Fight Direction

Storytelling through violence

As actors and directors, we’re storytellers, right? Our art serves to tell a story. All too often however, I see productions that are phenomenal throughout, except that they skimped on the fight direction. This happens all the time; the fight usually takes up a very short amount of time in the production, so it gets overlooked. I can’t STAND this.

My philosophy is simple: a moment of violence is a BIG deal. It MUST tell a story. Think about it, how many interactions do you observe on a daily basis, and how many of those are acts of violence? How many fist fights do you get in each week? How many knife fights? A moment of true violence is the sort of thing that massively changes the relationship between two people forever. Even if, for whatever reason, they’re better friends than they were before, their relationship is different. I believe that a fight should reflect that. If I choreograph a fight where you see two people go in, then come out the other side the same, I didn’t do my job.

Most recently, I have added fight consultation to the list of things I do. I provide medieval combat notes to several authors, including the phenomenal Brandon Sanderson, who brought me on for Rhythm of War, the latest book in his acclaimed Stormlight Archive series. This was a bit of a dream come true, and I was floored when I discovered he had written me into the book as “Fisk,” the captain of the Cobalt Guard (think king’s guard from Game of Thrones.) I find it immensely rewarding to use my expertise to bring authenticity to amazing stories.

BARE KNUCKLE

This footage is a fight I directed with the incomparable Roberto Serrini for The Soul Rebel’s music video for their song “Blow The Horns.” They opted to go more with just the training montage for the final product, but we cut together the fight itself for fun.

BLOW THE HORNS

This new music video by The Soul Rebels speaks to the climb, of working hard towards a goal and never giving up until you hear the horns announcing your victory. For my part, I built the grungy tetanus gym and directed the training montage you see throughout.