tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64847167604901341142024-03-05T18:19:53.851-05:00Knives, guns, and other assorted trouble...Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-4716637213339578222013-12-17T12:46:00.006-05:002013-12-17T12:46:57.698-05:00Heh.. uh... hello...Hi folks.<br />
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I uh... got a little busy. <br />
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Very busy actually, with work, and stuff. <br />
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I've been keeping my nose to the grindstone with all of my theater work, between the Public, Atlantic Theater Co. and random assorted freelancing elsewhere, now including the Park Ave. Armory, I barely had time to get married.<br />
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Which I did. About 9 months ago.<br />
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I have also been acting, and getting hit by a taxi - nearly simultaneously in one case. One is way more fun than the other, and I'll give you a hint, it's the one that didn't involve multiple injuries to me and my friends.<br />
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But with 2014 on the way, I'm on the mend and looking to be booking more fight work, analyzing more fights again, fabricating more prop weapons. <br />
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So, here's my lone post in over a year, with nothing really to say except I hope 2013 was as adventure filled for anyone who reads this as it was for me. By this time next year there may also be a new combatant onstage. The ladywife and I are "casting" now! <br />
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<br />Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-75636393768085606002012-06-04T10:16:00.001-04:002012-06-04T10:16:06.605-04:00The fight from Blast Radius!<br />
Combat begins as Shirley (another woman in House 4) turns her back to Willa, and no one is watching...<br />
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Willa pulls a combat rated reaper of the rack by the stairs and steps around to swing downward and forward at Shirley's exposed back. Shirley goes to her knees, collapsing to the floor, Willa attempts to remove weapon, finally planting her foot on Shirley's shoulder and pulling the weapon free from her spine. This allows for dialogue timing and for Fee (the other person in the room) to get a combat rated reaper to Ronnie.<br />
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Simultaneous to Willa striking, Fee yells, and moves towards Willa while Ronnie goes for the reaper rack. Dialogue telling Fee to go get Peck (the big strapping dude who usually does the killing), Fee exits.<br />
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As Fee exits, Willa extracts her weapon, leaving Shirley, dead on her side, back towards door, away from audience (screening the audience from having to see the vicious wound and us from producing it) Willa advances on Ronnie, they face off for a split second sizing each other up. Willa strikes first and unexpectedly. <br />
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Willa swings lowline with pole end, not the blade, towards Ronnie's pregnant belly - intending to strike her in a sensitive area. Ronnie bends from the hip, and scoots back half a step (called "caving") and raises her own weapon, parallel to the floor for balance and to block an overhand strike.<br />
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Willa having not made contact follows through with her strike and whips the blade around and down in an overhead chop, like an axe towards Ronnie's head. Ronnie's reaper is already up and in a strike ready position, to be contacted safely with force. Ronnie's reaper is also a pre-fabricated breakaway prop designed to shatter from this impact - it does, leaving her shocked and holding broken halves of a weapon.<br />
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Willa reverses her momentum from the downward swing that shattered Ronnie’s weapon. Willa strikes at Ronnie’s blade (left) hand with pole end of weapon – a rising strike, travelling on the diagonal upstage. Ronnie makes blocking contact with blade end, and allows weapon to be "slapped" from her hand.<br />
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Ronnie counter attacks with stick end. Willa checks with her weapon (blocking the strike and curves the bottom end around the strike, in a disarming move, that simultaneously brings her blade into position for a lateral cut across Ronnie's upper body. Ronnie is ducking already leaving Willa clear to strike the wall with force. <br />
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With nowhere to go but down, Ronnie dives for the floor and scrambles past Willa as she attempts to remove her reaper blade from the wall. (we didn't have breakaway wall sections - I'd have LOVED that). <br />
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Ronnie attempts to crawl away, downstage. She could be defeated here - if only Willa was willing to deliver a killing blow - but she has been angry for months and we see a human set of emotions replacing her alien calm. She begins toying with Ronnie. Planting the pole end of the reaper on the floor between Ronnie's fleeing legs, She lifts and Ronnie has no choice but to spin over, now on her back, still scuttling away. <br />
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Ronnie gets a chair between herself and Willa pulling herself back to her feet, and around Shirley's dead body, towards the shelf where various tools are shelved. She grabs the first thing to hand, a large pair of metal shears, and circles around to center stage, getting herself some added space. Willa gives no reaction but to cross downstage to match Ronnie’s angle of attack, half smiling to herself. This is satisfactory in every way. <br />
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Ronnie not being particularly savvy has her right arm extended with the shears point up towards Willa. Willa needs only to use her longer reach with the much bigger weapon to slap down at them from her hand, and immediately reverses her strike to a rising upwards momentum.<br />
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This was the only REALLY tricky moment in the fight that I worried about. A large pair of metal shears was being slapped to the floor and half a second later, Becky Byers had to be smacked in the head with the flat back of a weapon. All very easy to do in slow motion, but requiring a LOT of practice, trust and skill to pull off at speed - shockingly effective when done right. And I'm proud to say - they got it right every time. A few scary moments in rehearsal sure, as speeds increased, but no one got hurt! Which is a win for me!<br />
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When Ronnie is struck in the head (in reality her left hand is coming up to block in an instinctive reaction and it is her hand that makes slapping noise contact, her head being 6 inches upstage of any actual contact) she reels over to the couch falling down. <br />
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The game at an end, Willa brings her reaper around for a killing blow at Ronnie's back. Ronnie grabs a pillow from the couch and gets it between her face and the oncoming blade just in time, trapping the weapon and using Willa's momentum to pull her off balance. We built an extra 2 pulls of a tug of war here for safety's sake allowing everyone to get their footwork solid before "falling all over the place".<br />
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Again for clarity, the strikes at faces and bodies are all designed to appear to be going for lethal targets , which meant a proficiency in the choreography was needed - and each strike had a PLAN B - so that if for some reason, no eye contact was made, or something was wrong, an alternate safety move could be made. The weapons themselves were lightweight plastic and wood - and should any blocks fail there would be NO chance of injury. This also resulted in having to rebuild three of the weapons over the run for safety's sake - as a rubberized plastic edge became bent, or ragged for any reason it was removed discarded and fresh smooth safe "blade" was added. <br />
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So, Ronnie now has pulled the reaper away from Willa, and has the advantage! As she gets herself ready to kill, and is moving toward Willa, Willa circles away towards to reaper rack and simply draws another weapon. <br />
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There is no good way for me to explain this next part except that it is a fast moving series of strikes and blocks, patterned after an eskrima flow drill, learned under Bram Frank and Michael Stone. This pattern of strikes and blocks ends with Willa once again working her pole end of the weapon into a disarming position and stripping the reaper from Ronnie. Yeah, Ronnie's just not that good a fighter.<br />
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Willa stabs at Ronnie's belly and she must block with her body to avoid a lethal cut. Ronnie's right forearm is sliced, and bleeding (initially handled by having this action take place behind the couch and allowing Ronnie to get her hands on a blood pack hidden on the back of the furniture piece). Willa immediately chops laterally at Ronnie's head, and Ronnie must once more dive for the floor - narrowly escaping her demise. The reaper blade once more is stuck into the wall. Again - no breakaway wall sections, but Cotton Wright struck that wall with such force every night, (including one time shattering the weapon) people in the audience gasped. Becky's body was more than 18 inches away from the impact point by then but folks literally freaked out when they realized that Willa was swinging to kill!<br />
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Now crawling on the floor, Ronnie encounters the broken blade end of her first weapon and is able to get it up into blocking position before Willa's next strike, aimed at her neck, comes into contact. This block becomes a force play, with the two women glaring and dare I say sometimes snarling at each other, with their faces inches away from each other. <br />
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At that moment, Ronnie lets go with her right hand and delivers a simple right hand snap jab to Willa's face. Bear in mind, moments earlier in the play Willa has a monologue in which she discusses the extreme sensitivity of the human skin to anything, air itself is almost painful. Willa has never been touched in violence, and getting punched in the face stuns her long enough for Ronnie to get clear with BOTH weapons.<br />
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Willa falls to her knees, realizing through her pain that this fight is over, and a murder is about to commence. She begins pleading for her own life, and the life of her unborn human child, while slowly crawling backwards (behind the couch!) as Ronnie tests her wounded right arm and swings the broken blade end of her reaper in a few test chops. Once Willa is out of sight, behind the couch, Cotton would pull a pad over her own midsection and Ronnie would begin screaming an flailing away with the blade at Willa, chopping her into a mess - one which the audience does not see.<br />
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Sitting an watching the fight each evening from the booth I kept an eye on the audience as much as I could - looking for reactions. My highest compliment came from a guy who had his hands in front of his face from the first moment of Shirley's death and watched the entire fight between his fingers, face contorted in terror. <br />
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That is the effect of violence on an audience. No one cheered, or grinned. It wasn't cool. Which is of course what made it such an effective fight scene. I'm very proud of the work that was done there. I hope to improve on it someday.<br />
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Until later - be at peace in real life, and be kicking ass onstage!<br />Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-70567000667251642562012-06-04T10:10:00.000-04:002012-06-04T10:11:52.807-04:00Sovereign is coming soon!Hi Tim, and the Not Tim readers,<br />
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Despite my best efforts, I am still not posting as often as I'd like to be, and somehow find myself fabricating weapons for the upcoming production of "Sovereign" (Part III of Mac Rogers' Honeycomb Trilogy) without ever finishing posting about "Blast Radius" - which closed a couple months ago.
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What? Fabricating weapons you say?<br />
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As noted in previous blogs, the characters in the post apocalyptic, alien occupied, farming society of "Blast Radius" were forced to improvise weapons to fight off their 15 foot tall insectoid oppressors - using "reapers". Essentially 5 foot pole axes for chopping swamp veggies in place of anything else. They are the few limited pieces of technology allowed. In the course of the play, the characters discover a far more potent and costly weapon that allows them to wage a deadly war on the bugs. "Blast Radius" ended with this war beginning, and "Sovereign" will begin some years after it's completion and a victorious human race is trying to pick up the pieces.<br />
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Some few bugs survive though - and a dedicated team of hunters uses their instincts, rage and talents to find them and kill them. A few of the Bug Hunters appear during the course of the play - and I noted that in rehearsals the actors were using the "reapers" I made for the previous play. I didn't like that. The war is over. Any quasi-militia unit would not be using improvised weapons at this point. They may not have good gear, or even very effective gear due to the continuing lack of high technology, but the tools they use would not be re-purposed farm implements. They would have made weapons specific to the task. Longer. Double edged. Stronger. "Reaper 2.0" I'm calling them. <br />
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And I'm making them now.
But... no spoilers.<br />
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I wanted to talk Blast Radius, specifically one of the most fun weaponized fights I've had the pleasure of choreographing, using some of the most game actors I've had the privilege of working with as a fight director. If you saw Blast Radius, you know the fight I'm talking about - Becky Byers and Cotton Wright as very pregnant ladies Ronnie and Willa battling it out to the death with 5 foot polearms. I promised earlier to map out the fight here, and so I shall.<br />
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I'm writing it out below in the most basic language possible, so as not to get caught up in the terminology of the style of fighting I used.
It is also important to note that one of the stage directions Mac Rogers wrote in was "The fight is simultaneously clumsy and vicious." To me that says a lot. These aren't skilled warriors doing highly acrobatic moves. This is a human woman carrying a late term baby and an alien mind trapped in another human woman carrying a late term baby, and they mean to kill each other. Not look cool, or badass, or anything. They want each other dead. There was no room for fancy stuff.
So... next post please!Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-16060505989774154082012-03-13T10:51:00.002-04:002012-03-13T11:26:47.294-04:00Mac Rogers - playwright, and me - that guyHey folks,<br /><br />The world of Joe Mathers has seen some interesting developments in the past few months. To start, for the few of you that are Facebook friends, you'll already know that a show I was in back in November of 2011 "The Runner Stumbles" will be making it's way off Broadway. If that doesn't seem like much, know that it means I'm taking the next step towards being a full time actor instead of a full time stagehand by joining Actors Equity Association. I've made the vast amount of my income in the last year from being a freelance carpenter/electrician/stagehand in NYC. That's good work, and it's fun and exciting, but yeah - I still love performing too much to walk away. Plus I've been booking more fight work too, and since this is a blog about fight choreography I want to talk about a particular trilogy of plays I've been involved with by a favorite writer of mine, Mac Rogers. <br /><br />Mac is a guy, a guy like any other except for a few things. He's a singularly gifted writer, and lately he's been working on a series of plays called the Honeycomb Trilogy. In short, and without spoiling anything, these plays center around the family of a retired astronaut named Bill Cooke who returns from the first manned mission to Mars with a little something extra - the dying hopes of an alien race of very large... bugs. The first play in the trilogy is called Advance Man which was produced in January. I had the good fortune to do a little of the fight work for the play, which amounted to a bit of gunplay. <br /><br />I like Mac's work because he focuses on characters and the violence involved is driven by the choices hey've made, and is grounded in who they are. In Advance Man, a teenage girl gets her hands on a pistol and in an effort to forestall the inevitable invasion of Earth takes a shot at a woman intent on triggering the device that will hatch millions of these aliens worldwide. Guess what? A pistol is hard to use if you don't know how to use it, and so... she misses. The very next line of dialogue in the play after the weapon fires is "You have to hold it with both hands."<br /><br />I loved that.<br /><br />The next play, "Blast Radius" features a fight between two very pregnant women. As in 8 months pregnant. They are fighting each other with 5 foot polearms, and just last night I had three hours to work with the combatants and director on the choregraphy. Three hours isn't much, but it's a great start and is sadly far more than I usually get to work on something this intense. At speed the fight should clock in under a minute - which is really long for a fight. Needless to say, I'm sooooo excited about this sequence. I can't really talk too much about it without giving plot elements away, but I can say that I'm very lucky to have two actors with miles of guts, patience, and skill. The initial rehearsal and mapping went spectacularly well, I think. A few tweaks here and there and we'll have a fight that should have the audience on the edge of their seats.<br /><br />Because one of the characters is a little um... different... there are some special circumstances that come into play (on top of them both being pregnant). I can't stand fights that drag on where characters are taking hit after hit and somehow functioning cleanly once they've been cut, punched kicked, etc. So I have choreographed something more realistic - they don't miss, they don't unrealistically absorb wounds that would incapacitate a human. They are just viciously going for it. All out, with intent to kill. And when the kill does happen, it isn't cool. It isn't clean. It's brutal. In a departure from my usual work, it's big and brutal. <br /><br />So. If you are interested in seeing an outstanding standalone play that continues the story of Advance Man, with a badass fight in it, I recommend you come see "Blast Radius" at the Secret Theater in Long Island City, opening on March 30th, through April 14. You can pick up your tickets <a href="https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/912089">here... </a><br /><br />Oh and... I'm also in it. I play a guy named Jimmy, I get to make out with my fiancee on stage. Hot.<br /><br />Then I'm going to go build a bunch of scenery and then get back on stage in Retro Production "The Runner Stumbles." This means I'll also be listening to lot of Nightranger's Sister Christian for comedy's sake. There's a quick fight in that show - which I'm proud of, but it's way different than Blast Radius. Wheeeeeeee! <br /><br />I'm also coming up on 1 year free of the much hated office gig and I haven't looked at Expedia.com's website once. It's been an awesome year.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-29449521440288968922012-01-21T21:11:00.001-05:002012-03-13T11:39:48.394-04:00Advance Man and The Coffee Shop - I make some nasty!Howdy howdy ladies and gents – time to get back to regular posting, since it’s been noted how absent from the Small and Brutal blog I’ve been for awhile. Yes, Walking Dead is good TV. I’m glad you get it.<br /><br />SO, for the past several weeks I’ve been up to my usual activities, stage handing, carpentry and choreographing isolated moments of violence. In particular, I’ve recently had the pleasure of working with one of my favorite young directors, Ms. Olivia Harris who directed John Doble’s “Coffee Shop” an odd little play about a first date that goes horribly wrong/right. A young man pushed to the unthinkable limits of good taste and how to impress a lady decides that knifing the snarky waiter at the small coffee shop they are in is the way to go. Well maybe he doesn’t decide it, but his impulses get the better of him either way. They certainly get the better of the poor waiter, played to irritating perfection by another of my favorite younger professionals – Alex Enquist. By the way – they aren’t kids. They’re just not 30 something. So they seem young to me. <br /><br />For this stabbing I went to the spare bedroom workshop to grind down a piece of old steel bar scrap from the Public Theater into a prop hunting knife. Since this is a prop is it is never intended to take or hold an edge, plate steel is fine, hard enough to withstand rigors of prop usage yet soft enough to never be workable as a real blade for very long. It’s about as sharp as a thick spoon. <br /><br />That said, it’s still a chunk of steel, and handled poorly it’s still not the kind of thing you want clunking into someone. The murder is conducted in the span of just a few seconds – and due to the constraints of budget and time onstage for this little one act shorty, this is also a bloodless effect. But working out the details in what was a rather intimate space meant I had to go back to my trusty Gray’s Anatomy for some quick bio-mechanical analysis. One stab, and the victim drops is what I needed. Dead quickly. <br /><br />I surmised that the best way to stab someone in the back and have them drop like they’d been poleaxed would mean somehow disrupting the controls from brain to body. That, to me, suggested a strike to the base of the neck, into or damaging the spine, and possibly some major blood vessels. Except, let’s also be honest – it’s very very difficult to do that. Even on purpose. Especially for a character who is NOT a proficient user of the tool. <br /><br />So, the stab is on purpose, but the rapid demise of the victim is somewhat of a surprise. The move was choreographed as a roughly overhand strike, in reverse grip with the edge pointing up. This – by the way is similar to the “Psycho” shower stabbing scene, except that the edge is facing out at the victim, not back towards the attacker. Don’t get me started.<br /><br />As the blade is coming close to the victims back, the attacker needs only to bend his wrist so that his knuckles (gripping the handle) tap the victim on the back, to the side of the spine. The victim goes rigid in the upper body, and immediately collapses to his knees, and the attacker simply “rides” the hand down. All the while seeming to struggle to remove the blade from the victims back. The yanking and tugging is done by the victim, only for a brief second or two before the distraction of the blade coming loose is covered by the victims head bouncing off of the table in front of him. He slams to the floor, dying very rapidly, and capable of no further purposeful action. By the way – the audience is facing the victim directly, so they never see the blade once it is past the victims shoulder, allowing for very safe and very fast movement. <br /><br />Yes, in the real world this would be a VERY twitchy, bloody, and disgusting thing. But as I mentioned, it’s a one act and they have to get offstage for the next play in the festival, so no gore. <br /><br />It’s hard to describe the movement, and I would like to start getting some film footage up here, so we can all see what it is I’m talking about. But alas, apparently that’s not always allowed. Ah well…<br /><br />Simultaneously, while working on “Coffee Shop”’s little moment of nasty, I also had the distinct pleasure of working with Gideon Production’s latest, Mac Rogers’ “Advance Man” – part I of the Honeycomb Trilogy. I won’t review it – there’s enough great press about it already. It’s awesome. Go see it for the fight work, and stay for the far more incredible script, directing, and performances that my own work. <br /><br />Which brings me to my next point – if there is a playwright who understands the general nuances of violence on stage, it’s Mac Rogers. Some limited gunplay in this show includes a young woman NOT holding a weapon properly and a resulting shot that goes a little wild. The very next line? “You have to hold it with both hands.” <br /><br />I love that. There’s someone who’s paying attention.<br /><br />However, I discovered that sometimes there are actors who are either unfamiliar with stage combat in general or actors who are very familiar with highly stylized stage combat. A single punch to the solar plexus between two such individuals, which I assumed would be simple, easy and the least time consuming and worrisome moment required quite a bit of finessing as we went along. This is not to say that the actors themselves were the problem – quite the opposite. <br /><br />The actors were game. They were great. They ARE great. The problem is their fight choreographer. He (he being me) seemed to have a hell of a lot of trouble communicating his ideas clearly and succinctly. In retrospect, I believe I’ve discovered what the issue was. <br /><br />In my haste and hubris to steer clear of the stylization of SAFD type of work, I glossed right over my OWN basics and workouts. What could have been and should have been more time spent at the top of the process developing an open and concise language and getting it into their bodies was skipped. The result – a lot of nerves and questions down the road as I worked to fine-tune the moment. In the end, it comes off rather well, but at the expense of performer anxiety. Next time around? I’ll be taking everyone to my school up front - so to speak.<br /><br />And hopefully, next time around will be Part II of Mac’s trilogy of plays. “Blast Radius” has a scene consisting of two very pregnant women going at each other with vaguely scythe-like weapons. Neither of the two characters is a trained combatant with this “reaper” weapon, both are a little wobbly from pregnancy. I am excited because it is also a fight – a real fight, to the death between very desperate characters. It will be fast, it will be brutal, and assuming I can get a solid 9-12 hours with the combatants, it will be horrifying to watch. <br /><br />So, until next time _ which honestly will be soooo much sooner, since I’ve also got a line on a doing some work for Boomerang Theater Company, which may include a rock fight, a broadsword and something entirely weird. Heh heh heh.<br /><br />Stay small, stay quick, stay quiet, and stay brutal.<br /><br />Oh and p.s. – the home knife shop is also churning out some nice blades these days. All stock removal, but I’m having fun.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-35036125034940223512011-11-29T23:25:00.002-05:002011-11-29T23:39:31.654-05:00Umm... if you haven't watched Walking Dead...Stop what you're doing and watch it now.<br /><br />I bring this up because the most recent episode, which aired on AMC this past Sunday evening was a perfect example of everything I believe could be right with fictional violence if we as storytellers had the balls to do it the right way.<br /><br />Violence should not be easy for characters that aren't insane, even when it's forced on them by someone who isn't thinking clearly. Or by the shambling corpses of zombies. Violence should not be without consequences, and just when those characters think they understand all of those consequences, there are often unforeseen ramifications to the choice to use force.<br /><br />And when writers understand these things, the resulting scene is haunting, inexpressibly sad, and will likely stay with you for years. <br /><br />Spoiler Alert. Good news, we found Sophia. Bad news, we found Sophia in the barn.<br /><br />Also - hooray for guy shooting one hand "gangsta-style" and getting criticized for bullshit form and not hitting anything.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-69429750271645937852011-11-15T18:41:00.003-05:002011-11-15T20:29:33.570-05:00Right... So... Fall?Not too long after the prior posting, a solid 8 and a half months ago (during which time, I'm told a whole human can be manufactured inside of a female!) I finally did something I had been meaning to do for a long while.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">What's that? You left your cushy yet soul crushing desk job at an unnamed major internet travel retailer?</span><br /><br />Why yes, yes I did. It was a semi-mutual decision, suggested by the local regional director and heartily agreed to by me. Though I have to admit, I'd have been ok with the regular steady paycheck continuing but I could have done with a great deal less douche-baggery from their end. Alas, as it turns out - you can't have you cake and eat it too. Or in this case, if I wanted to keep accepting money from them, I had to keep accepting the douche-ness. So I've been more or less freelancing since the end of April.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">You've been freelancing as a technician, fight choreographer and actor for 8 months? </span> <br /><br />Yes. I'll get to that in a second. Stop interrupting me.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Sorry.</span><br /><br />But primarily, the biggest thing I pulled off was getting the lady-type to say yes to a marriage. So, there will someday be a Mrs. SmallandBrutal. I say someday because part and parcel with the whole freelancing thing is that there's no actual planning going on at this point. But we'll get there. But yes, I'm taking a second stab at marriage. Or rather a second stab at engagement. Never made it to the marriage part before. <br /><br />Now - what else have I been doing with my time since April? A lot actually. I've done some highly weird things in fact - among them working in the Madame Tussauds Chamber of Horrors. Which by the way if you think is scary with the lights out, you should breeze through there with the lights on. >shudder< Let's just say, OSHA would have a field day in there. I normally don't like to gossip, but wow. Glad to have kept that gig to just a few weeks. <br /><br />I've been mostly making my living (and doing OK at it by the way) as an actor/technician. Did you know that they pay movie and TV extras money to do NOTHING?! It's not a lot of money, but you literally do nothing. <br /><br />There was also Retro Productions Dear Ruth, which was alas completely devoid of combat and violence, followed by the Brick's comic book festival production of Action Philosophers! This show had a bit more violence, but nothing too insane. We actually remounted it in October and changed it up again and had a bit more choreography. <br /><br />I also got to have a bit of fun with a new Becca Schlossberg (she of 3 Boys fame) play - taking the opportunity to design some moments of violence with a 13 year old actress (playing 11). I and the production were very fortunate in that this kid was sharp and talented. Acted more like a 30 year old than an 13 year old. Which isn't to say she was old before her time, just that she handled herself like a pro. Working out some slaps, punches and grappling with her and her cast mates under the direction of Madeliene Parsigian was a treat. The show suffered a few setbacks none of which made the final production any less of what it wanted to be. <br /><br />That more or less brings us to where I am now - mid run of another Retro show, Milan Stitt's "The Runner Stumbles." Oddly enough there's a decent amount of blood and some brief moments of violence within this show about priest on nun love and the consequences of denying/accepting that love in a harsh word that blah blah blah...<br /><br />I'm playing Amos, the jail guard which means I have the character arc of start a mean bastard, end a mean bastard with extended time for backstage boozing between. The show itself has turned out excellently, no thanks to my acting. But I will say I did some nice stuff regarding the violence. <br /><br />I've been working on a theory that sometimes the slow violence is more meaningful and in the capable hands of experienced and nuanced actors can be very effective. When there's quick stuff to balance it out, you get a nice portrait of a loss of control. One of my new favorite stage directions comes from this play (the other being Winter's Tale "exit Antigonus pursued by bear") and is: <span style="font-style:italic;">"Nun slaps Priest. Priest slaps Nun."</span><br /><br />Am I the only one who thinks that's kind of funny?<br /><br />I had a few variants on this, but with such a simple set, it's really about intent and the physical psychology involved. Rather, with two simple and virtually identical moves, how can I set up the communication with one slap a desperate need to feel something from another that isn't church dogma, and then immediately the return strike needs to communicate animal aggression dressed in blacks. If you've seen the show hopefully you know the moment you know I'm talking about. Specificity in the blocking down to the footwork is key. <br /><br />And there's also a fun knife effect, which I'm proud of. Rather than use a dummy knife, I took an existing kitchen knife, filed the bejesus out of the edge so it's about as a sharp as a spoon, and then took a Dremel router bit and milled out the handle so I could insert a medicine dropper into the handle. I super glued the bulb into the handle, flush against the tang, and painted it to match the handle wood. The pipette runs about 4/5ths of the way down the blade, and is painted in a med gloss silver metallic acrylic to match the sheen of a used kitchen paring knife. So, when Father Rivard is provoked, he picks up the prop, and deliberately moves the dulled edge across the ball of his thumb to show he does in fact bleed like an ordinary man, the audience sees a knife that was just used to slice fruit slice across a man's hand and blood immediate wells up. No spurting, or squirting. Just deep welling. And dripping. Good smear consistency. I've been rewarded with some nice gasps from the audience. <br /><br />So what's next?<br /><br />I honestly couldn't say. I'm just floating from gig to gig at this point, and enjoying working more in film and TV where it's safe to say I've made more money doing nothing that I have busting my ass in theater. Clearly this is something worth pursuing. <br /><br />More later. Just letting Tim and the not Tim readers of the old Knives Guns and Other Assorted Trouble blog that I'm in fact alive. Yep. Still Alive. I am doing science and I'm still alive. And when you're dying I'll still be alive.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-6595751254790883082011-04-05T16:56:00.002-04:002011-04-05T17:00:28.969-04:00Right... so... Spring!OK I kind of fell off the wagon here. My bad – I got so busy with everything that I forgot to tell folks what everything was.<br /><br />So, let’s begin with a quick review of the TAD Gear Fast Pack EDC I scored for myself in February. As every day carry bags go, this is a big one. Every day carry indeed, and I feel quite confident after jaunting around with this mammoth on myself for over a month that I’ve got all the every day I need. Hell, I could easily weekend trip with this bag, and an overnight hike with this puppy would be an easy matter. 1800 cubic inches. That’s a big bag.<br /><br />Some key features I love: <br />Endlessly modular – this is covered in PALS webbing and MOLLE compatible with pretty much whatever you want to throw at it. There’s even a beaver tail with a sleeve that rolls out, meaning I can comfortably carry a rifle (which I don’t have) on the outside, or – more practically, any long, narrow tool/item I do own. <br />Tough – made of mil-spec denier cordura nylon, this isn’t flimsy. Strong straps with compression fittings on both ends, a removable waist belt (also swimming in PALS webbing) doubles as bandolier if I want to run light, <br />Nifty features - Internal hydration bladder ready which yes, adds a lot of weight, but sure beats a swinging canteen. Or adds to it. <br /><br />To sum up – check this guy out – it’s worth every penny: http://www.tripleaughtdesign.com/Equipment/Bags-And-Packs/FAST-Pack-EDC<br /><br />I love me some TAD. If I lived in San Francisco, I’d be jumping through hoops to work for them.<br /><br />Now on to the more interesting stuff – fight choreography!<br /><br />I’ve wrapped my work on John Doble’s “To Protect The Poets” which runs through this weekend – it’s an interesting show, but I’ll stay away from reviewing it, and stick to the work I did, which I’m actually quite pleased with. At the end of Act 1, the police officers who are the main characters have apprehended their first suspect in a brutal 2 man rape/homicide – they know he did it, and they’ve got evidence to prove it, but they need to get the details on who committed the murder of a young woman.<br /><br />Where I step in is the two officers are playing the oldest game in the book – good cop/bad cop to elicit the confession they want. “Bad Cop” named Bear is knocking our Suspect around a little, in a clear but apparently permissible show of force. For this, I went with one simple cross body jab, moving upstage, which I was very happy to see the performers master quite well, and looked real at a distance of 3 feet since it comes explosively by surprise from Bear.<br /><br />Next up were a few threats of more violence but no contact, though things get exponentially more harsh by the end of the scene. “Good Cop” named Jablonski or “Jab” has gotten everything he needs, Bear’s left the room, the camera’s off and Jab rides one over the edge. A solar plexus strike, followed by a kidney hit that breaks a rib, all in rapid succession (oh and… the suspect is cuffed). This is all topped by Jab throwing an arm across the Suspect’s throat, reaching down between his legs and crushing his… well… as Jab says later, “I made sure he’d never do it again.” <br /><br />Having never choreographed a sterilization by brute force before this was a new one for me, but as it turns out, it’s not all that tricky. There was a lot of screaming from the suspect, and a lot of uncomfortable shifting from the fellas in the audience. Guess it works.<br /><br />That’s that for recent decent fight work, I expect to be on a brief hiatus for a bit – I’ll be onstage again in May in Retro Production’s show “Dear Ruth” a charmer of a comedy from the 1940s. No combat, but good fun and I’ve snagged a fun little role with a great cast. If I’m lucky I’ll have a snazzy Army Air Corps dress uniform to rock out in too. Yay.<br /><br />Oh and I’m making great progress on the new fighting knife I’ve been making for myself – not a prop, this baby has a good edge. I’d like it to be a great edge, but I’m still learning. I’ve got enough leftover steel to make a nice prop piece once I’m done with the real one, so we’ll see where that goes. Images shortly...<br /><br /><br />If the timing pans out I’m going to spend some time with Vamp Cowboy’s founder Qui Nguyen this summer while he’s in NYC. I'll be trading some knife skills for some of his extensive martial arts experience. Summer of 2011 still looks pretty open though – keeping my eyes open for the right gigs. There’s rumors of some Shakespeare around – and I wouldn’t be adverse to getting a crack at another Crystal Skillman show in Brooklyn, if I can score the audition. But for now, I’m free and clear after May. Drop me a line if you want some nastiness staged. I haven’t been able to do a solid bloody fight lately. I'm itching to try a few new tricks.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-86556334693631470052011-02-08T15:58:00.002-05:002011-02-08T16:03:51.500-05:00What’s on tap for 2011?With the 2010-11 Saloon Series now complete, and a one and done project at the Brick called “Dainty Cadaver” wrapped, I’ve found myself with my evenings relatively free to do things that normal people do, like laundry and occasionally cooking a meal, as opposed to scarfing down whatever passes for nutrients in the immediate vicinity of my rehearsals. It also means I can watch the big glowing rectangle in my living room occasionally. Hi Netflix Instant. Nice to meet you. I’m sure we’ll be fast friends.<br /><br />A word (or several) about the Dainty Cadaver project though… the idea was based on the Exquisite Corpse game, apparently played by surrealist painters. Essentially, one artist draws an image on a piece of folded paper and a second artist continues the image from the first. The third artist bases their work from the image of the second, without viewing the first, the fourth by viewing the third, fifth from fourth etc etc. <br /><br />So, the Piper McKenzie folks over at The Brick (where I’ve spent an inordinate amount time in the last year) thought this should work with playwrights too. One writer writes a scene, a second reads it and pens a second scene, the third writer reads the second and continues, writer four reads number three’s and so on until the sixth writer wraps it up based solely on the events of the fifth scene. In theory the resulting play should be a work of surrealist weirdness, with massive shifts in tone and plotting. <br /><br />In reality, that is in fact exactly what happened. Cool, if you’re into weird surreal theater. For me, since I’m not all that excited by that sort of thing, the script I performed in left me a little at sea. However, under the steady and excellent direction of John Hurley and with a great gang of fellow actors, I think we made something rather nifty out of it. <br /><br />So far as fight choreography goes, we were sorely pressed for time (maybe 4 solid rehearsals total) but the piece did allow me to stage and perform a very basic murder with a brick. Two strikes to the face - the first a jab and the second a rising arc uppercut. Then to top it all off a final blow to the side of the skull. But wait there’s more - because this was surreal, the Angel of Death comes in... and magically compels me to smash my own head in next. Never done that before. <br /><br />Bloodless and simple, due to constraints of time and scant resources, however in my head… <br /><br />I’d have gone with a foam brick. The victim actor (in this case the HUGE compared to me Ryan Andes) would have been prepped with blood bombs and a couple of loose teeth (furnished by the lovely and alluringly skilled Stephanie Cox Williams). I’d have kept the choreography similar to what we did, two main strikes. The first hit would bring Ryan’s hand up to his mouth and nose. Detonating the blood bomb, he’d splutter through some dripping goo, and the second hit would knock him backwards and to the floor, detonating the second bomb, simultaneously while throwing those loose teeth up into the air. As he lays gasping on the floor, maybe a piece of uncooked pasta could be slipped in his mouth. Because when I grab him by the shattered remnants of his face, some crunching and crackling would be nice. I say some utterly creepy things, and then deliver the killing blow. Another blood bomb for me when I smash my own head in and everyone wins.<br /><br />Basically the audience saw all of that, minus any gore. I’d had loved to make it happen, but then again I also would have preferred to have a script that didn’t have characters dying and being erased every 10 minutes or dancing around with water bottles but that’s just me and my taste for narrative over esoteric.<br /><br />On the up side, getting to actually hang out with the renowned Ryan Andes and both of us noticing we were each dripping with TAD gear, led to some cool conversations, talking firearms, and the potential to pick up some nifty new skills as well as exchange some of my knife knowledge with some of his performer friends who have sword skills. It’s always good when you find a like minded fellow who also happens to have similar interests and likes. And who is seriously, like 7 feet tall. <br /> <br />So – next up? A review of my new TAD gear FAST PACK EDC and then I’m going to be enrolling in some on camera classes. Time to dust off that skill set and try to make some damned money at this acting thing again. It’s been awhile since a decent paycheck came my way from pretending to be someone else. <br /><br />There's a little ray of choreography sunshine on the horizon as well, a little cop on criminal beating if it pans out. We'll see...Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-21315560148469276482010-12-20T14:50:00.003-05:002010-12-22T10:08:59.662-05:00Ho Ho Holy crap!It’s Christmas time, and clearly I haven’t made an update to this ol’ blog since, well… the end of August. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0wOckwn8l0s/TNxIovs5aWI/AAAAAAAABuc/INYFInjedhU/s200/Tim%252BErrickson.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://fluxtheatreensemble.blogspot.com/2010/11/feud-contestants-announced.html&usg=__xi8H3gHAvNJBSzeZ2gAt6h1SgSQ=&h=200&w=200&sz=9&hl=en&start=0&sig2=FSGItgBokKFnL2pBxl1fDQ&zoom=1&tbnid=WhElxxg6UsA0LM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=115&ei=NLYPTd7wMI22sAOW2N2PCg&prev=/images%3Fq%3DTim%2BErrickson%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us%26biw%3D1010%26bih%3D660%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=292&vpy=226&dur=4109&hovh=160&hovw=160&tx=150&ty=50&oei=NLYPTd7wMI22sAOW2N2PCg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0">Tim</a>, 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. <br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.quizilla.com/user_images/P/preschaos/1096488424_uresHomsar.JPG&imgrefurl=http://board.sonicstadium.org/topic/296-your-favorite-fictional-characters/&usg=__at_JSDPYTDvcnD0feioN2LF4bL4=&h=300&w=369&sz=10&hl=en&start=0&sig2=XjA-n5DCpTI7TgQcB6WbsQ&zoom=1&tbnid=CEx_JyCThgDQ-M:&tbnh=119&tbnw=150&ei=_LYPTY71FYa2sAOZ3bGOCg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhomsar%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us%26biw%3D1010%26bih%3D660%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=171&oei=_LYPTY71FYa2sAOZ3bGOCg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0&tx=52&ty=47">Brian Smallwood</a> 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.<br /><br />“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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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 <strong>are </strong>someone who is looking for that kind of mayhem, drop me a line here – <br /><br /><em>knivesgunsntrouble@gmail.com</em> <br /><br />P.S. - Hi Uncle Pete. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-3737847700359940312010-08-30T17:31:00.002-04:002010-08-30T17:34:23.399-04:00Big 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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Yummy.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.”Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-21267572800025063272010-07-25T18:23:00.004-04:002010-07-26T13:36:36.188-04:00Ideal 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. <br /><br />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? <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-62627721230288036222010-07-19T16:50:00.002-04:002010-07-19T18:01:18.034-04:00Running 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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />Now, why all this yammering? Can I back this up? I hope so. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-48120742059971662182010-06-18T16:18:00.002-04:002010-06-18T16:35:31.509-04:00I got rather busier than I intended...Hello, there you - occasional reader of my musings on theater, combat, and stage choreography...<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />Duh.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-4605732276276832542010-05-20T10:46:00.003-04:002010-05-20T11:03:34.190-04:00Concerning 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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Welcome to summer 2010, folks. It's going to be a good one.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-48136702093385724862010-05-10T16:03:00.002-04:002010-05-10T16:33:06.730-04:00A valuable lesson learned...Now that "The Vigil or The Guided Cradle" has closed, I can talk a little shop...<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />Serves me right. <br /><br />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 <em>washable </em>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).<br /><br />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 <em><strong>juice </strong></em>is nasty, but there is something about the rich opacity of blood fluids that I just haven't found in a stage blood yet.<br /><br />Fine I'm being a nit-picky chump. But I really want to get this right for next time. One never knows. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />Now, back to Hack. Cal the Gunslinger rides again.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-10529874342882435742010-04-26T16:06:00.002-04:002010-04-27T13:02:58.102-04:00Opening weekend opened. I opine.Here on the safe side of opening weekend of <a href="http://www.impetuoustheater.org/Home.html">“The Vigil or The Guided Cradle”</a> 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.<br /><br />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…<br /><br />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.”<br />2. Christian as Ippolito is terrifying. I have no idea how I’m consistently staring into that guy’s face without wetting myself.<br />3. Vinnie pulls off arrogant clever torturer so well, you’d think he actually was an arrogant clever torturer. Ka-boom.<br />4. Travis York is funny. Also creepy. But mostly funny. That’s skills.<br />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. <br />6. Susan’s ability to play casual fun and then minutes later be terrified for her life is uncanny. <br />7. 5 tense guys backstage right before a show goes up is a situation that inevitably lends itself to fart humor. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-23904441577000981022010-04-20T16:41:00.003-04:002010-04-20T16:56:46.053-04:00And 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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-68439282501158089962010-04-15T14:43:00.002-04:002010-04-15T14:47:29.994-04:00The first (successful) make up test<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmNctuUpw8spAl1BiSatzJlBGGB3CQe6p1gOcoI8spt2L2PiakJEe_vX7Eq328MEbnW5KyvTpNznOMba1IUhyphenhyphenpltGMN-paOT_C1uhdoXR1RcDDZzmSHzvNJewy3QGuARhUDe_HGFL7Qzc/s1600/IMG00065.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmNctuUpw8spAl1BiSatzJlBGGB3CQe6p1gOcoI8spt2L2PiakJEe_vX7Eq328MEbnW5KyvTpNznOMba1IUhyphenhyphenpltGMN-paOT_C1uhdoXR1RcDDZzmSHzvNJewy3QGuARhUDe_HGFL7Qzc/s200/IMG00065.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5460436972322177330" /></a><br /><br /><br />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." <br /><br />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.<br /><br />By the way, don't google image search various terms for injuries if you've got a weak stomach. Yech.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-53138221308511110702010-04-13T15:37:00.004-04:002010-04-13T16:23:03.204-04:00Umm, 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.<br /><br />OK. You were warned. <br /><br />Ben Linus has the real Maltese Falcon, lives on Shutter Island, has been dead the whole time, and his real name is Kaiser Soze. <br /><br />Anyway...<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-53965227389268753002010-04-02T13:00:00.003-04:002010-04-02T13:23:58.604-04:00A 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...<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />Me, I'll focus on dodging the slow moving projectile and then locking or cutting my opponent into submission.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-86261022955134451472010-04-01T16:08:00.003-04:002010-04-01T17:07:36.536-04:00Seriously. 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...<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />Why you ask?<br /><br />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...<br /><br />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). <br /><br />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. <br /><br />I vowed to never to do such an event again as well, it was so... distressing. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />And I've been needing a workout. I'm sadisitically looking forward to it.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-80284655594295052062010-03-19T13:24:00.003-04:002010-03-29T07:54:20.367-04:00The 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br />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 <a href="http://pages.teamintraining.org/nyc/njdevtri10/cweatherst">here.</a> <br />Again, no combat – but worth mentioning. As we get closer to show date, I’ll post up more information.<br /><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br />Now, on personal level, the big news is that I was cast in the <a href="http://www.impetuoustheater.org/Home.html">Impetuous Theater Group’s</a> 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 <strong><em>not </em></strong>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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />That is, if I don’t find a new job and move to the Virgin Islands. Which would be pretty sweet.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-21785239403427879282010-02-18T13:51:00.003-05:002010-02-18T15:32:31.259-05:00Direct 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.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://smallandbrutal.blogspot.com/2010/01/desangut-no.html">Desangut </a>did not go into production. Basically, they sent me four pieces for the price of two.<br /><br />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"<br /><br />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 <a href="http://images.knifecenter.com/knifecenter/ontario/images/ON8770a.jpg">Abaniko </a>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />However one might need something more, and police especially are on shaky ground with any blades <em>they </em>carry and might use. If they defend themselves against an aggressor by <em>using a blade</em>, 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 <a href="http://blogs.denverpost.com/celebritybull/files/2008/07/robocop.jpg">attack a cop</a>. They have directives and stuff.)<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMUyUCL6G-TzaYm1pYczksukq8CuyA7rJGMF2f2Ml_HBkpoNsPG3EDSIztIAkMWEbhKFx5en9nKu7nYEzg-5MJhhWQX6laAsMAMLaAhTeNcYlZip3Re8t9wwjsfbuzcSodrzLcJhaJS6o/s1600-h/blades.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMUyUCL6G-TzaYm1pYczksukq8CuyA7rJGMF2f2Ml_HBkpoNsPG3EDSIztIAkMWEbhKFx5en9nKu7nYEzg-5MJhhWQX6laAsMAMLaAhTeNcYlZip3Re8t9wwjsfbuzcSodrzLcJhaJS6o/s200/blades.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439678016707275538" /></a><br /><br />You can't see from this shot those rough serrated edges on the CRMIPT, but trust me, they're there.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484716760490134114.post-31153101316698303622010-02-05T12:09:00.002-05:002010-02-05T12:53:16.939-05:00Quality 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I hereby issue this plea to directors and producers everywhere: if you desire to have any staged violence in your show, <strong>be prepared to pay for it.</strong> It may cost some actual money to produce, but aside from the monetary factor, <strong>you must be prepared to pay for it in the currency of Time.</strong> <br /><br />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...<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />And... rant ended. Enjoy your weekend!Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10992563104350671622noreply@blogger.com0