It’s Christmas time, and clearly I haven’t made an update to this ol’ blog since, well… the end of August.
This has been due to a number of things – getting swept up in post show depression from "Endless Summer Nights", beginning work on Crystal Skillman’s new Saloon Series play “Killer High”, cleaning the ol’ apartment, sketching various blade shapes, spending some LONG overdue time with family, etc, etc.
Yeah, I have to be honest… I let the “assorted trouble” fall by the wayside here, and if it hadn’t been for a timely email from Tim, that one guy who reads this blog, demanding to know what the hell had happened, I probably wouldn’t have gotten off my ass and updated things. SO! Here’s some random musings and thoughts covering my life since the end of August.
As previously mentioned, I had built the exploding apple rig for Boomerang’s "Venus Observed", which ironically is now residing with trusted friend and MFA graduate student Brian Smallwood at Yale University. Word is, the Yale theater folks want to take a look at the thing and consider how best to improve it’s reliability and effectiveness. Yee-ha, my contributions academia know no bounds. Do I expect to even recognize it in subsequent versions? No, I do not. But if it makes for more compelling staging down the road for folks, that’d be cool.
“Venus Observed”, by the way, in a decidedly late and short winded review, was absolutely charming, and I LOVED it. And speaking as very happily attached fella, I have to admit, much like the Duke in the play, I found myself utterly in love with any and all of the women in this show. My god - how could anyone have seen the show and not wanted to run away with any of them? Because I’m straight, I was less enamored of the dudes, but they too were awesome. For me, "Venus Observed" was a peak of Boomerang’s season, barring of course my own turn as Scotto in “Endless Summer Nights”. I was... awesome? Or something. I had a blast, and ultimately on the level of indie theater, if you’re making yourself happy and folks dig the show, that’s a win in my book. And for the reviewers who found some players too “well mannered” – well, I don’t know what show they were watching.
As a side note, performing a scene with one of my favorites - Nora Hummel - was a highlight. Even if I humor-whored her one night when I biffed on a line and took away a classic joke. I still feel bad about that. But getting to work alongside indie titans like Michael Criscuolo (everything you’ve heard about him is true – he really can fly) Synge Maher (a lady who I would have puppy-dog followed in high school) and recent addition to the nytheatre.com definitive list of awesomeness Becky Byers was sweet. And - relative new comer Brett Hoskins will be a name to watch in the coming years both as a performer and writer.
Plus, the theater had an ancient bowling alley hidden away in the basement, which made for closing night hilarity. Less so for our poor ASM, who overindulged a bit on the whiskey front, but thankfully Synge was there to save the day/night/day.
And then – there was Uncle Vanya. Among my least favorite shows ever, Boomerang’s production was actually a lot of fun to do, purely because everyone involved was a fun bunch with level heads, and big hearts. They kept the show from being a morose exercise in Russian death wishes. You don't often get to have that kind of experience doing Vanya. Also, getting to hang with Alex Engquist (of “3 Boys” fame) and powerhouse SM Stephanie B. on headset knocking out crosswords kept me sane. For the record I was gigging in as “Watchman #1” and I had a sound cue for a dog. Yay.
And then I was done. But not for long. By episode 2, I was into Crystal Skillman’s “Killer High” featuring my lady love as a middle school military brat hell bent on rescuing her kid sister from a gang of 3rd graders intent on killing everyone over the age of 10. It’s sort of like Apocalypse Now with kids. Sort of. Just go with it. And, I gained a new Nemesis, Sarah. She cheez-wizzed me onstage. Vengeance will be mine.
Aside from that, November was about settling in to the slightly slower pace of just working my day job and occasionally only working on side projects, while re-vamping our apartment and re-organizing life. Back to back to back to back and simultaneous shows can leave one a little off-kilter, and I’m still wondering how it got to be December already. “The Vigil…” was successfully published, and now people who read that play have to think of my dumb ass forever since I’ve been immortalized as the guy who played Jan. If the fates allow, perhaps “Vigil” won’t be the only published new play I appeared in during 2010. But I’m not saying anything else, since the writer of that play was very “confidential” about that possibility. Yay.
With regards to fight choreography, I did have a meeting with a playwright and director in November about a possible upcoming gig – but I’ve not heard anything back, leaving me to assume they either didn’t like the flavor of violence I brought to the party, or they’re just waiting to get the project more off the ground. No worries though – now that director John Hurley has returned from a months long sojourn abroad, I’m hoping Impetuous will have something in the works soon I can devote some time to. Whether or not I'm on stage, that is. Not being picky after the 2010 I had. Plus some webisode work on a little sci-fi action may be in the air too.
Then of course, there’s the blade design. I’ve got two knife designs I’m working on, one a real practical fixed blade, customizing a variant of Bram Frank’s Abaniko to be a little more stylized for my grip and the particular habits I’ve developed practicing CSSD SC blade combat. A slightly extended blade length, with a wider spine, a little more bell to the edge, and a handle that’s also swelled and curved to fit in the hand more like the folding LLCs. This is all an experiment of course, as I try to teach myself the basics of good knife making. I probably won’t ever do much more than show it to some friends. If it works. Since I have the utmost respect for both Mr. Frank, and the people who manufacture his designs, I’m not trying to mess with what is already a wonderful thing. I have a feeling that those blades are designed and made the way they are for very good reasons, and I’m just going to make major mistakes so that I can learn exactly why.
The other design I’m tinkering with is a real weird one – inspired by some of the wilder looks I’ve seen in the custom blade magazines and has a real “sci-fi’ feel to it. I want to see how out there I can get while still creating a functional camp knife. For the record, I expect to mostly create a lot of junk. On the other hand, getting some decent steel and making it look really sexy but still just be a prop knife is also on the agenda, so every junker I make can still be salvaged to be a safe prop weapon by rendering it duller than the back of a spoon.
And that brings me back to fight choreography. Just when I had put enough cash aside to perhaps spring for the Vampire Cowboys fight school, Qui Nguyen up and moves to Minnesota. Don’t it just figure. I’ll be watching the Rabid Vamps website for updates on how that will effect their training program, but I still want to see about bringing more toys to their table. They do the classic eastern martial arts really well. But modern tactical and firearm deserves it’s place at the fake fight table too! I still believe that, and getting away from the myth of the unarmed combatant is something a lot of theater could stand to try.
So for 2011, I’m going to be pursuing more and more stage fight work with an eye towards modern weapons, and modern techniques. If you know someone or you are someone who is looking for that kind of mayhem, drop me a line here –
knivesgunsntrouble@gmail.com
P.S. - Hi Uncle Pete.
My dad’s brother reads this now – which is cool. The man knows his weapons and his hunting (he hand loads his own ammunition) so I will be picking his brains about firearms between his travels around the world.
So that was a scatter brained and hard to read update. Expect more regular output here though – I mean it. In the meantime, enjoy your holidays, and be sure to watch the Walking Dead on AMC in re-runs until they do season 2. It was awesome.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Big Gay Dogs and the occasional exploding apple...
The latest show I’ve been working on, “3boys” a new play by the relatively young playwright Becca Schlossberg and produced and performed by a crew of Drew University folks has had it’s opening in the NYC Fringe Festival, and is now more or less done its run. It was a tricky show, but one which allowed me to really test some of my theories about the nature of violence on stage, as well how best to communicate something very specific with that violence. I think it worked.
I’m not going to pretend that the effectiveness with which my stuff is landing (reviews and commentary on the show are glowing) comes solely from my work – that’s unrealistic and silly. Rather this is a deft and sly script directed with a steady hand by the Madeleine Parsigian. We came to an early agreement about the style and meaning behind the movement of three humans pretending to be dogs onstage, and furthermore how to make sure that movement communicated the feelings of anger and denial from barely contained homosexual impulses.
Not being gay or a dog, I was a little unsure of how best to proceed, but she knew first and foremost, dudes romping around on all fours would be dumb. I agreed. Dudes who behaved as humans and evolved into more canine gestures and movement as their “human restraints” break down depending on the emotional charge of a given moment is better. But since dogs bite and throw all their weight around, and humans tend to punch, kick and use tools (and their thumbs) meant we had to find ways to safely keep these actors from knocking each others teeth out on each other and the floor.
I had to first choreograph this in my head as humans would fight it out, and define very clearly the emotional impulse that was the impetus for each movement. Once I had defined what the impulse was for one character and then the impulse for an opposite character’s reaction, I had to define how a dog reacts to the same stimulus, and then how to translate that back to a human. Finally I had to split the difference and make it safe, replicable, and cool to view. A tricky and risky plan, since if the fighting looked too human it wouldn’t work and if it looked like people playing “dog” it would take away from the impact of each moment.
After long hours of watching dogs and wolves attack various things on video and a few tumbles with a dog being trained to find cadavers and guard against humans, I came up with some cool stuff, and I was able to get our actors to understand where this was coming from, what it could mean and how to do it safely. I’ve been rewarded on this particular project by a lot of good reviews, and a lot of good feedback from peers. I’m calling it a win.
If there’s any kind of supernatural force guiding the path of the righteously good theater experience, 3boys will see some more action somewhere down the line, or at least the production team that brought it to life will get the chance to explore more work with profit and exuberance.
Next up I’m appearing in “Endless Summer Nights” with Boomerang opening in mid September, and while this hack of a playwright (Hi Tim! – Tim, for the non Tim readers, is a director, writer of the play and the man behind Boomerang Theater Company) couldn’t be bothered to craft a single solitary moment of violence in his otherwise touching and humorous look at a couple on opposite ends of a strange continuum, I’ve been given the chance to design a special effect for another show running as part of the same repertory season, “Venus Observed.” At some point in that show one character shoots an apple held in the hand of another. Sooo… I got to make the rig that makes the apple explode as if shot.
A quick youtube search will show you lots of high speed camera footage of apples being impacted by bullets. You’ll notice that the apples seem to virtually explode. A high velocity projectile, even the relatively low mass of a bullet transfers a ton of energy to it’s target upon impact. In the real world the primary cavity bored by the bullet, is next to invisible as the shock waves are transmitted through the apple. Almost instantly, the skin of the apple ruptures as the interior of the apple is pulverized and turned into liquid secondary projectile sprayed in almost all directions.
Yummy.
However, as you can guess, there isn’t much I can do to safely and repeatedly detonate an apple onstage, in an actor’s hand, both without covering everyone in a 15 foot radius in apple goo, and also potentially harming the actor with flying chunks of high speed material. I opted for an effect that is a little less realistic, but is safer and gets the point across. By prepping the actor with a C02 charge and the appropriate fittings, and pre-setting a bored and cored apple on stage, the C02 charge can be triggered simultaneously with the “gunshot” and the apple explodes leaving the apple in the actors hand (also containing the fitting) and spraying “apple shrapnel” in two directions, to actor’s left and right, clear of himself and depending on how big we want the effect to be onstage, leaving a massive hole blasted through the center of the apple. Safe, repeatable and actor controlled. Compressed air to the rescue folks, once again. Come see the Boomerang rep season beginning on the 11th of September. An exploding apple in “Venus Observed”, me acting in “Endless Summer Nights” and hey why the hell not, since I don’t like to be bored, I’ll just pop up once or twice in “Uncle Vanya” too.
Lest you think I’m done after this, so far I’ve got tentative plans to appear once more in the Vampire Cowboys monthly Saloon, courtesy of writer Crystal Skillman as she crafts another wacky adventure. From what I hear, it’ll be a fun one. Beyond that – my horizons are clear for now. Just in time to begin forging prop knives over the winter courtesy of lessons learned from Wayne Goddard’s “$50 Knife Shop.”
I’m not going to pretend that the effectiveness with which my stuff is landing (reviews and commentary on the show are glowing) comes solely from my work – that’s unrealistic and silly. Rather this is a deft and sly script directed with a steady hand by the Madeleine Parsigian. We came to an early agreement about the style and meaning behind the movement of three humans pretending to be dogs onstage, and furthermore how to make sure that movement communicated the feelings of anger and denial from barely contained homosexual impulses.
Not being gay or a dog, I was a little unsure of how best to proceed, but she knew first and foremost, dudes romping around on all fours would be dumb. I agreed. Dudes who behaved as humans and evolved into more canine gestures and movement as their “human restraints” break down depending on the emotional charge of a given moment is better. But since dogs bite and throw all their weight around, and humans tend to punch, kick and use tools (and their thumbs) meant we had to find ways to safely keep these actors from knocking each others teeth out on each other and the floor.
I had to first choreograph this in my head as humans would fight it out, and define very clearly the emotional impulse that was the impetus for each movement. Once I had defined what the impulse was for one character and then the impulse for an opposite character’s reaction, I had to define how a dog reacts to the same stimulus, and then how to translate that back to a human. Finally I had to split the difference and make it safe, replicable, and cool to view. A tricky and risky plan, since if the fighting looked too human it wouldn’t work and if it looked like people playing “dog” it would take away from the impact of each moment.
After long hours of watching dogs and wolves attack various things on video and a few tumbles with a dog being trained to find cadavers and guard against humans, I came up with some cool stuff, and I was able to get our actors to understand where this was coming from, what it could mean and how to do it safely. I’ve been rewarded on this particular project by a lot of good reviews, and a lot of good feedback from peers. I’m calling it a win.
If there’s any kind of supernatural force guiding the path of the righteously good theater experience, 3boys will see some more action somewhere down the line, or at least the production team that brought it to life will get the chance to explore more work with profit and exuberance.
Next up I’m appearing in “Endless Summer Nights” with Boomerang opening in mid September, and while this hack of a playwright (Hi Tim! – Tim, for the non Tim readers, is a director, writer of the play and the man behind Boomerang Theater Company) couldn’t be bothered to craft a single solitary moment of violence in his otherwise touching and humorous look at a couple on opposite ends of a strange continuum, I’ve been given the chance to design a special effect for another show running as part of the same repertory season, “Venus Observed.” At some point in that show one character shoots an apple held in the hand of another. Sooo… I got to make the rig that makes the apple explode as if shot.
A quick youtube search will show you lots of high speed camera footage of apples being impacted by bullets. You’ll notice that the apples seem to virtually explode. A high velocity projectile, even the relatively low mass of a bullet transfers a ton of energy to it’s target upon impact. In the real world the primary cavity bored by the bullet, is next to invisible as the shock waves are transmitted through the apple. Almost instantly, the skin of the apple ruptures as the interior of the apple is pulverized and turned into liquid secondary projectile sprayed in almost all directions.
Yummy.
However, as you can guess, there isn’t much I can do to safely and repeatedly detonate an apple onstage, in an actor’s hand, both without covering everyone in a 15 foot radius in apple goo, and also potentially harming the actor with flying chunks of high speed material. I opted for an effect that is a little less realistic, but is safer and gets the point across. By prepping the actor with a C02 charge and the appropriate fittings, and pre-setting a bored and cored apple on stage, the C02 charge can be triggered simultaneously with the “gunshot” and the apple explodes leaving the apple in the actors hand (also containing the fitting) and spraying “apple shrapnel” in two directions, to actor’s left and right, clear of himself and depending on how big we want the effect to be onstage, leaving a massive hole blasted through the center of the apple. Safe, repeatable and actor controlled. Compressed air to the rescue folks, once again. Come see the Boomerang rep season beginning on the 11th of September. An exploding apple in “Venus Observed”, me acting in “Endless Summer Nights” and hey why the hell not, since I don’t like to be bored, I’ll just pop up once or twice in “Uncle Vanya” too.
Lest you think I’m done after this, so far I’ve got tentative plans to appear once more in the Vampire Cowboys monthly Saloon, courtesy of writer Crystal Skillman as she crafts another wacky adventure. From what I hear, it’ll be a fun one. Beyond that – my horizons are clear for now. Just in time to begin forging prop knives over the winter courtesy of lessons learned from Wayne Goddard’s “$50 Knife Shop.”
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Ideal Husband is done...
While this is essentially my fight choreography forum, I did want to mention that we've completed an all too brief run of Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband" after an elongated yet strangely underwhelming rehearsal process. In the end we came across with a suitable production of the piece, but I was left wondering about some of the choices - always an uncomfortable feeling when one is performing in the show one is questioning.
That said, I worked with some old friends, new friends, and was exposed to some folks who really knocked my socks off with regards to talent. A learning experience all around, and a fun one. But, how does this relate to my fight choregraphy?
I now have a very clear idea of what feeling adrift without usable guidance in critical moments can feel like. It's an experience I suppose I've been very fortunate to have missed out on in the last 12 years of performing in and around NYC. As a fight choregrapher I've resolved to insure that no performers I'm working with ever have that feeling. Especially since if it was that disconcerting when the most rigorous physical action involved changing my pants, I don't want to put performers through a fight where every move isn't justified and cleanly worked if I can help it.
Which brings me to 3boys, coming soon at the NYC Fringe Festival. It's actually an excellent script, by Becca Schlossberg, and I think provokes some interesting questions on the nature of our relationships to man's best friends. With the plethora of options available to see I do hope folks make it out to see this show. It's well worth the effort!
That said, I worked with some old friends, new friends, and was exposed to some folks who really knocked my socks off with regards to talent. A learning experience all around, and a fun one. But, how does this relate to my fight choregraphy?
I now have a very clear idea of what feeling adrift without usable guidance in critical moments can feel like. It's an experience I suppose I've been very fortunate to have missed out on in the last 12 years of performing in and around NYC. As a fight choregrapher I've resolved to insure that no performers I'm working with ever have that feeling. Especially since if it was that disconcerting when the most rigorous physical action involved changing my pants, I don't want to put performers through a fight where every move isn't justified and cleanly worked if I can help it.
Which brings me to 3boys, coming soon at the NYC Fringe Festival. It's actually an excellent script, by Becca Schlossberg, and I think provokes some interesting questions on the nature of our relationships to man's best friends. With the plethora of options available to see I do hope folks make it out to see this show. It's well worth the effort!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Running on Overdive...
I have become faced with a particularly interesting problem. Actually doing all this theater and fight/special effects work when coupled with a day job and a desire to actually spend some quality time with friends and loved ones highly limits one’s ability to write on one’s own blog about the aforementioned theater and fight/special effects work. I’ll spare you my thoughts on my day job except that to say that the film “Office Space” remains oddly timely and relevant to my life in ways that are too numerous to discourse upon.
But as promised, I wanted to talk about Hack! During the earlier “Saloon Series” runs of the episodes, rehearsal times were limited, as was the actual performance. However once the run at the Brick for the Too Soon Festival commenced (and was extended for additional shows!) there was ample time to rework the fight, and really get comfortable with it as performers.
As I also mentioned earlier, I feel victim to one of my own greatest pet peeves – I choreographed a fight that was cool, but had very little to do with the tone of the play, and was somewhat disconnected from the characters. Without the extremely knowledgeable eyes of director John Hurley to reign things back to where they’d serve the play, I’d have been exactly those people I get so annoyed about watching. But I digress, and I’ll cover that later.
Initially a whirlwind of close quarters arnis and eskrima style fighting, it took John pulling me aside and asking if I could do something a little more “spaghetti western” to get me to take a closer look at what I was doing. Sure it was gritty, and given enough rehearsal it might have approximated something close to the Bourne Identity movies in it’s intensity, but honestly, that was NOT was Hack! was about.
After some brief rethinking, and going back to the source material, the fight became something far more comical and “western-y”. On the one hand, this is something I really don’t like to do – make violence silly, or “cool” – but on the other hand, making a fight very grounded in reality when the ENTIRE SHOW was so far from anything like that is as bad a choice as say, a realistic style world where the fighters are suddenly proficient martial artists out of nowhere. More on that in moment.
As a result, the Hack! fight was very broad, very goofy, and full of huge whiffing roundhouse punches. Replete with the steadying hand on your target, punches were thrown that spun characters around in a 180 degree turns and yet somehow were simple and easy to recover from. The bad guys were sent packing and the heroes marched on. It was violence (comic violence) but violence for violence’s sake. Exactly what a bad spaghetti western features rather often. A lot of fun, and it came out well. I did still manage to toss in a few of my favorites moves, because hey, why not, but mostly things were silly.
I mention the fighting being grounded in the world of play here however because I wanted to mention a show I saw recently – James Comtois’ “The Little One.” A play about vampires, the script featured an abundance of differing philosophies from apex predator characters on how to deal with relating to humans and each other. I had some opinions on the direction and pace of the play, but since I’m not really a director, I try to keep those to myself. There were some things I’d have done differently, and there were some incredibly creative things I wouldn’t have come up with in a million years. This is just to say that I’m not taking a stand on direction and pace beyond my general enjoyment of the play and my appreciation for the work everyone did.
I did have one major problem with the play – and it’s a problem I have with Qui Nguyen’s fight direction. Much of what I saw seemed so similar to his work in “Fight Girl Battle World” and other work he’s done that I was kind of turned off. Much of the fighting seemed to be unfounded in the reality of the play. By way of example – when the nimble young lady who played the eponymous “Little One”, was attacked and turned into a vampire, she struggled, attempting to fend off the vampire who was turning her more or less for kicks and was unsuccessful – she was NOT a fighter. A matter of days (or nights) later she was tasked with fighting several vampires at once. Suddenly, she displayed a level of proficiency in martial arts that was distracting to say the least. I was willing to accept super human speed, strength and agility (such as live theater permits regarding style) but her fighting style was identical to everyone around her.
The fights were based in the style of fighting that Qui Nguyen knows and has trained his actors in. There was not much regard to a character’s given circumstances. Or perhaps not enough for me anyway. Every combatant fought the same way, and it was rather hollow to me. This is not to say that Qui Nguyen is not an exemplary fight choreographer, and has a skill set that is the envy of many a stage combatant, but rather to underscore a need that I think exists for fight choreographers to grapple more with the psychology of the character, and the overall tone of the play.
Again, no weapons (at least not for the vampires) and Nosedive's “gore factor” rumored to be highly proficient was disappointing. I’ve done work that was far nastier myself with 24 hours notice for comedy sketch teams. Random side story there, but thanks to LA’s The Midnight Show for being a great gang of gamers and willing to compromise! I had high expectations for “The Little One” - perhaps too high. Regardless, I found myself (and other audience members) tuning out of what should have been intensely important moments in Nosedive’s play.
Now, why all this yammering? Can I back this up? I hope so.
As I wrap up working on being a British Lord in Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband” – yay for wit and accents - I am turning my attentions to fight choreography for Becca Schlossberg’s “3boys” directed by Madeleine Parsigian for the NY Fringe Festival. A play about three dogs, there a few moments of genuine violence in the show as the alpha and his “pack” come to terms with their existence as pets. Will there be arnis? No. Eskrima? No. Kung Fu? No. Kenpo? No. Tai Kwon Do? No.
Dogs don’t fight that way, like humans. Dogs fight like dogs. My challenge is to get three actors to move like people moving like dogs. Dogs throw their entire weight and bite. HARD. I need to get actors to do this safely and repetitively with their scene partners. I can’t have the lads biting each other, but I need to find a way that the audience understands that a given grapple and throw is about as close as we can get to humans clamping down, dragging, and shaking an enemy with their non-existent muzzles. Can I do it? I think I really can. I think what I’ve cooked up so far is going to be pretty outstanding actually – but we’ll see what these actors are comfortable with and go from there.
Oh and by the way – I did more than a little research for it. Beyond watching tons of video on dogs and wolves taking down prey, I had the good/bad fortune to be face to face with Luke – an 80 pound Dutch Shepherd pup being trained by NJFA Chief Instructor Lateif Dickerson. After spending some time down at Ft. Dix in central NJ blasting away at targets with an AR-15 for my latest rifle class, we got to play a bit with Chief Latief’s newest pup. Luke is being raised to perform as a cadaver dog for searches, but he’s also being trained as a guard. Luke is an impressive dog. Nothing gives you a better appreciation of what he can do than letting him do his thing.
By the way – I’ve passed my level 1 rifle certification and I’m just waiting on the paperwork! So, I’m handy with pistols, basic rifles (the SOCOMII is just so damned cool) and I’m looking forward to shotguns next. I don’t have any targets to show time time out though next time I’ll be ready with a zoom lens. After 100 yards, my target looks like a small white square and you can’t really see a damned thing.
But as promised, I wanted to talk about Hack! During the earlier “Saloon Series” runs of the episodes, rehearsal times were limited, as was the actual performance. However once the run at the Brick for the Too Soon Festival commenced (and was extended for additional shows!) there was ample time to rework the fight, and really get comfortable with it as performers.
As I also mentioned earlier, I feel victim to one of my own greatest pet peeves – I choreographed a fight that was cool, but had very little to do with the tone of the play, and was somewhat disconnected from the characters. Without the extremely knowledgeable eyes of director John Hurley to reign things back to where they’d serve the play, I’d have been exactly those people I get so annoyed about watching. But I digress, and I’ll cover that later.
Initially a whirlwind of close quarters arnis and eskrima style fighting, it took John pulling me aside and asking if I could do something a little more “spaghetti western” to get me to take a closer look at what I was doing. Sure it was gritty, and given enough rehearsal it might have approximated something close to the Bourne Identity movies in it’s intensity, but honestly, that was NOT was Hack! was about.
After some brief rethinking, and going back to the source material, the fight became something far more comical and “western-y”. On the one hand, this is something I really don’t like to do – make violence silly, or “cool” – but on the other hand, making a fight very grounded in reality when the ENTIRE SHOW was so far from anything like that is as bad a choice as say, a realistic style world where the fighters are suddenly proficient martial artists out of nowhere. More on that in moment.
As a result, the Hack! fight was very broad, very goofy, and full of huge whiffing roundhouse punches. Replete with the steadying hand on your target, punches were thrown that spun characters around in a 180 degree turns and yet somehow were simple and easy to recover from. The bad guys were sent packing and the heroes marched on. It was violence (comic violence) but violence for violence’s sake. Exactly what a bad spaghetti western features rather often. A lot of fun, and it came out well. I did still manage to toss in a few of my favorites moves, because hey, why not, but mostly things were silly.
I mention the fighting being grounded in the world of play here however because I wanted to mention a show I saw recently – James Comtois’ “The Little One.” A play about vampires, the script featured an abundance of differing philosophies from apex predator characters on how to deal with relating to humans and each other. I had some opinions on the direction and pace of the play, but since I’m not really a director, I try to keep those to myself. There were some things I’d have done differently, and there were some incredibly creative things I wouldn’t have come up with in a million years. This is just to say that I’m not taking a stand on direction and pace beyond my general enjoyment of the play and my appreciation for the work everyone did.
I did have one major problem with the play – and it’s a problem I have with Qui Nguyen’s fight direction. Much of what I saw seemed so similar to his work in “Fight Girl Battle World” and other work he’s done that I was kind of turned off. Much of the fighting seemed to be unfounded in the reality of the play. By way of example – when the nimble young lady who played the eponymous “Little One”, was attacked and turned into a vampire, she struggled, attempting to fend off the vampire who was turning her more or less for kicks and was unsuccessful – she was NOT a fighter. A matter of days (or nights) later she was tasked with fighting several vampires at once. Suddenly, she displayed a level of proficiency in martial arts that was distracting to say the least. I was willing to accept super human speed, strength and agility (such as live theater permits regarding style) but her fighting style was identical to everyone around her.
The fights were based in the style of fighting that Qui Nguyen knows and has trained his actors in. There was not much regard to a character’s given circumstances. Or perhaps not enough for me anyway. Every combatant fought the same way, and it was rather hollow to me. This is not to say that Qui Nguyen is not an exemplary fight choreographer, and has a skill set that is the envy of many a stage combatant, but rather to underscore a need that I think exists for fight choreographers to grapple more with the psychology of the character, and the overall tone of the play.
Again, no weapons (at least not for the vampires) and Nosedive's “gore factor” rumored to be highly proficient was disappointing. I’ve done work that was far nastier myself with 24 hours notice for comedy sketch teams. Random side story there, but thanks to LA’s The Midnight Show for being a great gang of gamers and willing to compromise! I had high expectations for “The Little One” - perhaps too high. Regardless, I found myself (and other audience members) tuning out of what should have been intensely important moments in Nosedive’s play.
Now, why all this yammering? Can I back this up? I hope so.
As I wrap up working on being a British Lord in Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband” – yay for wit and accents - I am turning my attentions to fight choreography for Becca Schlossberg’s “3boys” directed by Madeleine Parsigian for the NY Fringe Festival. A play about three dogs, there a few moments of genuine violence in the show as the alpha and his “pack” come to terms with their existence as pets. Will there be arnis? No. Eskrima? No. Kung Fu? No. Kenpo? No. Tai Kwon Do? No.
Dogs don’t fight that way, like humans. Dogs fight like dogs. My challenge is to get three actors to move like people moving like dogs. Dogs throw their entire weight and bite. HARD. I need to get actors to do this safely and repetitively with their scene partners. I can’t have the lads biting each other, but I need to find a way that the audience understands that a given grapple and throw is about as close as we can get to humans clamping down, dragging, and shaking an enemy with their non-existent muzzles. Can I do it? I think I really can. I think what I’ve cooked up so far is going to be pretty outstanding actually – but we’ll see what these actors are comfortable with and go from there.
Oh and by the way – I did more than a little research for it. Beyond watching tons of video on dogs and wolves taking down prey, I had the good/bad fortune to be face to face with Luke – an 80 pound Dutch Shepherd pup being trained by NJFA Chief Instructor Lateif Dickerson. After spending some time down at Ft. Dix in central NJ blasting away at targets with an AR-15 for my latest rifle class, we got to play a bit with Chief Latief’s newest pup. Luke is being raised to perform as a cadaver dog for searches, but he’s also being trained as a guard. Luke is an impressive dog. Nothing gives you a better appreciation of what he can do than letting him do his thing.
By the way – I’ve passed my level 1 rifle certification and I’m just waiting on the paperwork! So, I’m handy with pistols, basic rifles (the SOCOMII is just so damned cool) and I’m looking forward to shotguns next. I don’t have any targets to show time time out though next time I’ll be ready with a zoom lens. After 100 yards, my target looks like a small white square and you can’t really see a damned thing.
Friday, June 18, 2010
I got rather busier than I intended...
Hello, there you - occasional reader of my musings on theater, combat, and stage choreography...
So, Hack is nearing the end of it's official 5 show run (woo-ee... 5 shows...) but it appears because this little show has been packed and is the best reviewed, best seller of the festival, we'll be doing a few more nights... possibly the 20th (this Sunday) and the 27th.
Since I last wrote here, the fight that takes place in HACK was somewhat altered. Director John Hurley noted that all of this fast modern combat stuff I was cooking up was neat-o... but not... well... western-y.
Duh.
A day later I was back at rehearsal with some more bar-room brawling type activities (upping the unrealistic is always easier as opposed to making things more truthful). The end result has been very well received, for it's camp factor and it's extremely spaghetti western feel. Also, one of my favorite moments is getting huge response and true to form, I set it up so that I could watch the whole thing and enjoy it. Since the show isn't over yet, I'm not spoiling anything by writing out the fight map yet. But I'll post it up soon.
For now though, it's wrapping "HACK!" for the time being, getting "Ideal Husband" up, and really digging into the dogfighting for "3boys" a Fringe show I'll be fight working later this summer.
On a side note, friend and former roomie Lori Prince reports that her show "Killing Women" went well enough closing a successful run at Theater Row, and was herself pleasantly surprised at her ability to load and ready a replica Colt M1911 .45 without looking at it. I'm not saying it's because I showed her how to do it, but I'm not saying it wasn't that either.
And finally, just to be clear on something. Whenever I think I'm bad-ass enough, I can always count on my friend and teacher Mike Stone to school me. He killed a fly buzzing around his room by shooting it with a paintball fired from a compound bow. When the zombie apocalypse comes, I know people will want to stick with me, but I'm headed to his house.
So, Hack is nearing the end of it's official 5 show run (woo-ee... 5 shows...) but it appears because this little show has been packed and is the best reviewed, best seller of the festival, we'll be doing a few more nights... possibly the 20th (this Sunday) and the 27th.
Since I last wrote here, the fight that takes place in HACK was somewhat altered. Director John Hurley noted that all of this fast modern combat stuff I was cooking up was neat-o... but not... well... western-y.
Duh.
A day later I was back at rehearsal with some more bar-room brawling type activities (upping the unrealistic is always easier as opposed to making things more truthful). The end result has been very well received, for it's camp factor and it's extremely spaghetti western feel. Also, one of my favorite moments is getting huge response and true to form, I set it up so that I could watch the whole thing and enjoy it. Since the show isn't over yet, I'm not spoiling anything by writing out the fight map yet. But I'll post it up soon.
For now though, it's wrapping "HACK!" for the time being, getting "Ideal Husband" up, and really digging into the dogfighting for "3boys" a Fringe show I'll be fight working later this summer.
On a side note, friend and former roomie Lori Prince reports that her show "Killing Women" went well enough closing a successful run at Theater Row, and was herself pleasantly surprised at her ability to load and ready a replica Colt M1911 .45 without looking at it. I'm not saying it's because I showed her how to do it, but I'm not saying it wasn't that either.
And finally, just to be clear on something. Whenever I think I'm bad-ass enough, I can always count on my friend and teacher Mike Stone to school me. He killed a fly buzzing around his room by shooting it with a paintball fired from a compound bow. When the zombie apocalypse comes, I know people will want to stick with me, but I'm headed to his house.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Concerning Hack and the concept of comical fighting...
We're chugging along in rehearsals for Hack, which to be perfectly honest is more about hanging around with a bunch of really cool funny people while we also do our work. I love being in this show. It's funny. Over the top melodrama at it's most campy - simple moments become the goofiest things just by virtue of the fact that we have to make choices as actors that are decidedly NOT good acting. It's actually a little trickier than it looks, but it does work.
As mentioned in previous posts, there's a fairly tight bit of fighting that needs to happen in Episode 4, and while I was happy for the most part with how it went down last winter, we had only a truncated rehearsal process and couldn't quite get things to where I wanted them to be. Safety first of course, so it was a little sloppy and distant looking.
This time we've got some more time under our belts so the fight sequence is actually changing a lot. Because the rest of the show is SOOOOO distant from anything approaching a grounded and real world, the fighting is becoming a bit more comical. While I don't want to push into the full realm of spaghetti western bar room brawling, I'm adding new stuff that takes it into the silly. The attacks and their defenses are still pretty real looking stuff, however when those hits land, these characters are able to stoically continue onwards in the fight where a real person would be pretty disabled. I've added in a touch of kung-fu and jiu jitsu, mostly for a few throws and a shoulder dislocation, and ironically, the final moments of the fight sequence are less of a piece of combat and more of a "Darth Vader" choke out. I'm really looking forward to that.
Last night I also began the work of getting our "Soldier" a pivotal character - the little ten year old psychotic up to speed with two handed blade weaving, using a bit of Filipino sinwali. She's picked it up quite quickly thankfully, and we've even managed to throw in a dash of Flamenco dance posture. Because hey, martial arts are cool, but martial arts presented as a dance are funny. There's no strikes using the techniques, it's more her just getting herself prepped to interrogate another character. Where that moment goes is actually pretty damned goofy, but then... that's Hack! for you.
But there you have it. I also begin rehearsals tonight for "Ideal Husband" which features not a whit of combat, but will feature a lot of rambling British dialects. That one goes up in July, so keep your eyes and ears peeled for news on that one.
Oh and I'm disappearing for the next week - the lady-type and I are going to rest up on a tropical island for the next 7 days so I'm off the grid while I explore all that a small Caribbean island has to offer. So far, I'm thinking beaches, snorkeling, hiking in the jungle and rum. LOTS of rum. I'll post again when I'm back and can sober up.
Welcome to summer 2010, folks. It's going to be a good one.
As mentioned in previous posts, there's a fairly tight bit of fighting that needs to happen in Episode 4, and while I was happy for the most part with how it went down last winter, we had only a truncated rehearsal process and couldn't quite get things to where I wanted them to be. Safety first of course, so it was a little sloppy and distant looking.
This time we've got some more time under our belts so the fight sequence is actually changing a lot. Because the rest of the show is SOOOOO distant from anything approaching a grounded and real world, the fighting is becoming a bit more comical. While I don't want to push into the full realm of spaghetti western bar room brawling, I'm adding new stuff that takes it into the silly. The attacks and their defenses are still pretty real looking stuff, however when those hits land, these characters are able to stoically continue onwards in the fight where a real person would be pretty disabled. I've added in a touch of kung-fu and jiu jitsu, mostly for a few throws and a shoulder dislocation, and ironically, the final moments of the fight sequence are less of a piece of combat and more of a "Darth Vader" choke out. I'm really looking forward to that.
Last night I also began the work of getting our "Soldier" a pivotal character - the little ten year old psychotic up to speed with two handed blade weaving, using a bit of Filipino sinwali. She's picked it up quite quickly thankfully, and we've even managed to throw in a dash of Flamenco dance posture. Because hey, martial arts are cool, but martial arts presented as a dance are funny. There's no strikes using the techniques, it's more her just getting herself prepped to interrogate another character. Where that moment goes is actually pretty damned goofy, but then... that's Hack! for you.
But there you have it. I also begin rehearsals tonight for "Ideal Husband" which features not a whit of combat, but will feature a lot of rambling British dialects. That one goes up in July, so keep your eyes and ears peeled for news on that one.
Oh and I'm disappearing for the next week - the lady-type and I are going to rest up on a tropical island for the next 7 days so I'm off the grid while I explore all that a small Caribbean island has to offer. So far, I'm thinking beaches, snorkeling, hiking in the jungle and rum. LOTS of rum. I'll post again when I'm back and can sober up.
Welcome to summer 2010, folks. It's going to be a good one.
Monday, May 10, 2010
A valuable lesson learned...
Now that "The Vigil or The Guided Cradle" has closed, I can talk a little shop...
First off, I have a natural paranoia about scenic elements which I've kept in check now for several productions. I tend to second guess people's work. I guess it's an OK habit, especially since I usually keep my comments to myself and try to test to destruction on my own time. Then again, I sometimes assume everything is kosher when it may not be. Let's face it folks, if MY alarm bells are going off about something it probably bears taking a closer look.
Before I begin, I want to be clear, our designer (and ultimately the prop master and TD as it bears out) put together one hell of a set. It looked cool, and handled rather well over the run. She did it literally on such a tight budget, that it's astonishing she got anything done, let alone what we had, which was awesome.
So, I'm not attacking anyone. But here's the thing about the Vigil. While it was a set piece, it also functioned perfectly well as an actual medieval torture device. I came to discover this over the course of the run. If you think you can tough it out for 15 minutes, as long as you get a break, be sure you can tough it out if you DON'T get a break. Otherwise you'll discover exactly what you're made of come closing night when the curtain that was hung with hooks designed to support the load of a plastic shower curtain finally fails, leaving you unable to extricate yourself from said torture device without totally killing the moment for the audience.
So, I had to man up, so to speak, and learned that for the future, I'm going to to test everything to destruction, so I don't have to experience prolonged discomfort like that again. I was never in danger, mind you, just uncomfortable. And if it can be avoided, it's something to work for.
As it turns out, I'm made of stern enough stuff that it wasn't a problem to stay in the Vigil, which surprised the shit out of me, I'll tell you. If you had asked me in April if I thought I could have pulled that off, I'd have said no.
Very early in the run I noticed the hooks on the curtain were stressing and failing, but pulled a ladder out only once to take a look for myself and make an adjsutment. Then I said, "well, I'm sure they'll be fine." Even though I should have either kicked up enough fuss to the producers, or just taken matters into my own hands and bought better hooks.
Serves me right.
Other things I've learned - I'm still trying to find just the right mix of color to viscosity to cost-per-effect in the blood work. We certainly got the most bang for the buck on the stabbing effects mentioned in previous posts - but I was only 85% happy with it. With a little money and time invested I think I can develop a good washable stage blood that is non-toxic, and viscous enough to run correctly. (too watery and it begins to look "Kool-Aid-y", too much stage blood and it's too gelatinous).
Since I have a small amount left, I'm thinking about seeing how certain opaque liquids - like soy milk for instance reacts to stage blood and vice versa. It won't taste good, I know that, because soy juice is nasty, but there is something about the rich opacity of blood fluids that I just haven't found in a stage blood yet.
Fine I'm being a nit-picky chump. But I really want to get this right for next time. One never knows.
But anyway, I'm letting the character of poor Jan go to his well deserved rest, courtesy of "Ipp. O. Lito" and his neck snapping power grip. Which by way, went well most nights. The ol' uncooked noodle in the mouth for a good neck break sound always gets 'em. Or almost always.
Now, back to Hack. Cal the Gunslinger rides again.
First off, I have a natural paranoia about scenic elements which I've kept in check now for several productions. I tend to second guess people's work. I guess it's an OK habit, especially since I usually keep my comments to myself and try to test to destruction on my own time. Then again, I sometimes assume everything is kosher when it may not be. Let's face it folks, if MY alarm bells are going off about something it probably bears taking a closer look.
Before I begin, I want to be clear, our designer (and ultimately the prop master and TD as it bears out) put together one hell of a set. It looked cool, and handled rather well over the run. She did it literally on such a tight budget, that it's astonishing she got anything done, let alone what we had, which was awesome.
So, I'm not attacking anyone. But here's the thing about the Vigil. While it was a set piece, it also functioned perfectly well as an actual medieval torture device. I came to discover this over the course of the run. If you think you can tough it out for 15 minutes, as long as you get a break, be sure you can tough it out if you DON'T get a break. Otherwise you'll discover exactly what you're made of come closing night when the curtain that was hung with hooks designed to support the load of a plastic shower curtain finally fails, leaving you unable to extricate yourself from said torture device without totally killing the moment for the audience.
So, I had to man up, so to speak, and learned that for the future, I'm going to to test everything to destruction, so I don't have to experience prolonged discomfort like that again. I was never in danger, mind you, just uncomfortable. And if it can be avoided, it's something to work for.
As it turns out, I'm made of stern enough stuff that it wasn't a problem to stay in the Vigil, which surprised the shit out of me, I'll tell you. If you had asked me in April if I thought I could have pulled that off, I'd have said no.
Very early in the run I noticed the hooks on the curtain were stressing and failing, but pulled a ladder out only once to take a look for myself and make an adjsutment. Then I said, "well, I'm sure they'll be fine." Even though I should have either kicked up enough fuss to the producers, or just taken matters into my own hands and bought better hooks.
Serves me right.
Other things I've learned - I'm still trying to find just the right mix of color to viscosity to cost-per-effect in the blood work. We certainly got the most bang for the buck on the stabbing effects mentioned in previous posts - but I was only 85% happy with it. With a little money and time invested I think I can develop a good washable stage blood that is non-toxic, and viscous enough to run correctly. (too watery and it begins to look "Kool-Aid-y", too much stage blood and it's too gelatinous).
Since I have a small amount left, I'm thinking about seeing how certain opaque liquids - like soy milk for instance reacts to stage blood and vice versa. It won't taste good, I know that, because soy juice is nasty, but there is something about the rich opacity of blood fluids that I just haven't found in a stage blood yet.
Fine I'm being a nit-picky chump. But I really want to get this right for next time. One never knows.
But anyway, I'm letting the character of poor Jan go to his well deserved rest, courtesy of "Ipp. O. Lito" and his neck snapping power grip. Which by way, went well most nights. The ol' uncooked noodle in the mouth for a good neck break sound always gets 'em. Or almost always.
Now, back to Hack. Cal the Gunslinger rides again.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Opening weekend opened. I opine.
Here on the safe side of opening weekend of “The Vigil or The Guided Cradle” I’m ensconced in my little cubicle world, reflecting on it all. It was quite a busy weekend, all in all and one of my better ones lately in a lot of ways. First off, the show has been rather well received, and the audiences are grasping Crystal Skillman’s message adroitly, a sure compliment to her work, as well as John Hurley’s, who throughout the all too brief rehearsal process was able to distill the already rich mixture of Crystal’s play into a tight 75-80 minute adventure through the best and worst of a slice of human psyche. No easy task, I’m sure.
After now working with these folks for a month I’m still pretty much of the opinion that I have blundered into the cast through a happy accident. I’m not saying I’m not any good at this acting thing, but rather the cast is eerily good. Not a show went by this weekend where the following thoughts didn’t blast through my skull…
1. The hair on my arms stands up every time Dion says that thing about “The one your father is holding down is my brother. He’s the red in the photograph.”
2. Christian as Ippolito is terrifying. I have no idea how I’m consistently staring into that guy’s face without wetting myself.
3. Vinnie pulls off arrogant clever torturer so well, you’d think he actually was an arrogant clever torturer. Ka-boom.
4. Travis York is funny. Also creepy. But mostly funny. That’s skills.
5. I didn’t know Pappas could be as scary as Christian. Try letting him hold a knife to your throat and give you that snarky smile sometime.
6. Susan’s ability to play casual fun and then minutes later be terrified for her life is uncanny.
7. 5 tense guys backstage right before a show goes up is a situation that inevitably lends itself to fart humor.
So the reviews we’ve gotten so far are positive, and I’m still chuckling over the fact that Martin Denton called my performance “heroic.” That’s not an adjective I ever expected to see aligned with my name unless there was a negative modifier in there somewhere, but I’ll take the compliment because hey – a good review is a good review, and I like Martin Denton’s thoughts. Even when they aren’t so favorable.
In the midst of all this torturing tomfoolery I went in and auditioned for “An Ideal Husband” on Saturday morning, and as luck would have it, I’ve managed to snake a plum role in an Oscar Wilde play… so this July I’ll be slick and debonair as Lord Goring, a role I’ve always wanted to tackle simply because it’s hilarious, and despite it’s overtly misogynistic outlook on the roles of women in society, as a period piece, it’s a damned funny one.
And lastly, I might have a line on a little fight choreography work this August – but as I don’t quite have the details just yet, I’m keeping mum.
And of course, we got the show dates for HACK! Coming to you tentatively June 10th, 12th, 13th, 16th and 19th… but that may be revised.
For now, I’m just hoping to keep myself in good health and rest up before I have to hang from the Vigil again on Thursday night. Come see this show. It’s a doozy.
After now working with these folks for a month I’m still pretty much of the opinion that I have blundered into the cast through a happy accident. I’m not saying I’m not any good at this acting thing, but rather the cast is eerily good. Not a show went by this weekend where the following thoughts didn’t blast through my skull…
1. The hair on my arms stands up every time Dion says that thing about “The one your father is holding down is my brother. He’s the red in the photograph.”
2. Christian as Ippolito is terrifying. I have no idea how I’m consistently staring into that guy’s face without wetting myself.
3. Vinnie pulls off arrogant clever torturer so well, you’d think he actually was an arrogant clever torturer. Ka-boom.
4. Travis York is funny. Also creepy. But mostly funny. That’s skills.
5. I didn’t know Pappas could be as scary as Christian. Try letting him hold a knife to your throat and give you that snarky smile sometime.
6. Susan’s ability to play casual fun and then minutes later be terrified for her life is uncanny.
7. 5 tense guys backstage right before a show goes up is a situation that inevitably lends itself to fart humor.
So the reviews we’ve gotten so far are positive, and I’m still chuckling over the fact that Martin Denton called my performance “heroic.” That’s not an adjective I ever expected to see aligned with my name unless there was a negative modifier in there somewhere, but I’ll take the compliment because hey – a good review is a good review, and I like Martin Denton’s thoughts. Even when they aren’t so favorable.
In the midst of all this torturing tomfoolery I went in and auditioned for “An Ideal Husband” on Saturday morning, and as luck would have it, I’ve managed to snake a plum role in an Oscar Wilde play… so this July I’ll be slick and debonair as Lord Goring, a role I’ve always wanted to tackle simply because it’s hilarious, and despite it’s overtly misogynistic outlook on the roles of women in society, as a period piece, it’s a damned funny one.
And lastly, I might have a line on a little fight choreography work this August – but as I don’t quite have the details just yet, I’m keeping mum.
And of course, we got the show dates for HACK! Coming to you tentatively June 10th, 12th, 13th, 16th and 19th… but that may be revised.
For now, I’m just hoping to keep myself in good health and rest up before I have to hang from the Vigil again on Thursday night. Come see this show. It’s a doozy.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
And we're heading into tech...
Hey you, dedicated reader of my little blargh. (Again, that's vomit speak for blog.) Tonight begins the all too brief period of TECH for Vigil, and I think we're in a great place as far as the show goes. I'll be able to issue more informed commentary tomorrow once we've done the thing in the space, and have gone for real with the effects and make up. I'll try to snag a few pics of the set and some of the effects, but don't count on it. This will likely prove to be a long night, and I don't know how much time I'll have for snapping pictures with the ol' camera phone.
But if you haven't already been bombarded by emails and various other marketing... meh, I'll skip it. Just go to www.impetuoustheater.org and check out the site. It has all the details on getting tickets and seeing the show.
Now I'm aware that you, reader of my rambling commentary, are probably already coming to see The Vigil or The Guided Cradle. But if you're on the fence, allow me to issue the following statement: It's a great show. It's not an easy show, it's not light or fluffy or something you go see for laugh riot. But I do really believe in it.
Come see the show, then come have a beer with me. I want to know people's honest thoughts on something like this - and if the conversation is good, I may buy that beer for you.
But if you haven't already been bombarded by emails and various other marketing... meh, I'll skip it. Just go to www.impetuoustheater.org and check out the site. It has all the details on getting tickets and seeing the show.
Now I'm aware that you, reader of my rambling commentary, are probably already coming to see The Vigil or The Guided Cradle. But if you're on the fence, allow me to issue the following statement: It's a great show. It's not an easy show, it's not light or fluffy or something you go see for laugh riot. But I do really believe in it.
Come see the show, then come have a beer with me. I want to know people's honest thoughts on something like this - and if the conversation is good, I may buy that beer for you.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The first (successful) make up test
So I took some research time and dug around the interwebs for some trauma photos and came up with this as a make up effect for myself for "Vigil."
I'm particularly pleased with how I've managed to make my nose look out of place. Travis and Vinny (two of the cast members of Vigil) will be so happy with what they've done to me.
By the way, don't google image search various terms for injuries if you've got a weak stomach. Yech.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Umm, You've Got Some... Umm... Blood On Your...
I don't want to spoil anything from the upcoming production of "The Vigil or The Guided Cradle" so... spoiler alert.
OK. You were warned.
Ben Linus has the real Maltese Falcon, lives on Shutter Island, has been dead the whole time, and his real name is Kaiser Soze.
Anyway...
So, there are a couple of stabbings in this show, and I'm having a good time with them, even though I'm not the attacker or the victim. Though frankly, my character is plenty messed up without having to be stabbed. At least, he doesn't get stabbed onstage - he’s been beaten to mush offstage already. Onstage, he’s just strung up over a spike. It's not a pleasant or discomfort free stretch of time for me. But it will look cool.
Now - the stabbings - yay for realistic bladed violence - one is less than deadly, but is really painful looking - one of the characters gets a fork driven through his hand. At lunch, of all times. If that doesn't put you off your roast chicken, I don't know what will. I'm using the plastic baggie blood bomb method and it is proving to be effective. Palmed in the assailant's weapon hand, and ruptured at the moment of impact, apparently spiking the victim’s hand to a table. There's a real gory spurt though the attacker’s clenched fist and based on the water test we ran last night, it'll be a nasty looking moment. I’m reserving final judgment to see if we need anything more, but we should be OK.
The other one I’m working on requires substantially more finesse, though the two actors are game and easy to work with so far, which is a treat. I’m finding though, that some actors try to go fast when mapping out a bit – and I’m still not sure why. Perhaps it’s a desire to impose an emotional truth on the moment as soon as possible. Mostly I’m just encouraging/demanding of them to GO SLOWLY.
One of the characters, in a feigned moment of intimacy is able to stab another in the neck with a knife. We’ve been using one of the Lapu Lapu trainers in rehearsal, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the tool make it all the way to production – it just works, looks vicious and is safe. The strike to the neck is upstage of the audience, so we’re well clear of contact and the victim takes control of the dulled blade, holding it “in” his neck, because as we all don't know, puncture wounds become exponentially more dangerous when the foreign object is removed from the wound.
I wanted the initial contact to be bloodless at first, so the audience has a moment to absorb the shock of the impact. The next step is for the victim to bite down on a blood capsule or two in the mouth and begin coughing up some blood. We now know it’s serious. The victim then “removes” the prop weapon from the neck, at the same time bursting the blood bomb held in the hand (covering the wound site). Because the wounds comes to the carotid and jugular vessels in the neck (sure it’s a lucky hit, but that’s show biz) it bleeds profusely and loss of consciousness comes show biz quickly, due to shock. The victim then collapses across a bed, further bleeding out onto the floor. I’m trying to rig a system into the “bed” itself to allow blood flow to drip onto the floor, sparing the actor costume as much as I can, but I’ll keep working on how that will work exactly.
It’s coming along well. I’ll be posting some shots of the effects as I can get them, so don't be weirded out if suddenly there's a pic of me looking like hell up here.
OK. You were warned.
Ben Linus has the real Maltese Falcon, lives on Shutter Island, has been dead the whole time, and his real name is Kaiser Soze.
Anyway...
So, there are a couple of stabbings in this show, and I'm having a good time with them, even though I'm not the attacker or the victim. Though frankly, my character is plenty messed up without having to be stabbed. At least, he doesn't get stabbed onstage - he’s been beaten to mush offstage already. Onstage, he’s just strung up over a spike. It's not a pleasant or discomfort free stretch of time for me. But it will look cool.
Now - the stabbings - yay for realistic bladed violence - one is less than deadly, but is really painful looking - one of the characters gets a fork driven through his hand. At lunch, of all times. If that doesn't put you off your roast chicken, I don't know what will. I'm using the plastic baggie blood bomb method and it is proving to be effective. Palmed in the assailant's weapon hand, and ruptured at the moment of impact, apparently spiking the victim’s hand to a table. There's a real gory spurt though the attacker’s clenched fist and based on the water test we ran last night, it'll be a nasty looking moment. I’m reserving final judgment to see if we need anything more, but we should be OK.
The other one I’m working on requires substantially more finesse, though the two actors are game and easy to work with so far, which is a treat. I’m finding though, that some actors try to go fast when mapping out a bit – and I’m still not sure why. Perhaps it’s a desire to impose an emotional truth on the moment as soon as possible. Mostly I’m just encouraging/demanding of them to GO SLOWLY.
One of the characters, in a feigned moment of intimacy is able to stab another in the neck with a knife. We’ve been using one of the Lapu Lapu trainers in rehearsal, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the tool make it all the way to production – it just works, looks vicious and is safe. The strike to the neck is upstage of the audience, so we’re well clear of contact and the victim takes control of the dulled blade, holding it “in” his neck, because as we all don't know, puncture wounds become exponentially more dangerous when the foreign object is removed from the wound.
I wanted the initial contact to be bloodless at first, so the audience has a moment to absorb the shock of the impact. The next step is for the victim to bite down on a blood capsule or two in the mouth and begin coughing up some blood. We now know it’s serious. The victim then “removes” the prop weapon from the neck, at the same time bursting the blood bomb held in the hand (covering the wound site). Because the wounds comes to the carotid and jugular vessels in the neck (sure it’s a lucky hit, but that’s show biz) it bleeds profusely and loss of consciousness comes show biz quickly, due to shock. The victim then collapses across a bed, further bleeding out onto the floor. I’m trying to rig a system into the “bed” itself to allow blood flow to drip onto the floor, sparing the actor costume as much as I can, but I’ll keep working on how that will work exactly.
It’s coming along well. I’ll be posting some shots of the effects as I can get them, so don't be weirded out if suddenly there's a pic of me looking like hell up here.
Friday, April 2, 2010
A parenthetical moment...
I recently was hit up on the Facebook by someone I don't know, asking me about knife throwing lessons - particularly where she could take them. I was recommended to her by an old friend. Cool. But...
It may seem odd, but I really have no idea where toget knife throwing lessons. What knife throwing skills I have are purely self taught "game" skills. Why? Because throwing a knife is a showy thing, rather than a practical application in a combative moment. Even if I have several throwers on my person, chucking one at a moving target in a hostile situation is about as good as handing an opponent another weapon to use against me.
The chances of scoring a hit that would actually stop an attacker are virtually zero. We'd be talking about a throw that plants a knife into the attacker's chest, either penetrating the ribcage(which is hard enough when you're holding the knife) causing serious damage to the heart, or somehow delivering a powerhouse throw into the solar plexus to drop them. I don't know anyone with the strength to deliver a few ounces of metal with sufficient force to cause a target to drop from it.
Of course, I could throw the knife at the head or neck of the attacker, but again we're talking about years of practice to hit a moving target the size of the human eye. The skull is thick. Tough. The neck less so, but... extremely hard to hit.
Missing these tiny targets by an inch means I may have a wounded attacker, sure, but still an attacker capable of directing purposeful action against me. Except now they're angrier and now have my knife. If I totally missed, well that's one less weapon I have to use now.
In the pretend world of movies and comics, knife throwing is a showy, bad ass way to cooly take out your opponent. In the real world, it's a giant waste of time. Unless like darts, it's a game - wicked fun, but still tricky and dangerous since throwing knives that don't strike on point tend to bounce off the target in really unpredictable ways.
In the pretend world of stage combat, I just can't see a way to throw a "knife" at an actor that is reliably safe, unless both the thrower and "target" actors are both very experienced throwers and stunt people and the blade is little more than an unsharpened piece of lightweight material incapable of causing serious harm.
As far game or sport knife throwing for the casual learner (because, yes there are people who've practiced for years and years and could probably successfully go hunting with a set of throwers) the only advice I have is that throwing a knife is not in fact, "all in the wrist" but rather more in the shoulder. Flick your wrist and you could end up over rotating the point and strike the target with the unsharpened sides or grip. Practice, practice practice. Outside. From 20-25 feet away.
Me, I'll focus on dodging the slow moving projectile and then locking or cutting my opponent into submission.
It may seem odd, but I really have no idea where toget knife throwing lessons. What knife throwing skills I have are purely self taught "game" skills. Why? Because throwing a knife is a showy thing, rather than a practical application in a combative moment. Even if I have several throwers on my person, chucking one at a moving target in a hostile situation is about as good as handing an opponent another weapon to use against me.
The chances of scoring a hit that would actually stop an attacker are virtually zero. We'd be talking about a throw that plants a knife into the attacker's chest, either penetrating the ribcage(which is hard enough when you're holding the knife) causing serious damage to the heart, or somehow delivering a powerhouse throw into the solar plexus to drop them. I don't know anyone with the strength to deliver a few ounces of metal with sufficient force to cause a target to drop from it.
Of course, I could throw the knife at the head or neck of the attacker, but again we're talking about years of practice to hit a moving target the size of the human eye. The skull is thick. Tough. The neck less so, but... extremely hard to hit.
Missing these tiny targets by an inch means I may have a wounded attacker, sure, but still an attacker capable of directing purposeful action against me. Except now they're angrier and now have my knife. If I totally missed, well that's one less weapon I have to use now.
In the pretend world of movies and comics, knife throwing is a showy, bad ass way to cooly take out your opponent. In the real world, it's a giant waste of time. Unless like darts, it's a game - wicked fun, but still tricky and dangerous since throwing knives that don't strike on point tend to bounce off the target in really unpredictable ways.
In the pretend world of stage combat, I just can't see a way to throw a "knife" at an actor that is reliably safe, unless both the thrower and "target" actors are both very experienced throwers and stunt people and the blade is little more than an unsharpened piece of lightweight material incapable of causing serious harm.
As far game or sport knife throwing for the casual learner (because, yes there are people who've practiced for years and years and could probably successfully go hunting with a set of throwers) the only advice I have is that throwing a knife is not in fact, "all in the wrist" but rather more in the shoulder. Flick your wrist and you could end up over rotating the point and strike the target with the unsharpened sides or grip. Practice, practice practice. Outside. From 20-25 feet away.
Me, I'll focus on dodging the slow moving projectile and then locking or cutting my opponent into submission.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Seriously. I just got really booked.
Yes yes, it's April Fools Day, yes, yes, I'm a master of comedy. Now I'll tell you what's going on...
First off, rehearsals for "The Vigil or the Guided Cradle" are trucking along - it's a tough piece, and so far I'm having a blast with it. I haven't yet been able to climb into the aforementioned device, but I have a feeling by the time the run is over, I'll really be hating that thing. Which is I suppose, a normal attitude towards a 15th century mechanism for causing pain.
I'm also getting to learn a bit about Crystal Skillman's process as a writer - and how open she is to working with director John Hurley is really great. I've worked with writers who are convinced of their own genius and extremely resistant to change a scene. Actually, I may be describing myself when I write, but that's besides the point. It's really becoming an ensemble piece in the best sense of the word as a creepy moment has now gone into truly horrific, just by changing a few little things. I will not spoil it... but... the implied violence and feeling that we are seconds away from something that is straight up EVIL creates some very good theater.
And if that weren't enough - today I also received word that I'm going to be hanging around the Brick theater over in Brooklyn a lot in the next few months.
Why you ask?
Well I'll tell you. I blarhgged (which is my way of saying blogged - sounds more like hurking up something) a lot about "Hack." It was fun, silly, and regrettably over in January. Or so we thought...
The Brick's Too Soon Festival has selected Crystal's "Hack - The Live DVD Experience" to run for 5 shows, which means that we do the entire show in one night, 5 times over. A fully staged version also means I get to expand and rehearse the fights exponentially more - and we've got much higher production value than slapping this together at the Battle Ranch of the VC (who are unsurprisingly running a show called "Alice in Slasherland" at the moment. I haven't caught it yet, but I hear things).
Oh and lastly, anyone who's known me for at least two years can probably testify that I was mightily displeased with what went down at the "Mock the Classics" fundraiser in April of 2008. So displeased was I, that a formal challenge to one of the producers was issued. Dawn-ish in June of 2008 I shot the man and continued my undefeated streak of redressing wrongs on the field of honor with paintball pistols.
I vowed to never to do such an event again as well, it was so... distressing.
Except I am doing it again. I'm referee-ing the event, and this time... woe to any audience member who displeases me, or endangers a performer. Yes, this time I won't be the one getting screamed at, pelted and generally abused. This time, I get to bounce audience chumps.
And I've been needing a workout. I'm sadisitically looking forward to it.
First off, rehearsals for "The Vigil or the Guided Cradle" are trucking along - it's a tough piece, and so far I'm having a blast with it. I haven't yet been able to climb into the aforementioned device, but I have a feeling by the time the run is over, I'll really be hating that thing. Which is I suppose, a normal attitude towards a 15th century mechanism for causing pain.
I'm also getting to learn a bit about Crystal Skillman's process as a writer - and how open she is to working with director John Hurley is really great. I've worked with writers who are convinced of their own genius and extremely resistant to change a scene. Actually, I may be describing myself when I write, but that's besides the point. It's really becoming an ensemble piece in the best sense of the word as a creepy moment has now gone into truly horrific, just by changing a few little things. I will not spoil it... but... the implied violence and feeling that we are seconds away from something that is straight up EVIL creates some very good theater.
And if that weren't enough - today I also received word that I'm going to be hanging around the Brick theater over in Brooklyn a lot in the next few months.
Why you ask?
Well I'll tell you. I blarhgged (which is my way of saying blogged - sounds more like hurking up something) a lot about "Hack." It was fun, silly, and regrettably over in January. Or so we thought...
The Brick's Too Soon Festival has selected Crystal's "Hack - The Live DVD Experience" to run for 5 shows, which means that we do the entire show in one night, 5 times over. A fully staged version also means I get to expand and rehearse the fights exponentially more - and we've got much higher production value than slapping this together at the Battle Ranch of the VC (who are unsurprisingly running a show called "Alice in Slasherland" at the moment. I haven't caught it yet, but I hear things).
Oh and lastly, anyone who's known me for at least two years can probably testify that I was mightily displeased with what went down at the "Mock the Classics" fundraiser in April of 2008. So displeased was I, that a formal challenge to one of the producers was issued. Dawn-ish in June of 2008 I shot the man and continued my undefeated streak of redressing wrongs on the field of honor with paintball pistols.
I vowed to never to do such an event again as well, it was so... distressing.
Except I am doing it again. I'm referee-ing the event, and this time... woe to any audience member who displeases me, or endangers a performer. Yes, this time I won't be the one getting screamed at, pelted and generally abused. This time, I get to bounce audience chumps.
And I've been needing a workout. I'm sadisitically looking forward to it.
Friday, March 19, 2010
The difference a month makes…
In the interminable doldrums of February, I was more or less mucking about with new tools and trying to translate my knowledge of CSSD SC into a rapidly learnable choreography system (which is going quite well – and has the added benefit of being more or less an intro to the actual fighting system). Now a month later, I find myself hip deep in projects, and more prospective work to come.
First up, this weekend I’ll be appearing in (and in Hoboken NJ of all places) a very short comedic piece by a favorite writer of mine, Janet Zarecor, called “Jerk Circle.” No fighting, but as it’s a comedy scene about a misogynistic doctor’s office, there is a fair bit of ball grabbing. Yep. No need to go back, I wrote “ball grabbing.” I have no idea where this is happening though, so… assuming I actually get to the show, I don’t know if anyone will see it. Which is sad, because it’s really funny.
Later in early April, I’ll be turning up in another short comedy piece “A Cold Reading” by C.L. Weatherstone (a fellow “12th Night of the Living Dead” and “Hack” veteran) – essentially he’s created a fart joke in 10 pages. High class, no. But hilarious? Yes. And while I’m not above a fart joke, I do try to stay on the side of good taste. So, we’ll be fart joking for charity. You can donate here.
Again, no combat – but worth mentioning. As we get closer to show date, I’ll post up more information.
Some friends over at kef productions are potentially putting up Marisa Wegrzyn’s “Killing Women” – this looks like it will be a fun one. More comedic than not, it features a fair amount of gun play. With any luck they’ll select me and buddy Bri-Guy to supply them with their stage props, and the basics on realistic firearm usage. I think we made a very competitive bid on the gig. And frankly, even if we don’t get it, I’m still looking forward to it. I’ve yet to see them produce a loser – and the version of the script I read was very, very cool.
Now, on personal level, the big news is that I was cast in the Impetuous Theater Group’s spring production – Crystal Skillman’s “The Vigil or The Guided Cradle.” First off, I’ve got a great role, which is shocking considering the level of talent who showed up for the audition. I must have done one hell of read – I’m now working alongside some truly awesome people. Helmed by none other than John “Dirty” Hurley, this one is not a comedy. “Vigil” is perhaps best summed up by the phrase on the poster… “A play about torture between now and then.” There is a lot of violence in this one, and suffice to say, this piece is very close to my heart, mostly because this isn’t violence for exploitation’s sake. Stabbings, Inquisitional torture methods, at least one suffocation all feature prominently in the action. I'm playing a 15th century terrorist, sleep deprived and not long for this world.
I love it. I’m hoping that I’ll also get to exercise some of my effects skills to pull off some of the more disturbing moments, as well as having to work my acting chops a bit. I haven’t done a show this serious in a long time, and while I don’t think I’ll have any trouble with the role, it won’t be a fart joke in the park. I’ll be posting more regularly as rehearsals go – and here’s hoping I can ride the wave of good fortune forward through the summer.
That is, if I don’t find a new job and move to the Virgin Islands. Which would be pretty sweet.
First up, this weekend I’ll be appearing in (and in Hoboken NJ of all places) a very short comedic piece by a favorite writer of mine, Janet Zarecor, called “Jerk Circle.” No fighting, but as it’s a comedy scene about a misogynistic doctor’s office, there is a fair bit of ball grabbing. Yep. No need to go back, I wrote “ball grabbing.” I have no idea where this is happening though, so… assuming I actually get to the show, I don’t know if anyone will see it. Which is sad, because it’s really funny.
Later in early April, I’ll be turning up in another short comedy piece “A Cold Reading” by C.L. Weatherstone (a fellow “12th Night of the Living Dead” and “Hack” veteran) – essentially he’s created a fart joke in 10 pages. High class, no. But hilarious? Yes. And while I’m not above a fart joke, I do try to stay on the side of good taste. So, we’ll be fart joking for charity. You can donate here.
Again, no combat – but worth mentioning. As we get closer to show date, I’ll post up more information.
Some friends over at kef productions are potentially putting up Marisa Wegrzyn’s “Killing Women” – this looks like it will be a fun one. More comedic than not, it features a fair amount of gun play. With any luck they’ll select me and buddy Bri-Guy to supply them with their stage props, and the basics on realistic firearm usage. I think we made a very competitive bid on the gig. And frankly, even if we don’t get it, I’m still looking forward to it. I’ve yet to see them produce a loser – and the version of the script I read was very, very cool.
Now, on personal level, the big news is that I was cast in the Impetuous Theater Group’s spring production – Crystal Skillman’s “The Vigil or The Guided Cradle.” First off, I’ve got a great role, which is shocking considering the level of talent who showed up for the audition. I must have done one hell of read – I’m now working alongside some truly awesome people. Helmed by none other than John “Dirty” Hurley, this one is not a comedy. “Vigil” is perhaps best summed up by the phrase on the poster… “A play about torture between now and then.” There is a lot of violence in this one, and suffice to say, this piece is very close to my heart, mostly because this isn’t violence for exploitation’s sake. Stabbings, Inquisitional torture methods, at least one suffocation all feature prominently in the action. I'm playing a 15th century terrorist, sleep deprived and not long for this world.
I love it. I’m hoping that I’ll also get to exercise some of my effects skills to pull off some of the more disturbing moments, as well as having to work my acting chops a bit. I haven’t done a show this serious in a long time, and while I don’t think I’ll have any trouble with the role, it won’t be a fart joke in the park. I’ll be posting more regularly as rehearsals go – and here’s hoping I can ride the wave of good fortune forward through the summer.
That is, if I don’t find a new job and move to the Virgin Islands. Which would be pretty sweet.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Direct from Germany...
There's always a fun and exciting feeling I get when a medium sized box comes to my desk with a return post label on it that reads, "CheruskerMesser Stiegeweb 36e D-49565 Bramsche." It's a sure sign that whatever is in that box is going to be cool.
Today's special delivery comes from Dirk, who made my day by letting me know he could offer me a hell of a deal and a steal when the Desangut did not go into production. Basically, they sent me four pieces for the price of two.
Instead of going hogwild for more blades (which was very tempting) I opted to grab some trainers. Three of them, individually boxed, shiny with that newly forged steel smell. For my fourth piece, I selected an LLC CRMIPT or Close Range Medium Impact Tool. That's pronounced "crimped". I guess it sounds better than "krrmm-ipped"
While much of my training involves using a much larger blade than anyone who wishes to stay on the right side of the law would carry such as the Abaniko, I primarily train with (and carry) the Lapu Lapu Corto. The Abaniko has a cutting edge that is anywhere between 5 to 7 inches depending on the model, and the Lapu Lapu Corto has a cutting edge less of less than 4 inches, in accordance with NYC law.
To be even more specific, I don't carry a live blade on my person. Even though the law may be on my side with a small blade like that, experience has taught me that most NYPD don't seem to give a damn about any actual laws if it means they can score an arrest.
For the last few years, I've carried a training drone on me. It couldn't effectively cut much of anything, but is still useful if you know how to use it. It's also great as a prop weapon. It looks like a knife, but isn't.
However one might need something more, and police especially are on shaky ground with any blades they carry and might use. If they defend themselves against an aggressor by using a blade, they are open to a host of problems - lawsuits and questions about the appropriateness of using an edged weapon to control a dangerous situation. (Silly, I know. Don't attack a cop. They have directives and stuff.)
Enter the CRMIPT - the same weight, material and shape as the live blade and training drone, but somewhere in between. Instead of a cutting edge, it has a roughened surface of mild serrations. The CRMIPT can't cut, but it does cause pain. Pain, but not serious damage. This means the user can defend themselves, and control a suspect using the same techniques as one would use with a live balde all without cutting said aggressor into whacko tar-tar.
Here's the three types, the drone up top in red, the CRMIPT in the middle in blue, and the live blade on the bottom.
You can't see from this shot those rough serrated edges on the CRMIPT, but trust me, they're there.
Even better, the CRMIPT is available for civilian purchase, and since it's not a live blade, it stays on the happy side of the law. That doesn't mean I can go flashing it around in public, but it does mean a more effective tool for defending myself in the highly unlikely situation that I need to. After all, my number one key to beating an attacker is: don't be where you'll get attacked.
Unless of course that attack is scripted, choreographed and for an audience. In that case, I won't be using a CRMIPT on an actor.
Today's special delivery comes from Dirk, who made my day by letting me know he could offer me a hell of a deal and a steal when the Desangut did not go into production. Basically, they sent me four pieces for the price of two.
Instead of going hogwild for more blades (which was very tempting) I opted to grab some trainers. Three of them, individually boxed, shiny with that newly forged steel smell. For my fourth piece, I selected an LLC CRMIPT or Close Range Medium Impact Tool. That's pronounced "crimped". I guess it sounds better than "krrmm-ipped"
While much of my training involves using a much larger blade than anyone who wishes to stay on the right side of the law would carry such as the Abaniko, I primarily train with (and carry) the Lapu Lapu Corto. The Abaniko has a cutting edge that is anywhere between 5 to 7 inches depending on the model, and the Lapu Lapu Corto has a cutting edge less of less than 4 inches, in accordance with NYC law.
To be even more specific, I don't carry a live blade on my person. Even though the law may be on my side with a small blade like that, experience has taught me that most NYPD don't seem to give a damn about any actual laws if it means they can score an arrest.
For the last few years, I've carried a training drone on me. It couldn't effectively cut much of anything, but is still useful if you know how to use it. It's also great as a prop weapon. It looks like a knife, but isn't.
However one might need something more, and police especially are on shaky ground with any blades they carry and might use. If they defend themselves against an aggressor by using a blade, they are open to a host of problems - lawsuits and questions about the appropriateness of using an edged weapon to control a dangerous situation. (Silly, I know. Don't attack a cop. They have directives and stuff.)
Enter the CRMIPT - the same weight, material and shape as the live blade and training drone, but somewhere in between. Instead of a cutting edge, it has a roughened surface of mild serrations. The CRMIPT can't cut, but it does cause pain. Pain, but not serious damage. This means the user can defend themselves, and control a suspect using the same techniques as one would use with a live balde all without cutting said aggressor into whacko tar-tar.
Here's the three types, the drone up top in red, the CRMIPT in the middle in blue, and the live blade on the bottom.
You can't see from this shot those rough serrated edges on the CRMIPT, but trust me, they're there.
Even better, the CRMIPT is available for civilian purchase, and since it's not a live blade, it stays on the happy side of the law. That doesn't mean I can go flashing it around in public, but it does mean a more effective tool for defending myself in the highly unlikely situation that I need to. After all, my number one key to beating an attacker is: don't be where you'll get attacked.
Unless of course that attack is scripted, choreographed and for an audience. In that case, I won't be using a CRMIPT on an actor.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Quality and Time...
I thought it might be worthwhile to comment on the difficulty in staging an excellent piece of violent action without time to rehearse it.
In my experience - outside of professional environments, there are a great many directors who cast roles without much regard to an actors level of experience with combat, yet they ask that the performer learn a combination or sequence for a fight in very little time and perform it with expertise, realistic aplomb, and safety.
I hereby issue this plea to directors and producers everywhere: if you desire to have any staged violence in your show, be prepared to pay for it. It may cost some actual money to produce, but aside from the monetary factor, you must be prepared to pay for it in the currency of Time.
It may seem nigh impossible in the restricted rehearsal time allotted to independent theater production to devote hours of rehearsal time to what is essentially a few seconds, or minutes of action as part of a much greater whole, but here are some excellent reasons why the time is worth it...
1. Safety. Safety, safety, safety. The more complicated the sequence is, the easier it can be for performers to make mistakes. Even the most simple single punch or slap can go wrong if it isn't rehearsed! Factor in close quarters, various weapons, or props and mistakes can and will occur. Adequate rehearsal time will help reduce or eliminate the potential of those mistakes.
2. Professionalism. Actors are simply (to take a horribly un-artistic stance for a second) walking and talking most of the time. Yet we rehearse the walking and talking stuff for hours on end. Most of us walk and talk quite a bit in our daily lives and have a resonably strong familiarity with walking and talking. Many of us do not however have a working familiarity with striking other people, or discharging weapons at them. Devote a modicum of time to allow your actors to bring as much of their craft to the combat as possible. I HATE watching actors turn into bleary eyed automatons during a fight scene.
3. Quality. Any fight director/choreographer can map out an easy sequence and your actors can perform it. The more time that is allotted to build the moment however, means more interesting combat. It's a lot like comedy. Old jokes we all know just aren't that funny. Staged combat can go from blase to compelling by keeping things original or by putting new spins on familiar moves.
4. Philosophy. The combat might last 5 seconds but remember, in many cases this is a pivotal moment in these character's lives. The character(s) have chosen or been forced into using physical action over words. The next few seconds can redefine how the audience perceives the character for the rest of the show. Don't throw away a moment like that. The world's most boring character can become mysterious or amazing, loved or hated depending on how the combat happens. Yes, much of this is defined by the script, but there could be room for flexibility. By way of example, for those Lost fans out there, think back to the scene with Ben Linus leaving the island and appearing in Tunisia. Sure, he made short work of those guys who showed up. But if he had shot them all with a concealed pistol, instead of using that concealed baton, he'd be a hell of a lot less impressive.
And... rant ended. Enjoy your weekend!
In my experience - outside of professional environments, there are a great many directors who cast roles without much regard to an actors level of experience with combat, yet they ask that the performer learn a combination or sequence for a fight in very little time and perform it with expertise, realistic aplomb, and safety.
I hereby issue this plea to directors and producers everywhere: if you desire to have any staged violence in your show, be prepared to pay for it. It may cost some actual money to produce, but aside from the monetary factor, you must be prepared to pay for it in the currency of Time.
It may seem nigh impossible in the restricted rehearsal time allotted to independent theater production to devote hours of rehearsal time to what is essentially a few seconds, or minutes of action as part of a much greater whole, but here are some excellent reasons why the time is worth it...
1. Safety. Safety, safety, safety. The more complicated the sequence is, the easier it can be for performers to make mistakes. Even the most simple single punch or slap can go wrong if it isn't rehearsed! Factor in close quarters, various weapons, or props and mistakes can and will occur. Adequate rehearsal time will help reduce or eliminate the potential of those mistakes.
2. Professionalism. Actors are simply (to take a horribly un-artistic stance for a second) walking and talking most of the time. Yet we rehearse the walking and talking stuff for hours on end. Most of us walk and talk quite a bit in our daily lives and have a resonably strong familiarity with walking and talking. Many of us do not however have a working familiarity with striking other people, or discharging weapons at them. Devote a modicum of time to allow your actors to bring as much of their craft to the combat as possible. I HATE watching actors turn into bleary eyed automatons during a fight scene.
3. Quality. Any fight director/choreographer can map out an easy sequence and your actors can perform it. The more time that is allotted to build the moment however, means more interesting combat. It's a lot like comedy. Old jokes we all know just aren't that funny. Staged combat can go from blase to compelling by keeping things original or by putting new spins on familiar moves.
4. Philosophy. The combat might last 5 seconds but remember, in many cases this is a pivotal moment in these character's lives. The character(s) have chosen or been forced into using physical action over words. The next few seconds can redefine how the audience perceives the character for the rest of the show. Don't throw away a moment like that. The world's most boring character can become mysterious or amazing, loved or hated depending on how the combat happens. Yes, much of this is defined by the script, but there could be room for flexibility. By way of example, for those Lost fans out there, think back to the scene with Ben Linus leaving the island and appearing in Tunisia. Sure, he made short work of those guys who showed up. But if he had shot them all with a concealed pistol, instead of using that concealed baton, he'd be a hell of a lot less impressive.
And... rant ended. Enjoy your weekend!
Friday, January 22, 2010
Finally found...
...a reputable dealer in nonfiring replicas that isn't charging an arm and a leg for good quality "Law Enforcement blue" pistol replicas. Obviously, bright blue plastic pistols aren't suitable for stage performance (unless you're playing "Mercenary Smurf" in Smurf The Musical - which I pray never happens).
However, rather than a skittish performer having to handle a blank firing piece for the first time on stage, or in rehearsals, the actor can get used to handling and hefting a weapon with a steel interior coated in detail molded plastic. The worst they could do is drop it on their toe.
Being bright blue, they're hard to miss, so as a fight choreographer and/or props coordinator it also helps to be able to track the "weapon" with one eye while still being able to take in the action of the sequence. I can take corrective notes about how the pistol is being drawn, held or aimed much easier without having to focus solely on it during a moment.
In additon using the trainer in the rehearsal period spares the "good" blank firing pieces from being damaged by a novice user who drops them, throws them, or does generally foolish things like actually pistol-whipping someone.
So, we're continually building our arsenal of training and stage safe knives as well as guns! Hooray!
However, rather than a skittish performer having to handle a blank firing piece for the first time on stage, or in rehearsals, the actor can get used to handling and hefting a weapon with a steel interior coated in detail molded plastic. The worst they could do is drop it on their toe.
Being bright blue, they're hard to miss, so as a fight choreographer and/or props coordinator it also helps to be able to track the "weapon" with one eye while still being able to take in the action of the sequence. I can take corrective notes about how the pistol is being drawn, held or aimed much easier without having to focus solely on it during a moment.
In additon using the trainer in the rehearsal period spares the "good" blank firing pieces from being damaged by a novice user who drops them, throws them, or does generally foolish things like actually pistol-whipping someone.
So, we're continually building our arsenal of training and stage safe knives as well as guns! Hooray!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
It's like magic. No really, it could be.
I’ve written earlier about illusion and misdirection on stage. After all, what is stage combat based in, if not illusion and misdirection. Hell, all theater is illusion, and the willing suspension of disbelief. But – there is something inherently different about watching a magician or illusionist perform as opposed to watching a play. This got me thinking about stage and street magic in general, and wondering why with all the incredible illusions available to the general buying public (don’t believe me?) more integration between traditional magic and traditional theater hasn’t taken place?
Performing a magic act is, to my understanding, an act based initially on spectacle. The performer is asking the audience to view an event and be astonished, perhaps disturbed, or in the case of that Criss Angel guy, Mindfreaked! Whatever the hell that means. I’ve never been mindfreaked without generous application of whiskey, and golly, do I know how to make that disappear. Magic!
Anyway, magic performance is inherently based in spectacle, but the best performers seem to downplay the suspension of disbelief. In fact, a good magician seems to say, “I defy you NOT to believe what you’ve seen.” Theater – that is, good theater, attempts the same thing. An audience views an event on stage, and is moved to a different emotional state. They laugh, they cry, or if you’re watching a Tim Errickson show, sometimes both, at the same time, with a little drooling. And all while becoming a better person, because Tim can do that. Hi, Tim. Tim, for the not Tim person reading this, is a director here in NYC.
I digress – where magic tries to stomp the willing suspension of disbelief flat, we are, as performers, complacent with asking our theater audiences to suspend their disbelief more and more. Yet despite the similar motives and hoped for results of both general types of performance, there seems to be a strange division between magic and theater. Stage and street magic employ very sophisticated skills and technology in a seamless manner (in different ways) to defy apparent reality right in front of an audience. I think the aim of the best magicians is not to terrify their audiences, but rather challenge them to question their perceptions and what they know and accept as truth. I would argue that good theater does the same. So, a live theatrical production that also employs some killer “magic” might be quite an amazing thing to experience.
I’m probably not thinking anything that hasn’t been explored before, but I feel like this may be a way for me to advance the nature of fight choreography. Amping up the visuals and emotional content of what audiences experience by adding a deeper level of illusion. Paradoxically that deeper illusion may illuminate deeper truths.
That’s mostly mouse farts however (and believe me - mouse farts is nothing) if I don’t suggest and employ something more vibrant. For that, I’m looking at a specific piece of magic… an illusion by mastermind Sean Fields called “Sick.” In short, I believe it offers the potential for realistic knife wounds in real time, and the attendant blood and gore might just change people’s perception of what a stabbing or slashing is like. It’s not clean. It’s not neat. It’s awful, horrific, gut wrenching to see and profoundly gross. Some of those links are pretty disturbing folks. Sorry.
If a work of theater dares to present an act of violence, we should endeavor to bring as much truth to that moment as possible, and there are some magicians out there who have already done all the work for us. Maybe it’s time to start bridging the gap a little.
Performing a magic act is, to my understanding, an act based initially on spectacle. The performer is asking the audience to view an event and be astonished, perhaps disturbed, or in the case of that Criss Angel guy, Mindfreaked! Whatever the hell that means. I’ve never been mindfreaked without generous application of whiskey, and golly, do I know how to make that disappear. Magic!
Anyway, magic performance is inherently based in spectacle, but the best performers seem to downplay the suspension of disbelief. In fact, a good magician seems to say, “I defy you NOT to believe what you’ve seen.” Theater – that is, good theater, attempts the same thing. An audience views an event on stage, and is moved to a different emotional state. They laugh, they cry, or if you’re watching a Tim Errickson show, sometimes both, at the same time, with a little drooling. And all while becoming a better person, because Tim can do that. Hi, Tim. Tim, for the not Tim person reading this, is a director here in NYC.
I digress – where magic tries to stomp the willing suspension of disbelief flat, we are, as performers, complacent with asking our theater audiences to suspend their disbelief more and more. Yet despite the similar motives and hoped for results of both general types of performance, there seems to be a strange division between magic and theater. Stage and street magic employ very sophisticated skills and technology in a seamless manner (in different ways) to defy apparent reality right in front of an audience. I think the aim of the best magicians is not to terrify their audiences, but rather challenge them to question their perceptions and what they know and accept as truth. I would argue that good theater does the same. So, a live theatrical production that also employs some killer “magic” might be quite an amazing thing to experience.
I’m probably not thinking anything that hasn’t been explored before, but I feel like this may be a way for me to advance the nature of fight choreography. Amping up the visuals and emotional content of what audiences experience by adding a deeper level of illusion. Paradoxically that deeper illusion may illuminate deeper truths.
That’s mostly mouse farts however (and believe me - mouse farts is nothing) if I don’t suggest and employ something more vibrant. For that, I’m looking at a specific piece of magic… an illusion by mastermind Sean Fields called “Sick.” In short, I believe it offers the potential for realistic knife wounds in real time, and the attendant blood and gore might just change people’s perception of what a stabbing or slashing is like. It’s not clean. It’s not neat. It’s awful, horrific, gut wrenching to see and profoundly gross. Some of those links are pretty disturbing folks. Sorry.
If a work of theater dares to present an act of violence, we should endeavor to bring as much truth to that moment as possible, and there are some magicians out there who have already done all the work for us. Maybe it’s time to start bridging the gap a little.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Desangut... no.
I've just heard the official word from Cherusker Messer GmbH. It is a sad collection of words:
The Desangut will not be produced. No new knife. Poop.
On the other hand, they are going to send me 4 other existing models for the price of the two knives I preordered. So, it's still kind of a win.
I guess.
Poop.
The Desangut will not be produced. No new knife. Poop.
On the other hand, they are going to send me 4 other existing models for the price of the two knives I preordered. So, it's still kind of a win.
I guess.
Poop.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Hack in action...
It's 2010. Where's my jetback, biznotches?
OK - aggression dealt with.
For early 2010, I've got this final episode of Hack on tap, going up on Saturday January 9th. It will entail a 4x faster version of the fight we did in the last episode (which should be interesting, and probably a lot sloppy to say the least) and on top of that, we'll have another quick round of combat with a different character. When speaking with John Dirty Hurley at the last rehearsal, he noted he wanted it nasty. We can always make it funny later.
So... nasty to me means less combat and more selling a beat-down. Nothing distresses an audience more that a one sided fight with some brutal use of props. I'm excited.
In other news, the NJFA has moved locations meaning it may be a good deal easier to reach from NYC, which in turn means far more range time for me. CSSD SC classes should be resuming soon as well. With any luck, I'll get my new Desangut set soon too!
We are all systems go for a new addition to my already fun collection of body art. When it's all done, I'll be posting pics. Since I'm going half sleeve with color, it'll be a long process, but I'm looking forward to it.
And finally a resolution: choreograph at least 6 good fights this year for shows I'm not necessarily appearing in.
Here's to 2010. Which by the way I'm pronouncing twenty-hundred and ten. Just to be different.
OK - aggression dealt with.
For early 2010, I've got this final episode of Hack on tap, going up on Saturday January 9th. It will entail a 4x faster version of the fight we did in the last episode (which should be interesting, and probably a lot sloppy to say the least) and on top of that, we'll have another quick round of combat with a different character. When speaking with John Dirty Hurley at the last rehearsal, he noted he wanted it nasty. We can always make it funny later.
So... nasty to me means less combat and more selling a beat-down. Nothing distresses an audience more that a one sided fight with some brutal use of props. I'm excited.
In other news, the NJFA has moved locations meaning it may be a good deal easier to reach from NYC, which in turn means far more range time for me. CSSD SC classes should be resuming soon as well. With any luck, I'll get my new Desangut set soon too!
We are all systems go for a new addition to my already fun collection of body art. When it's all done, I'll be posting pics. Since I'm going half sleeve with color, it'll be a long process, but I'm looking forward to it.
And finally a resolution: choreograph at least 6 good fights this year for shows I'm not necessarily appearing in.
Here's to 2010. Which by the way I'm pronouncing twenty-hundred and ten. Just to be different.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
