanding territory. In order to do this, the larger males must intimidate or overcome the neighbors. And this leads to a systematic killing of males. Each male killed is a significant shift of power in small tribes.

Have we evolved away from this behaviour?

Bipedalism: Not Just For Walking Anymore

The standard anthropological argument was that we developed bipedalism because it was better for walking on the ground, as compared to using all four limbs in the trees. When it became apparent that we aren’t great walkers, some researchers changed their theories and claimed that humans are optimized for running long distances.

There are no clear advantages to walking or running bipedally for an organism that is already adapted to walking on four legs. Just try to outrun a dog sometime, you’ll quickly find who has the energy advantage. But what makes sense is that if you fight with your fore limbs rather than your mouth, it’s better to be able to balance and move well on two legs.

The longer your legs, the better walker or long-distance runner you are. For examples, look at the olympic champions in the marathon and the walking races. If we were evolving bipedalism in order to walk, we should have evolved longer legs. However, we kept short legs in Australopithecus because walking wasn’t the point: you fight better standing on two short legs.

Modern Humans Can’t Fight

But we don’t look like we’re built to fight. Humans do not have claws or fangs. We’re not as strong as gorillas, or even chimps (pound-for-pound). But we have big palms, big thumbs, and shorter fingers. Good for tool use? Yes, but longer fingers would be better. You know what our proportions are good for? Making a tight fist. Other primates can’t do it. All apes can grasp objects and hold them tightly, but only the human can form a fist to punch with.

But anatomy is versatile, and we can’t infer that any structure was designed for a purpose, only that it evolved and natural selection didn’t find anything better. So what other evidence can we find?

Know Thy Enemy

Most social animals can assess fighting ability in others of the same species without actually fighting. They may dance or display or just observe, and the weaker party walks away. Do humans have the ability to assess fighting ability without fighting? Yes. A recent study demonstrated that subjects who were shown an image of a face only (even the neck was digitally removed), they could accurately rate how strong the person was.

It is likely to be due to the effect of testosterone on the facial structure. High testosterone gives you more muscle mass, more aggression, plus that “caveman” look: big eyebrow ridge, wide jaw. It’s what we try to imitate when we make an angry face. Even people blind from birth make this face when angry: eyebrows flexed downward and together, corners of the mouth down-turned. This pushes more flesh into the areas that would be bigger if you had more testosterone. It’s just like a cobra’s hood, or your dog hunching his shoulders and raising his back-hair. It makes them look scary.

Do our brains work differently than those deadly animals?

Aggression Is Its Own Reward

Mice enjoy punishing other mice. You can make a mouse learn a trick by rewarding them with food. You can also train them to perform the same trick by making the reward an opportunity to attack another male mouse. No extra food, just aggression. They get a feeling of satisfaction from a release of dopamine in the brain when that happens. It’s the reward center of the brain, the same thing happens with heroin.

When men are shown violent videos, they get the same rush of brain chemicals as when they’re shown sexy videos as observed in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). So that means that, like the mouse, adult humans get a dopamine reward and feel pleasure from watching violence just as much as sex.

Recent Developments in Peace

The good news is that things are actually improving in our daily lives. Many people believe that the 20th century has been the bloodiest ever, marked by more wars and more death than ever before. In raw numbers, this is true. However, the proportions of violent deaths has been declining rapidly. Each war has seen fewer casualties.

The best part is that our daily lives are devoid of violence for most of the population. I don’t mean to marginalize those unfortunate people who live in warzones, but the truth is that those that fear for their lives on a daily basis are very few. Not long ago, the human race was living like those chimpanzees: raiding neighboring tribes, and losing fighting men every year. So maybe watching MMA and great stage fights is an acceptable alternative to the human losses we suffered in the past.

Cyril Raffaelli

Here’s a short promo of him:

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Metacafé link: Amazing Stuntman Cyril Raffaelli
Just another parkour nut? The kind of guy who jumps from rooftops, balances on rails, and flips around? He started early, and made a career of it. Gymnastics, martial arts (started with Shotokan Karate, then later Wu Shu), and the guts to be one of those few who decide to climb and jump off of high places before there were freerunning tutorials and videos online.

District 13

Many of you will recognize this stuntman from his most famous role in the film Banlieue 13 (District 13 in English). I know the first year students at George Brown certainly know him from there. But even then, he was overshadowed by the star, David Belle. Belle was the originator of Parkour, and the main reason the film was made. I daresay it was also the reason for its success, since his name drew attention to the film from the growing Parkour community.

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YouTube link: District 13 Casino Fight

Not impressed yet?

I saw him for the first time in Kiss the Dragon, a Jet Li vehicle. He was one of the “twin” bad guys, and their big fight was in an office filled with glass walls and desks. It was the highlight of the movie for me, and the reason it’s on my DVD shelf.

Many talented stuntmen can do the tricks, but can’t design or teach fights. Cyril can do both. I know, I’m making him sound like a real-life Chuck Norris. Did you like the fights in the last Transporter movie? He did that:

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YouTube link: Cyril Raffaelli Transporter Fight

Hamster?

He was also one of the most dynamic bad guys in the last Die Hard movie. Forget the awful martial arts fight in the control room with the girl. Cyril was leaping around pipes, hanging and flipping all over. John Maclaine calls him a hamster. He was underused. As you’ve seen from the previous clips, that’s an understatement:

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YouTube link: Cyril Raffaelli in Die Hard 4

Coming Soon

Looking to the future, fans of Banlieue 13 should know that Cyril is in the sequel: Ultimatum. As with the original, he will also be the fight coordinator. He’s also the fight choreographer for the upcoming Tekken movie. It’s a good year for Cyril, and a great year for martial arts movies because of him.

How many videos can you fit in one post? How about one more: a teaser (in French):
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YouTube link: Banlieue 13 Ultimatum (Teaser)

The famed Broadway and Hollywood casting director reveals everything an actor needs to know to get the part.

When Streisand, Redford, Vereen, Tomlin, Midler and Hoffman got their first breaks, Michael Shurtliff was there.

Michael Shurtleff has been casting director for Broadway shows like Chicago and Becket and for films like The Graduate and Jesus Christ Superstar. His legendary course on auditioning has launched hundreds of successful careers. Now in this book he tells the all-important how for all aspiring actors, from the beginning student of acting to the proven talent trying out for that chance-in-a-million role!

What a book! Yet it’s so simple that you learn without feeling it happen. Thank you, Michael; we needed it. —Joshua Logan

Contents

1. Practical Aspects of the Audition
2. The Twelve Guideposts
   1. Relationship
   2. What Are You Fighting For? Conflict
   3. The Moment Before
   4. Humour
   5. Opposites
   6. Discoveries
   7. Communication and Competition
   8. Importance
   9. Find the Events
   10. Place
   11. Game Playing and Role Playing
   12. Mystery and Secret
3. Consistency
4. Some Things an Actor Needs to Know
5. Monologues, Soliloquies, Style
6. Pace
7. Romance
8. Musical Theatre
9. Comedy
10. Simplicity
11. Observations from a Life in the Theatre

About the Author

Besides working as a casting director with Joshua Logan, Bob Fosse, Tom O’Horgan, Mike Nichols, Jerome Robbins, Gower Champion, Stewart Ostrow, David Merrick, and others, Michael Shurtleff still finds time to write plays and novels, direct films, teach his famous auditioning course, and regularly see at least a dozen plays and films every week. He does as he advises his readers: “Every day, learn. Learn enough so you can do good theatre.”

Click here to buy Audition by Michael Shurtleff