Adventure! Fight Night, or, Shooting My First Fight Scene

Last night I shot my first fight scene. I had a fabulous time! I was with my Fight Class friends and family.

The challenges: my asthma acted up. It's been awhile since it's done so and I think I it was just due to being out of shape, yet another reason to get back into running. Usually in class, you do a couple rounds of practicing a fight, but you get enough time in between tries. So it was a whole new experience for me. Sometimes, even in "straight acting" you have to do several takes of a scene, or a particular moment. It's the same thing for a fight scene. I am totally in awe of stunt performers and what they go through. I felt bad to be out of breath, but whaddya gonna do? YOU KEEP HAVING FUN - and I did!

It's great to be part of something so different. I got to fight! In costume! With a quarterstaff! Weeeeee! Luckily, I was first in the line up, so after my fight was done, I just got to sit back and enjoy watching my friends in their work and play on both sides of the camera.
Let's see if I can share some pics.

My favorite shot of the night fighting Bernadett.

Dead, dead, deadski.

Getting notes for the next take. I'm sitting cuz I'm catching my breath. Bernadett's sitting cuz she's keeping me company. She's a great fight partner.

"I dare you to cross this line."

My fellow captives. Lyssa, hiding, Anne with the attitude, Olivia, all sad looking.

Kim Turney, en guard!

Eric taking on Ralph with double cutlass.

Anne in the middle of the rapier and dagger melee.

Bernadett taking on Adam with the broadsword.

Me behind bars, right where I need to be.

Fight Class The Series

Imma gonna brag about my friends Kim Turney, Jan Bryant, and Dan Speaker.

They are all partners and teach at the Academy of Theatrical Combat, and coincidentally enough, that's where I've been studying how to wield a sword for camera. Trust me, it's super fun and so far, it's the closest I've come to living my childhood dream of being a pirate.

They've taken it upon themselves to create a webseries. This isn't your typical webseries, oh no, they're breaking down fight scenes from movies and teaching you how to do them yourself! Jan and Dan teach their charming host Kristen Nedopak how to perform the scene, while Kim directs from behind the camera and gives great life to fight scenes. Each episode runs about 10 minutes and so far they've recreated fights from Army of Darkness and Game of Thrones.


Here's their latest episode, where they break down the fight scene from Hook, between Peter and Hook. Just to let you know, Jan and Dan were the swordmasters behind Hook - lucky them! Can you imagine how fun it must've been to work with Steven Speilberg, Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, and all those great kids? And on that set, too? So fun, so jealous.

Without further ado, here's Episode 3:





If you enjoyed that, here's their first two episodes, Army of Darkness:




And.... Game of Thrones!

The Almighty Thor!

The fact that I get to learn about swordfighting is awesome. The fact that my teachers have worked on such favorites of mine like Hook, The Three Musketeers, and Army of Darkness is supremely awesome. The icing on the cake is that they've become family to me down here in Los Angeles.

Jan Bryant, Dan Speaker, and Kim Turney are instructors at the Academy of Theatrical Combat.  They know their way around all kinds of sharp, pointy objects, and all kinds of bludgeoning goodies as well. Jan and Dan were hired to coordinate the fights on SyFy's The Almighty Thor. Check out the trailer below, you'll catch a glimpse of what they've done. You'll even see my friend Jason Medbury in a suit of armor, fighting Thor. Yay!

And yes, Thor gets to use an Uzi. I don't see a problem with that, do you? Almighty Thor premieres May 7th on the SyFy Channel. Weeee!

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