What !? I have to plan the fight scenes ? Challenge accepted ! Since I was playing the part of the hero, I began doing some boxing training in the evenings and on the week-ends. I was already in good shape, but needed to have the boxing parts look believable. So that was my first goal. Next thing I did was get this book : Fight Choreography: The Art of Non-Verbal Dialogue. This is an awsome book that lays out practically everything connected to a fight scene. From the psychology of the characters, motivations, techniques, camera angles... good stuff. Armed with this weapon, I approached each scene from the perspective of what's happened before the fight, what was needed for the story, and what moves I wanted to see pulled off.

 

First thing was to find the alley. Walking back from work downtown Montreal, I would walk through some more industrial parts with overpasses and traintracks. I saw this place and it was perfect : deep enough for distance shots and wide enough for the action. 

 

In this scene, I wanted to show that the Sister was able to kick ass and put vampires away. But being surrounded, she would lose track of all the enemies and get stabed in the back of the head though the mouth. Initially it was intended to be with the hand, but knife was simpler for effects.

 

I knew that none of the actors had fighting skills so these needed to stay very simple. Basically Sarah just needed to time a blocking move on the first vampire's attack and stab him. That's when I learned exactly what was written in the book : For a fight scene, get actual fighters or trained actors. Well we had neither and it was painful to see. Timing was very hard to get. Even having the second vampire step into the cross was very difficult. Plus we had all sorts of logistical issues for this first shoot. Basically, this was our nightmare day for the movie.

Two things that needed to happen in this fight : a vampire getting stabbed in both eyes, and saving the girl. Easy enough, just needed to find a good spot before working out the details. I had seen a couple of places that could do the job, but nothing fantastic. That's when Camille who was working the effects and props, suggested the alley in back of where he lived. The place was great and I basically built the scene based on the location.

 

This was the first time that we see the main character, so it was important to me to show that he is a fearsome boxer, but also has some super hero moves. Since there were three vampires, I wanted to break them appart, so when they spotted me, have one of them rush towards my spot. This way I could take that one out with a combination of punches and knock him out cold with a super uppercut. The place where we were was like a loading platform, so higher than the rest of the alley. It was the perfect spot to punch him so that he would appear to fall further in the air. In acutality, he was falling down to a mat that was hidden by the camera angle. 

 

The timing for the uppercut was a liitle off and it looked like the vampire falls pretty slowly, so I did an effect of speeding the footage a bit on impact with a light shockwave. Looked really great and powerfull, but the director didn't want any those type of effects. Can't win em' all :-)

Using that same elevation, I was certain that I could run off of it and it would look like a was flying through the air, stabbing the next one right in the eyes. So working on the camera angle it worked out pretty good. Time-wise, I couldn't waste to much time disposing of the vampire right behind, so just pushed him in the container that was there, a couple of punches and instant death.

By the time I got rid of the vampire at the dumpster, the first one would regain his senses and come back at me. Again, needing to keep the fight short, my  plan was to throw a stake from a distance to kill him. But then it hit me, what if I could grab the stakes from the eyes of the second vampires and use those ? To me that would show that the Hero was a versatile fighter, using the situation to his advantage. The plan was good, so we just needed that one to walk towards me from behind. We had to decompose that shot cause it was quite hard to reach and grab the stakes. After throwing them, I would easily stab the last one, since he couldn't see.

The villain's toughest henchman follows me home after rescuing the damsel in distress. The girl needed to die from a bite. I had to find a way to fight him and get incapacitated so that he could bite the girl. Working with the small kitchen space the plan was : Get a couple of punches in before he grabs me. I then wanted him to spin me around somehow so that the girl would be able to attack him from the back with a STEEL CHAIR, like in the good old WWE days. Being weakened by having my head almost crushed against the wall, the henchman would have enough time to bite her. Enraged I would get rid of him with what a called a Super Punch. This was initially imagined with some sort of effect to show that it was indeed "Super".  Again, these type of effects were not wanted in the shots.

After a failed attempt to kill the Hero at his place, the baddies ambush him near an abandonned factory. I had seen this spot while biking near the canal and it was perfect. Was not that easy to get in the area, so we were sure not to get bothered too much.

 

The fight had to finish that the top henchmen  was sure I was dead, without finishing the job (like bringing back my head or something). Because of  being distraught over his girl's death, I wanted to show the following in that fight :

 

- The hero was distracted and unfocused

- His technique was sloppy because of his emotionnal state

- More visciral combat, like a brawl

- Have him take a beating and keep on ticking, he's still a badass

 

I then knew that I wanted certain moves in there : being thrown to the ground, headbutting a vampire, a giving a knee to the face. We basically practiced this scene in advance to see how the timing and chain of moves would work out. At that point, asked one of the vampires if he was able to hold me up while I kicked the other one with both legs. it worked great, so I chained that move between the headbutt and when I got free from the hold.

 

For the first part, the plan was to get grabbed when a get out of the sort of tunnel, and thrown to the ground to be in between the vampires. The timing wasn't working so I changed that to getting hit by a clotheline to the throat. That way I would be standing still and wobbly, ready to be thrown from that position. While I attacked the vampire facing me the other one was able to grab me from behind. After getting a couple of punches in, the momentum was really with the baddies.

I wanted the vampire to really get into my face, like they were gloating before they tore me appart. It was the perfect setup for the headbutt and kick to the chest. I planned a couple of elbows to the stomach to get free, right before unleashing the knee to the face. Camera angles were very good in this scene and the timing was spot on. A simple stake to the chest and then a thrown one to kill the other goon.

For this part it was apparent that the anger had clearly messed up the hero's technique, throwing a wild punch totally missing the mark. From this position I was open to be thrown to the ground and incapacitated. While checking earlier locations, the plan was to be impaled on a metal bar or spike, but from falling off a ledge. So we kept that idea here to have that "I'm pretty sure he's dead" mechanic. But why would he not finisht the job ? That was the challenge, so by reaching for his bandages and having his skin burn, he would have to run for safety.

After being saved by Father Thomas and learning of the proficy, the hero trains hard and prepares to fight the vampires on their home turf. Thinking he is dead, he has the element of surprise. This was all shot in a well know abandonned factory, again not too far from where I lived. I went back with the director to show the possible spots for the action.

 

Having trained and armed with stakes, seringes of his holy blood, and his mother old crucifix,

I had to come up with some quick stealth kill showing off that the hero was back on track. This first one was the humor kill. As you can see, these vampires are not to bright.

I had imagined another scene where I would come out of the darkness and stab two vampire guards at once. The tricky part was the timing of the travelling shot with the action itself. We also had blood pumps rigged to both, so another timing challenge. The rigs where not well kept in place, so the blood sprays where not very effective. Also with the final color grading, they were pratically invisible now. FUN FACT : While boarding a window at the back of the scene, managed to break a bone in my hand. So all following scene where a real pain to do.

This next one was basically setup to have the vampires know that I was in their lair. This is what would call my Rambo shot, come silently from behind, stabbing him in the neck. Of course he would start screeming, alerting the others. Once again, the tubing for the blood pumps wasn't exactly in the right spot, so the first shots would just ooze underneath the shirt.

Initially this was the revenge fight with the main henchman. Having killed the heroes girl and nearly killing the hero, this was an expected fight. The purpose was showing that the Hero had learned new skills and was tougher than ever. However, the director prefered having the main villain punish the henchman for having failed to killed the hero.

 

So the first part was kept, replacing the main villain instead. He would basically creep behind me while I was killing the last vampire. I wanted him to throw me on the ground so that I would slide a couple of feet due to his strengh. After that point the, the action switched to the animated part.

As mentionned above, this was supposed to be the revenge fight. Kept the major parts of it, but removed the multiple punches, which would've showed that the hero had leveled up in a way.

 

The basic moves for this scene was grabbing the hand of the henchman, and having part of his spine pulled out from him. As simple as it sounds, we couldn't get the actors to time the punch grab very well. In the final cut, I did some masking so it's timed perfectly. And this time, for the blood pumps, we didn't need hidden tubes, just some spraying in front and on the characters, so it came out good.