 One of our most popular videos is one of our earliest ones and that was what kind of karate's in copperkai and to this day I still get the same answer. It's movie karate. It's not real Well, they're not wrong and in fact, it's probably the most honest and realistic answer that one can give even as much fun As we want to dive into any history and analytical and what it might represent bottom line. Yes It's movie karate. So today we're gonna talk about some simple tricks that movies use to make martial arts scenes better than they should be So almost all movie karate is a lie. Yes, I'm sorry I said it even your main most favorite martial arts films chances are they are lying to you only because when it comes to making a movie Realism and a actual realistic fight. It's pretty low on the priority list when it comes to structuring a scene you know there's a specific hierarchy they achieve and that they strive for and the first thing on that list is Drama you're watching the story to get some sort of narrative across and The drama and storytelling event takes precedence So whatever happens in that scene has to advance the movie forward second priority is Choreography and that's how it's presented to us That's that's how the moves that they choose to show us because and it's actually interesting because when you look back at Previous films, you know in the 40s in the 50s and 60s It was all a lot of like boxing and fist fighting look at John Wayne He was the on-screen tough guy and it was pretty much all punches with him then, you know around the 70s 80s we had people like Chuck Norris and Van Damme show up on the scene and now we're seeing these fancy kicks now as Mary can view an audience that was kind of new kicks were fancy to us So back then movies got away with simpler choreography was turn kick this guy turn kick that guy turn kick that guy now You know fast forward a couple of decades We need something a little more than that which you see them up the ante all the time So, you know, you got Jackie Chan films now, which are just incredible to watch films like John Wick Where they getting they're getting really fancy with the choreography So you're going to see an evolution over time how films are choreographed and the moves and techniques that they choose They're on the list is Presentation there's a narrative to the scene and there's a choreography to the scene But there's also a way to present it, you know in terms of tonality and stylistic choices and how they want you to feel So it doesn't just advance the story Forward but it should invoke some sort of a some sort of a dramatic response for you whether it be to laugh to cry To get angry be happy, you know, you know cheer on your favorite actor So, you know, that's all part of engaging the viewer into the film Then after all that is taken care of then they try to make it as real as possible once the other objectives are fulfilled So realism honestly like realistic fighting if you go watch home movies or realistic fights You try to compare them to a movie they usually don't look the same Because movies have that drama structure built in that's the whole point of their existence is to tell a story So what we're gonna go over are just a couple of lies that they sell you and a couple of deceptive techniques that movies use To kind of make the action look better than what it actually is So the first and foremost one we should probably talk about is perspective the perspective that we are presented as an audience Camera placement can sometimes be everything all it takes is for the camera to be set up at just the right angle To appear as if a person is striking somebody else because when we talk about a 2d image on a screen You know all the fist has to do is kind of overlap the image of someone's face And with the right sound effect and right reaction that could totally sell the effect and in fact when that technique is used Most of the time those actors are usually you know swings are usually a foot or two away from the intended target But you can't always tell on screen So one example is the crane kick and this shouldn't be any surprise anybody who knows me that I'm going to use This example is one of the first examples But in the first karate kid film the crane kick that Daniel does at the end to Johnny If you really watch it looks like he's making contact. I mean there's no space in between it It's a clear cut connection Unless you look very carefully and realize that you know There's Daniel and Johnny in the plane and they're slightly offset and what that means is they're facing each other But they're on a slightly different line of attack But where the cameras positioned you kind of compresses the space you can't really tell so in actuality Daniel's foot is going in front of Johnny's face But on screen with the reaction in the motion blur it looks like Johnny is actually struck by the kick now playing off of The spatial compression. I want to talk about really quick the camera techniques of dollies and zooms Both have the same kind of objective to get closer to the action But they're done two different ways a dolly when you dolly a camera You are physically taking the camera and moving it forward moving it towards your subjects So if you've got a person standing in the field and you move the camera towards them They're gonna get larger because they're getting closer to the camera But the background stays the same because it's way in the back So you actually retain the distance you can kind of see the depth of the shot When you zoom Zooming a camera the camera doesn't move It's really just magnifying the image and when you magnify the image the background the sub foreground Your character your your subject they all enlarge at the same time and what and that happens It actually compresses space that looks you lose that spatial difference and it makes the image look flatter So knowing that There's a very simple technique if you're gonna do the technique of where you're gonna overlap and make it look like An actress in another actor you just add a little bit of that magnification that spatial compression and you can sell it even further So a lot of movies such as cry to kid to you know when Miyagi striking, you know the bad guys He's not really hitting them and I'm willing to bet he was probably even two to three feet away from them But the way the images compressed looks like are convincingly enough that it connects now a really interesting filmmaking tool It's called the dolly zoom and I love this effect and there's two ways you can do it You could physically move the camera forward while zooming out or move the camera out while zooming in And what that does is that keeps your subject here your person in the foreground roughly about the same size But that makes the background either stretch out in a long eight or stretch in complex It's a really bizarre effect and as example we see it in Mortal Kombat when Johnny Cage realizes You know he's among a whole bunch of dead warriors So it's usually used for more of a vertical effect or a psychological enhancement It's usually a dire situation for your character It's not your typical focus point, but it's it gives something ethereal give a little bit of an unsettling move And it's used very very effectively not a lot of martial arts films have martial artists as their protagonists And it's a lot easier to work with their choreography because they are experienced But many times you'll have actors that either have very little martial arts experience or none at all And when that's the case unless you do a super serious training regimen over and over and over the course of months to get To the point of looking convincing There's some liberties you have to take and there's a few camera tricks that are involved that can help fudge that a little bit One common technique of doing is is the shaky cam and I am personally not a fan of this But you know you want to seem to feel frantic a little bit more raw and especially to cover up actors That might not have the fighting experience is really close-up shots They're really shaking all you see your blurs back and forth and grunting and some people falling in the Maybe the casual wide shot I'm not a fan of this because that pulls me out of the action if I'm watching the film That's got a martial arts fight scene in it. I want to see what's happening It's okay to show a blurs shot once in a while But every now and then there's a movie which does it excessively and the two biggest culprits I can think off off the top My head are with the weapon one, you know between Mel Gibson and Gary B You see that drove me nuts as a kid They really couldn't see too much of what they're doing and even Batman begins There's a lot of that the later Batman films we saw better choreography But that close-up the close-up frantic raw action where it just blurs everything to me ruins the scene And that's my personal opinion some of you might like it But the shaky cam is definitely one way to add a raw franticness to the to the battle as well as cover-up actors Who might not have prime fighting experience? So those are some of your basic camera tricks the editor on the other hand has a few tools in his toolbox to take Things even further so one is The way he cuts choice of cuts, you know, he could take you know on set They film a whole bunch of different angles typically of different fight scenes the editor now has to assemble it One trick is to cut angles, especially cutting on action Sometimes when you cut on a movement cut on the action you can abbreviate it slightly Makes it look a little bit faster and it actually ties in the shots makes the edits look a little bit smoother Especially when you overlay sound it could be it could feel a lot more natural and not such such a jerky cut angle Cut angle cut so one of the tips is cutting on the action So when that punch is connecting immediately cut to the next person reacting so that helps smooth out the action sequence a little bit more Now another subtle technique. It's called speed ramping on the average most films are filmed at 24 frames per second And they are played back at 24 frames per second Every once in a while if they want to enhance a quick effect or make a strike look more snappy or all of a sudden a little bit Faster than it would have been in real life is during editing They could ramp up the frames for just that little tiny second to make it look like a faster strike One example is in Cobra Kai and a tournament scene ironically enough It's when Miguel does the crank kick and you can see it's a normal shot They sit up, but that second has foot connects There's like that quick little almost a hyperspeed whip to it and the reaction is real quick and it goes back to normal speed I'm pretty sure that's a speed ramp effect just to enhance the shot And since we talked about before the alignment if you look at the shadows on the floor They're using the same trick they use in the Karate Kid But they're just slightly off-plane from each other to give the illusion the action made contact And this was also kind of related to a trick that they used to do and they still you will use once in a while Like I said on average most films were filmed at 24 frames per second and played back at 24 frames per second One older trick and it's still used once in a while is sometimes they would film action sequences at 22 frames per second More or less and when it's played back at 24 It's sped up slightly but not sped up so much where it looks unnatural So that was a very common trick especially back in the days when they didn't have digital editing systems It was more you know real to real that was a very simple in-camera trick that they could do was film in a slightly slower frame rate So it captured the action, but when it was projected back It was sped up just a little bit enough to look a little more convincing So frame rates are a tactic as well to make something look a little bit more impressive Shutter speed is another interesting trick that's used in movie making and it's a very very subtle unless you know Exactly what to look for so for those who are not familiar the camera shutter The shutter speed refers to how long that shutter is open and closes as it's taken his picture So a camera shutter that's got a slow shutter speed the image is open the longer It's open the more light comes in it hits the chip the more motion it picks up The faster it opens and closes the less light that hits the chip and what you get is when you have a longer Exposure when you're when your shutter is open longer your move anything that's moving will trail that's where motion blurs come from because As long as that shutters open and that person's moving they're basically streaking versus a higher shutter speed will snap open and close real Quick it's going to capture more of a sharper image For example the Kingsman had a fight scene in the church if you look at it You notice there's really no motion blurs. It's almost choppy and jerky and almost a little bit surreal But that matches the tone of the scene They're also playing with the dolly and zoom is a little bit so they're giving it more of a comical a little bit More of a fantasy feel to it and that grittiness just makes it that much more hard hitting and you see a little more detail But let's look at lethal weapon for for example when they were filming with jet Lee They did say that jet Lee moved really fast on set and it was almost hard to Sometimes they had to ask him to slow down because he was moving a little bit too fast for the camera to capture him So in a lot of its shots you see the motion blur especially when he's finding rigs and mertog, you know He moves you're not seeing very crisp frames You're seeing blurs and that sells the illusion of him moving extremely fast very effective Both of them are very effective filmmaking techniques It really depends on the mood and what the intent of the scene you're trying to get across and then of course We have stunt actors. We can't forget them many times You might have a high profile actor that you know might not be able to do some stunts or even fight So they'll bring in some actors one and then this happens a lot a lot of movies Especially with dangerous stunts But there's certain ways to hide him in there It kind of stands out as a stunt actor if you never see that person's face or in the fight and many times their Their body bills will be slightly different than the main actor So what they'll typically do is they'll cut it in a way where it'll go back and forth between Stunt actor shots and main actor shots and I find that as long as you kind of Constantly go back to a face or a close-up of the main actor show him as a quick glimpse You get away with a lot more son actor shots, especially in the sequence of cuts Now environments environments are one of my favorite ways that movies can get creative with their fight scenes because it's not just about One guy versus one guy fighting. I find it much more interesting if their environment is an obstacle Everything can be a weapon. Are there are they are they going out as it is an unlevel ground Are they fighting upstairs the side of the building on the mountain? Are they in the restaurant? They grabbing tables are you know, they grabbing silverware How creatively are they using the scene around them to add to the effect in my personal opinion? I really enjoy seeing a character utilize their whole space because that adds a lot more value to me in the fight Because I'm very big on environmental awareness when it comes to self-defense. It's a big part of the discipline So when I see movies really creatively use the set pieces in the combat that just heightens the excitement for me I think it's that's I think this was great filmmaking and then we have wire effects now wire effects are very common place in kung fu films but they've you know over the past over years they've been working their way into more mainstream movies in here in America and I really think their usage depends on what you're trying to get across Wire work is often very obvious But it works very well in movies that have like a fantasy element to it or a little bit of a supernatural element to it superhero fighting Anything with magic it definitely falls into place with that if it's a more grounded story You want to use it sparingly for example jet Lee had a little bit of some wired moments in lethal weapon 4 But it was subtle it was quick And it was just enough to give him a little bit more of a a threat level increase through rigs and retog It showed his skill above there So while it was a wire effect it was subtle and it sold up that showed the moment of okay He's better than they are and it heightens the danger and it heightens the excitement So wire work when used properly can also be very effective Okay, so when it comes to multiple attackers The concept of multiple attackers is dancing the line of realism just by default because it's very very difficult to fight More than one person at a time Realistically and in movies, you know Everyone seems to be a one-man army and everyone at this point is I think pretty tired of the trope of you know A group of guys surround your bat or your main character, but they only tack one at a time He takes them out. That's kind of the old way of doing it. So what do they do now? Like how can you make it a little bit more convincing movement? Keep the scene moving if you've got multiple attackers Don't just have them standing waiting to turn have them move Maybe have one guy trying to climb and come forward Maybe have another guy trying to get around another guy Maybe your character hits one person turns it's another give this guy a second to recover but keep movement going Especially if it's a large scene just keep the motion going and when you cut with the motion Sometimes it's hard to get your bearing and as a viewer it's more exciting because you're wondering like oh, okay Well, I see this back I what about the one he was just fighting and you can play around with those camera angles But I think it's very important to keep the motion going But as an example of a movie that I think does it quite poorly believe or not as Dark Knight Rises Was actually really disappointed with the choreography in that film the Batman vs. Bane shots aren't so bad You know that they still follow the main rules. It's they're well cut the great one-on-one fighting Choreography but in the scenes to have a lot of background action Particularly when they're on the rooftop fighting and when the big the big finale at the end if you look at the background Action it is a borderline ridiculous look at this scene right here with Batman fighting Bane You see all the cops and the criminals fighting in the background Most of them are just hugging each other and doing little patty cake hits and they're just kind of jumping There's almost no fight card or choreography going on at all They're just moving and jumping with some the occasional Mimic of a move so I mean when you really watch that background scene You kind of like well that just looks silly and same thing yet like on the rooftop when Catwoman and Batman are on the rooftop fighting It's the same thing. There's just motion in the background even so far as A guy who seems to be getting beaten up by nobody and getting knocked down after fighting nobody so That's as much as I love those films That's just messy filmmaking and that kind of drew me out of the scenes because that's an example of bad background motion So you want to you want to make it convincing you want to have motion going on You want to have the right angles you want to be able to cut the scene together that sells the intensity it sells the Impacts it sells the dramatic nature again It all comes to telling that story and if there's any element in there that distracts a viewer any mistake like that or something That draws our mind well You're drawing them out of the story and you're kind of lose them So you're the primary goal is to drive that narrative forward and when all else fails if you find yourself Need to do a stunt that's too dangerous or our weapons at play or for whatever reason the logistics of the scene are just too difficult Sometimes CGI is a way to go and you'd be surprised how many times you can watch a scene in the film Or you're not even looking at real-life actors. They're just animated John Wick 3 is actually a good example of this Where there's some sequences where it's just animation or animation enhanced fighting sequences that you wouldn't have picked out normally So that was just kind of maybe a little fun way to look at martial arts films To understand that the movie camera is lying to you, you know, we we talk It's we have fun breaking down scenes and what's realistic. What's not but again It's all about selling the drama and selling the moment, you know for better for worse Where you feel it hurts the martial arts not but I encourage you now to go go watch some of your favorite martial arts scenes now And see if you can pick out any of these techniques There might be a few things that you never noticed before especially like watching background action and watch for cuts and continuity There's a lot of things that you might not have picked out the first time viewing and also as an experiment I get a lot of messages from from viewers who are talking about different martial arts scenes So we have this discussion quite a bit So I thought this would be kind of a fun look So the kind of playoff of this on Thursday if you're watching this episode today on Tuesday on this release on Thursday We're gonna release another episode taking a look at one scene from the Cobra Kai season one episode five The lunchroom scene the lunchroom fight scenes So we're gonna kind of take that and break that down step by second kind of analyze What's realistic versus what's cinematic about it and how it was framed a shot a certain way to deliver the narrative across So go ahead and set your reminder for that You know click on the bell so that way when it drops you'll be notified right away So that's it for now I hope you guys enjoyed this if you want to talk about future movie scenes if you liked the the breakdown of talk about what's realistic versus cinematic Please leave your feedback in the comments below. I would love to hear what you guys think and maybe we can do more These in the future, so thank you so much, and we will see you next time