- 2 days ago
Buffy the vampire slayer
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00:13Stunts rule, man. Stunts are the best.
00:20Buffy is a very stunt-heavy show. Lots of fights, lots of weapons.
00:29Stunt day is always my favorite day.
00:47Anything that consists of physical activity that could be dangerous to the average person,
00:53I consider that a stunt.
00:59John has a tough job. In a way, he's an extension of the writers,
01:03because they have to come up with something new every week.
01:05And John does too, because the pacing of this show and a lot of its appeal
01:09comes from its physicality and comes from its action sequences.
01:19The thing that's different about Buffy is we not only have big karate-style fist fights,
01:25but we really have everything, including bringing the house down on people.
01:29We pull walls out. We throw people. We fly them.
01:32They hit the ground. They dive through everything. It's different every week.
01:38The way to keep the fights and stunt elements exciting is to utilize the stunt people that work.
01:44We have a wide variety of talented stunt people,
01:47from people who do martial arts to gymnastics to special skills.
01:52And I utilize their abilities. I don't just create them at the top of my head.
01:56Sometimes I see what they can do, and I utilize their ideas and just mold it into the scene.
02:02As a stunt person, I've had some acrobatic background,
02:06which has helped a lot, because we've been doing more wire work.
02:09And then just different martial arts and styles that we can incorporate
02:13to put them together, to come up with some new tricks that maybe she hasn't done before.
02:23I've been able to learn and experience some new things, like air rams, which was a lot of fun.
02:33Descenders going from ceilings down to the floor, crashing in.
02:40A lot of times it's a lot of fighting, so when we get to do those bigger ones, it's a
02:44lot of fun.
02:47I love ratchets and wire work and any kinds of flips.
03:00My background is in gymnastics, so that style tends to come in a little bit.
03:08As you can see in the last episode, there's a big fighting scene.
03:13And there's also some gymnastic ability in that.
03:21There are people surrounding me, including Steve Tartaglia,
03:27who are absolute masters of the craft of mayhem.
03:34I just love the fights.
03:36When they yell action, it's just like a boxing match.
03:40When the bell goes ding, you just enter the zone.
03:43And it's that zone that I think every athlete, or actor even, lives for.
03:48When there's a cut and you know you've nailed a good fight,
03:50and everything is sold, and they look at the playback and the monitor,
03:54and everything is perfect.
03:55It feels good.
03:56Okay.
03:59Jack.
03:59Jack.
04:08I don't go about creating a fight style.
04:10I look at James.
04:11I see how he moves.
04:13I take the cues from there.
04:14I'm starting with his character and his shoulder jaunt.
04:18And just really trying to pay attention to that body language,
04:20which sort of helps to dictate the feel of the fight.
04:24So I try to keep that in mind while working up the choreography
04:28with John, with the stunt coordinator.
04:30So when James does it, everything matches and blends seamlessly.
04:34He's the guy teaching me the moves.
04:38Frankly, John doesn't have time.
04:40John is dealing with the whole, the larger picture.
04:42He's often directing the whole sequence.
04:45So when the time comes for me to do my shot,
04:48whether or not I actually am able to do it is up to Steve and I.
04:52Action.
04:53Well, I'll send you your regrets.
04:55No.
04:57Steve is an absolute maniac, though.
05:00Steve is a secret weapon.
05:01He'll face plant from eight feet for the gift.
05:06He, from eight feet up, he took a horizontal face plant into three foam bricks.
05:11And that was on this stage, which is just concrete, man.
05:15I basically launched myself off of a platform and tried to sell what looked like the perfect belly flop onto
05:22concrete.
05:23And, um, there was a few bricks laying around.
05:26And one of them caught me in the, um, in the zone, if you know what I mean.
05:30And, um, I had to, uh, just lay still there until the camera cut.
05:36And, you know, then I promptly displayed my, um, pain.
05:42Yeah, yeah.
05:43I'm, I'm nutted, though.
05:44I got a nutter.
05:45Yeah, okay.
05:46Yeah.
05:46Four.
05:48Yeah!
05:48Yeah!
05:50This is me.
05:51Hi.
05:52Hello.
05:52Hello.
05:53He's not my stunt guy.
05:55Steve is Spike.
05:56As am I.
05:57As is Joss.
05:58As is Doug Petrie.
05:59As is David Fury.
06:00As is Stephen McKnight and everybody else who writes for him.
06:03We have a great stunt coordinator in John Medlin.
06:05And we know we can rely on him to come up with interesting stuff.
06:09At the same time, sometimes we're very, very specific about the stunts.
06:13Because they're part of the story.
06:14Sometimes we know, we need a fight here.
06:16Give us a fight.
06:17Show us what you got.
06:18That's too much.
06:19Lose that.
06:19Keep that.
06:20And sometimes it's, you know, this fight has to represent something very specific.
06:23So we need this kind of movement from Buffy.
06:26This kind of movement from Spike.
06:27So it, it varies how much we use the coordinator, uh, up front.
06:31And how much we put in the script.
06:32In a production meeting, I'll read the script.
06:34And we'll see something like,
06:37Buffy falls back after being blasted by a magical power blast of one of the demons.
06:42In that case, we'll figure out how big the blast is going to be.
06:47You know, where is she, the surrounding area?
06:50Is she capable of doing it?
06:51Is she capable of falling back?
06:52Because there are ways of, of cheating the stunt for her to be safe.
06:56Like in a close-up shot, someone could be behind her and spotting her.
07:00Or we could put down a nice, uh, section of pads behind her so she can actually do it.
07:04And then we'll save the wide shot for the actual stunt person to really take a nice hard hit on
07:09the ground.
07:11And, uh, sell it that way.
07:13So, it all depends on the scene itself and who, uh, the actor is performing the stunt.
07:18And consulting with them and making sure everything is going to be safe.
07:24Riley?
07:25Buffy, what are you doing here?
07:27My job.
07:28Well, I just thought you were in the North sector.
07:29Watch out!
07:31The physicality of the role and the job in general was something I like to do.
07:36I'm like, John, come work with me on this.
07:38I want to learn exactly how it goes.
07:40I want to, I want to, I want to be involved in all the choreography.
07:43I don't want to cheat any of these shots.
07:44I want to try to do everything I can myself.
07:46And he just handles it in such a, in such a professional way.
07:50He's safe.
07:51He's on, he, he's prepared.
07:52And he is still open-minded and allows the actor to jump in and do some stuff.
07:58Ming Lee in Fool for Love, uh, who did the sword and who was the, the slayer that was killed
08:04in the Boxer Rebellion,
08:05was so liquid and so in control with those swords.
08:10She placed those swords within micro-inches for close-ups every single time.
08:16And we were fighting on cement covered by dust, which is not an easy floor space to fight on at
08:23all.
08:24And she was, and she was fighting with a sword with a, with a principal actor,
08:29which is, you know, like a big deal because you're not supposed to hurt a principal actor.
08:32There are certain gags that our actors are not allowed to do.
08:35They're not allowed to take big falls, they're not allowed to take hits.
08:38We don't let them do flips.
08:39A lot of them want to, but someone will get hurt.
08:43And so we just put a stop to the really dangerous ones and we have stunt people to do that.
08:47When John came aboard, he allowed us to make Buffy more physical,
08:51or use her whole body to flip, to do a lot of wire gags, they call them,
08:55that we weren't able to do early on.
09:04Those are really nice shoes.
09:08Giles, now!
09:12The most exciting and, and thrill-type stunts that we've done exciting for us to do
09:19was the horse chase scene with the Winnebago.
09:22It's where we had a bunch of knight-type characters chasing the Winnebago full of the Scooby gang inside.
09:29And once they caught up to the Winnebago, they had to climb on top.
09:32Buffy jumps on top of the Winnebago, pulls out the sword after defeating one of them and kicking them off
09:37the top.
09:37And you have a nice ground hit.
09:40And of course we're moving at good speed, so there's a lot of dangerous elements there.
09:44You have the risk element of people falling off, so they have to have good balance and good fight skills
09:50and be aware of their surroundings.
10:01The trick to directing stunts is to keep everything moving.
10:05We try and go hand-held with these things as much as we can.
10:09John and the director will go down and walk through the stunts,
10:13try and choreograph everything we can ahead of time,
10:15try and plan where the gags will be,
10:17which are people being pulled up on wires or being launched off of air rams
10:23or some specific gag that special effects will rig.
10:27And our stunt people are very good, and we don't really have a problem with matching the action.
10:32They're all very talented, and they'll go in and shoot a master,
10:36we'll shoot a big wide shot that has the full action,
10:38and then we'll bring our actors in and have them go in and do specific hits
10:42and falls and ducks and little parts of the action,
10:46and then we just edit the whole thing together as one piece.
10:55action!
11:01rolling, rolling!
11:04and...
11:05three...
11:07two...
11:07one...
11:08dirt...
11:09drop!
11:14all right, that was an eight block.
11:20Thumbs up?
11:21Thumbs up.
11:22All clear.
11:22Okay.
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