Beat‘Em Up! How to Film A Punch
- Mar 3, 2019
- 10 min read
Already with the first read-through of both scripts for Poppie and Teacher Central, I knew that I had a special challenge ahead of me both at camera and in editing; one at which most student films fail on a regular basis: A character being hit by another.
Action Scenes and Sequences
Action scenes belong to the most difficult scenes you could possibly imagine to film. This is not only due to the fact that it entails a lot of planning and practice beforehand, it is also due to the fact that most action scenes require the successful execution of certain techniques, encompassing elements such as camera angles, lens choices, actor performance and camera movements. So it is obvious that a certain amount of time, brain, and energy needs to go into the blocking of such a scene.
But what would our scenes look like?
Poppie’s Beat
In Poppie’s Café for Monsters, the human temp Benjie has signed an employment contract that not only entails working Poppie’s rather strange coffee shop, but also entails bringing her sister Ivy her daily meals. On one of these occasions, Benjie – upon entering the room – will be struck by Ivy with a cane, which takes him out cold.
Tyler’s Journey of Heroism
With the educational video Plotopius and the Crimes of Craniarc for Teacher Central, the script contains a couple of action sequences in which Tyler – as narrated by the omniscient narrator – has to fight his foes in a mostly hilarious fashion. Here,
Challenges
The challenge with Poppie’s action sequence is not only to make it look the part and get the timing right, it will also be to guaranteeing the actor’s safety in all this.
As the character Benjie is being struck from behind, it means that we will need to find a way to make the timing between both actors work, especially since the actor for Benjie won’t be able to see the artificial blow dealt behind him.
As cinematographer of this project, this will require me to know what I am doing without making the shot look artificial or endanger the actors.
With Plotopius and the Crimes of Craniarc the challenge is of a different nature for me, as I will be editing the footage for the best possible effect. However, in order to make this work and look hilarious at the same time, it will require me to work closely with both director and cinematographer to ensure the relevant techniques have been applied in order for me to compile them efficiently in the edit.
For this, I’ll first need to await the finalisation of the storyboard, before we can settle into a discussion of the actual application, then gather practice footage, before I then can have a practice edit of it.
My Research
For this reason, and because I want to be able to rehearse this technique before going on set,
I conducted a bit of research online and offline to get a general idea of the ways, techniques, and tricks that are being used to fake a punch on screen (and to be able to edit them efficiently later in post). I want to have a range of possibilities that I could experiment with to see which would work best with our intended setup.
If everything goes according to plan, with the test footage, I would not only have had proper practice at the camera, I would furthermore have the chance to collect some practice footage for me to test edit in preparation of the Plotopius and the Crimes of Craniarc edit later on this term.
Of Speed Punches, High Velocity Fights and Many More
In the course of my research, I encountered various types of thrown punches and fight scenes in film. While this list here is far from being exhaustive regarding the wealth of techniques and ingenuity of filmmakers out there, it is a good list of basics to start with and source from as a film student starting out on action sequences:
Long Lens Stunts
Speed Punches
Matching Motion
Knock Down
Cut for Impact
Down to the Floor
Off-Screen Violence
Moment of Defeat
High Speed Fighting or 'The Dragon Ball Effect'
Disclaimer
Although it might seem superfluous to state this in the beginning, all of these action scenes share the fact that there is no physical contact and no ‘real’ punch being dealt. This however, requires a good action-reaction performance of both actors involved in the fight scene as the timing between the two needs to be just right to make the fight believable nonetheless.
Long Lens Stunts
This ‘stunt’ or rather trick, as taken from Christopher Kenworthy’s book Master Shots (2009), requires one actor to punch the other on the far side of the body that is turned away from camera, to make the shot more believable. Since that has been used quite often and is a rather obvious technique to start with, however, others recommend try ‘hitting’ the side that is faced towards the camera. This technique would then look less suspicious, but would obviously require more rehearsals with the actors to get their timing right.
In total, this technique is characterised by the use of a long lens. Since long lenses, due to their optical properties, foreshorten or ‘compress’ space, distances between objects and actors look much shorter or smaller on the two-dimensional image than they do in the corresponding real life situation. Thus, the punching actor can get away with missing their target by a couple of inches, as a thrown punch would still look much more closer to the object. That is, with the right choice of camera angle and angle to go with, of course.
As Kenworthy points out, this technique would work both in wide and tight framings, since the physical properties of the lens would not be affected by the choice of frame. However, if just starting out with action scenes, he recommends watching every shot back in slow motion to see whether it really does look the part.
Speed Punches
This technique is recommended by Kenworthy for all those scenarios in which a character is taken out with one swift and – apparently – forceful punch to the head. With this technique, he again recommends ‘punching’ the far side of the actor’s head.
However, with this shot, the framing and camera movement is a bit more delicate than in the first technique. In order to translate the forcefulness of the punch visually onto the audience’s experience, the camera needs to:
Show both characters in the frame (no over-the-shoulder shot)
Move slightly away with the victim (as if backing away)
Come to an abrupt standstill and then whip-pan when the punch lands.
This technique, once executed well, will give the audience an impression of being the actual victim in this scene and being hit forcefully. For this reason, paradoxically, it is important that you actual see more of the victim than just their shoulder to see the ‘impact’ of the punch on the body, before the vision blurs.
Matching Motion
This is for more elaborate fight scenes in which characters are pushing each other around. For this technique, Kenworthy recommends to follow the characters moving alongside them and at about head-height. In order to translate the frenzy and movement onto the screen, the last thing you want to do is balance the image by centring on the average middle position between both actors, which means that you should settle on one character only, and not both as a unit.
Furthermore, you should then aim to keep the height, pan angle and distance to this actor as much as possible and only change them once the fight comes to an abrupt end, however that may look like. Here, motion is created by the occurring change in the background that will be contrasted with the actors.
What I personally found interesting with this technique is the fact that establishing balance in any way shape or form would slow down the feeling of motion in the image, which is a feature I never actively recognised and considered before.
Knock Down
The Knock Down technique is essentially an adaptation of the Long Lens Stunt with an added camera movement that shows the victim being punched to the ground. For this, the camera needs to be set up at eye level behind the attacker, focussing on the victim as the punch is being dealt to their far side.
As the victim ‘falls’ to the ground, the camera will drop with him to his eye-level. However, since the attacker’s body will be in between the camera and the victim, the victim can instead gently slide to the ground, which will be hidden from camera. All the camera sees is a massive blow to the head and the victim on the ground.
While this to me personally doesn’t sound like a convincing technique, it might be with enough practice.
Cut for Impact
This technique is usually used for depictions of a victim on ground, being kicked by its assailants. However, this technique only shows either the attacker dealing blows or the victim reacting to these from the distance.
This results in 1) a rather close, low-angle shot pointed up to the assailant kicking someone out of shot, and 2) a camera positioned low to the ground with some distance away from the victim but behind them. The assailant will mimic the kicks by rapidly pulling the foot up or backwards while the actor on the ground will recoil with the accurate timing.
In the edit then, the assailant should be depicted kicking at least two times to give the audience enough of a reference point to understand what’s going on before cutting to the victim.
Down to the Floor
This technique is used for all the scenes that entail two or more entangled characters fighting or wrestling on the ground. For this, one over-the-shoulder shot towards the ground is requires, as is a second shot upwards. Since the second one might be difficult to achieve with a camera and lying on the floor, Kenworthy recommends having both actors lie on a table, thereby raising them and giving the camera (plus lens) additional space.
He furthermore recommends using the same lens and distance in both shots. While he does not explain his reasoning behind this, my personal assumption would be that using the same lens and distance between both actors would establish a power balance – and thus heightened tension – for the audience. Since two characters wrestling on the ground is often the climax of a battle, the same ‘camera treatment’ for both of would keep the tension rising as to whom is going to win.
Off-Screen Violence
This technique is often used for omitting violence of an attack due to genre or age restrictions. Here, you only show the attacker from about waist-high, but never the result of their brutal attack. As you will never see the impact, your imagination can fill the gap. However, this would require some form of padding or a cushion to give the actor an actual object to hit and make the shot more believable.
Moment of Defeat
This second to last technique I unearthed is often used as the logical final ending of the Down to the Floor-technique. Here, the assailant’s and the victim’s reaction to the battle’s outcome are shown, more or less subtly revealing the winner. However, both the lighting and the choice of lens will slightly differ. Again, my assumption here is that the use of e.g. a wide lens, that distorts features at a close proximity would be used for the defeated, distorting not only his facial features but thereby also adding a sense of horror.
High Speed Fighting or 'The Dragon Ball Effect'
In contrast to the rest listed above, the High Speed Fighting technique (or Dragon Ball effect after the manga of Japanese author Akira Toriyama), is located at the rather humorous side of action scenes. While they can be designed more seriously with increased effort, its initial effect is to amuse the audience. This technique requires at least five different shots:
A frontal setup of the first actor
A frontal setup of the second actor
A side shot of the first actor
A side shot of the second actor
A side shot of both opposing each other
For the frontal setup, you have your actor look into the camera and repeatedly towards the camera for at least 45 seconds. The important aspect here is that the actors should not move their heads too much and should make no or only sparse use of facial expressions. The same goes for the side shots.
The main magic is then done in the edit: By speeding up the clips, adding a puff of smoke at the peak of each punch and adding a blur effect around the fists of each actor, you can create an effect of two characters hyper-speed-punching each other, that would look like this at 0'40'':
More Practical Tips
I was actually very grateful for this find, as this video incorporates some more tips and tricks from the stuntwoman America Young that are of practical nature, such as making sure that the actor ‘to be punched’ is actually warming up their neck muscles as to not pull them whilst faking to receive a punch. I furthermore found it helpful advise to teach actors how NOT to punch and for the actor playing the victim to turn their head with their nose leading in order to make their reaction look more natural.
Also, I appreciated the accuracy and precision of America Young to point out that the punching actor needs fake the ‘getting through the face’ aspect of punching by acting as if to force through something. And that a punch should always be framed to go across the frame in order to make it more visually pleasing and cinematic.
Furthermore, I liked the fact that she advised on health and safety regulations by reminding filmmakers to provide for a crash pad or padding in case the ‘punched actor’ needs to fall.
This is truly learning from the experience of others!
My Application for Poppie
For the action sequence in Poppie as described and storyboarded above, I’d either propose a combination of a Long Lens Stunt and a Speed Punch with a fade to black, or one of a Long Lens Stunt with an abrupt cut to black. In both sequences, the sound of Benjie being hit and then hitting the floor would be set in the black film. As we will certainly be experimenting in order to get the best effect, it is yet hard to tell as an absolute beginner, which would have more impact on the viewer.
My Application for Plotopius and the Crimes of Craniarc
For Plotopius and the Crimes of Craniarc I want to propose the ‘Dragon Ball Effect’ for at least one of the scenes. Since this technique is referring to a manga and anime that is well known and read in this age group, the reference would be recognised. Furthermore, due to its humorous style, it allows us to incorporate the aspect of conflict and battle without the depiction of violence and gore.
But first, I need to arrange a day of test shoots to learn how to best apply the necessary techniques for this. Better get going!
References:
CineCom.net (2017) How to FILM a REALISTIC PUNCH in the Face | Cinecom.net [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ-Dd33bZ68&index=37&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&t=0s [Accessed on 3 March 2019]
Eurogamer (2014) Super Smash Bros. – Mii Character Announce Trailer – E3 2014 – Eurogamer [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdDYoCU2kv0&frags=pl%2Cwn [Accessed on 3 March]
Film Learnin (2014) Film Learnin: Anime speed fighting effect! [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_5q0Sln8TU&index=39&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&t=0s [Accessed on 3 March 2019]
FilmRiot (2014) Quick Tips: Realistically Punch Faces! [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSraU6WBkm8&index=38&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&t=0s [Accessed on 3 March 2019]
Film Riot (2016) How to Shoot a Fight Scene [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj7SyUGhtFA&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&index=40&t=0s [Accessed on 3 March 2019]
INSIDER (2018) How Punching Sounds Are Made For Movies | Movies Insider [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjABmkGpzrI&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&index=42&t=0s [Accessed on 3 March 2019]
Kenworthy, C. (2009) 100 Advanced Camera Techniques to Get an Expensive Look on Your Low Budget Movie Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions
National Film Society (2012) How To Throw a Fake Punch [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ILMRCq9OJQ&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&index=41&t=0s [Accessed on 3 March 2019]
Toriyama, A. (2008) Dragon Ball Volume 1 Second Edition. London: Simon&Schuster UK
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