+ a Special Announcement about the Podcast

Sometimes as violence designers we think the fights we've designed are fantastic, but they seem much less amazing in performance. Why does that happen? In this week's episode we talk about watching fights from the audience's perspective, why it can be artistically dangerous to see your fights only from the "first-person-shooter" perspective, and how we can develop our internal "audience eye" to monitor our design.

While we all agree that comedy should be funny and dramatic scenes should be serious, how does the tone of the scene change your design? Does your stage combat technique change for a comic scene? Should it? And why do more actors hurt themselves in comic violence than the serious stuff? All this more, on episode #38!

In Episode #37 of the Violence Design Lab podcast, we're talking about designing fights that coordinate with musical underscoring. Whether you are literally choreographing beat by beat to the score or you need to fill a musical interlude with a fight of a specific duration, we'll discuss some design challenges and solutions to make your violence play along in harmony. Contents: 2:55   The Challenges of Designing Fights to Match the Music 8:57   Managing Directorial Expectations 12:03  Tips to Successfully Design to Music

As Halloween approaches, stage blood makes its brief annual appearance into the general public consciousness. On Episode #36 of the Violence Design Lab podcast, we'll go beyond zombie wounds and vampire fangs and talk about the right ways to work with stage blood to place you a cut above the trick-or-treat amateur.

Episode #35 of the Violence Design Lab podcast is aimed squarely at playwrights and screenwriters. How do you write a good fight scene? How do you make sure that your vision of the fight is the one that gets put on stage? Who controls the choreography? Do you want to win that fight? Stay tuned! Contents: 2:42    Purpose of the Violence (Playwright's perspective) 10:39  Purpose of the Violence (Character's perspective) 19:38  Stage directions vs. Fight choreography 25:12   How to Get the Fight You Want  

On Episode #34 of the Violence Design Lab podcast, we're talking about working on stages that aren't a traditional proscenium. What happens when the audience is on two sides of the stage? Or three? Or they have you surrounded? Let's talk about which stage combat illusions work, which ones don't, and which ones can be tweaked to still be effective. Plus, we'll go beyond just technique and talk about how the shape of the stage can help shape your design.  

Today I examine "noble heroes" and "dastardly villains," or honorable and dishonorable characters. What defines them? What are the rules that society uses to decide if a fight is "fair" or "honorable" and how can you use that in your design? Listen in to find out... 3:27     What is Honor? 8:35     The Rules of Engagement: What Triggers allow violence to be used? Who are acceptable Targets of violence? What Types of violence are permissible? What Tactics are not an option? 24:01     Basic Truisms about honorable characters 27:51     The situational nature of honor during fighting  

Historical Drama: doesn't every Shakespeare play with fights fall into that category? Or everything set before 1980? What about Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings? Aren't they in that style too? Let's talk about this common--and commonly mischoreographed--style, and figure out what to include, what to steer clear of...and how to know when you're in a historical drama in the first place! This week's episode is the second in a series on style: designing fights in particular ways to match a specific genre or to evoke a certain tone. Each iteration in the series will break down the specific elements that define the style and give you concrete, actionable ways to incorporate these elements into your choreography. I will also discuss the reasons that make the style challenging and how using it can affect the logistics of your production process, and finally, I'll wrap up with a discussion of the general "feel" or tone that the style evokes in performance. Contents 0:58   Define "Historical Drama" 4:52   The Elements of the Style 15:34 Why Is This Style Challenging? 26:49 What Tone Does This Style Create? 27:53 Takeaways

This week, we examine how to customize the way a character fights to match the level of weapon/fight training or martial experience appropriate to their background in the world of the play. That meek biochemist shouldn't fight the same way that Rambo does, and you need to adapt your choreography to remain true to their character story and demonstrate their relative skill to the audience. Here are some tips for creating untrained fighters, normal or "realistically" trained fighters, and superheroic, legendary, or "super-trained fighters!   Contents 2:15  Introduction 4:19  The Problem with Standardized Moves 6:26  Creating Untrained Characters 13:54 Creating Realistically Trained Characters 19:08 Creating "Super-trained" Characters  

This week's episode is the first in a series on style: designing fights in particular ways to match a specific genre or to evoke a certain tone. Each iteration in the series will break down the specific elements that define the style and give you concrete, actionable ways to incorporate these elements into your choreography. I will also discuss the reasons that make the style challenging and how using it can affect the logistics of your production process, and finally, I'll wrap up with a discussion of the general "feel" or tone that the style evokes in performance. This week. I'm examining classic Hollywood Swashbuckling: the flashy, dashing swordplay of the likes of Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. What makes swash tick? What are some of the classic tropes? And wait...don't I HATE swash?? Contents 3:24 Define "Swashbuckling" 4:11 The Elements of the Swash Style 15:30 Why Is This Style Challenging? 18:45 What Tone Does This Style Create?

This episode was inspired by a listener who wrote in about the challenge of choreographing fights alone. It can be difficult to imagine both sides or multiple opponents when you design without the benefit of a fight partner on the other end of the sword. How do you keep everything straight? And because your fight isn't "tested" with a partner, how do you know it will work when you give it to the actors in rehearsal?

Unlike other theatrical design specialties such as lighting, sets, or costumes, violence design suffers from a lack of formal instruction and training available to those who would pursue a career in fight choreography. The potential designer often has little recourse other than to take the "sink or swim" approach in trying to transition from a performer who knows stage combat to a designer responsible for conceiving, teaching, and staging the violence for an entire show. Internships are a great way to bridge the gap. This week, I have a panel of people with personal experiences with apprenticeship: Victor Bayona, who began as an apprentice for R&D Choreography in Chicago (and went on to become a partner in the company), Chloe Baldwin, an intern who trained under Victor and is now working as a designer on her own, and Almanya Narula and Nicolas Cabrera, who are currently interning with R&D. It was a great interview, with lots of information for both potential apprentices and for experienced designers considering become mentors to train the next generation.

We are used to training our bodies to do physical tasks like stage combat or sports, but have you ever considered how much your brain is working when you fight? This week's episode examines how our brain's processing capacity can be overwhelmed by all the information bombarding it during each moment of a fight, and how you can "automate" some tasks to lessen the load. Plus, what to do with the cognitive dissonance of learning when new theories or techniques challenge what you've always thought or done in the past; when is it acceptable to question your teachers or the conventional wisdom of your craft?

The first of a series about training actors to do stage combat. The first questions we need to address: SHOULD all actors train to perform violence? The answer is not as cut-and-dried as you might think, especially coming from a violence designer. In the episode, I discuss reasons FOR and AGAINST actors training in stage combat. Knowing these arguments will help you better understand your potential students, what they need, and who to target for your classes.

Many of us find ourselves designing theatrical violence for high school or middle school productions or teaching stage combat classes to theatre programs that focus on younger performers. Or perhaps the play you're designing has a child involved in the violence. We quickly discover that working with younger fighters can be a very different experience than designing with adults. In this episode, I discuss 4 of the major challenges dealing with this age group, give you six teaching strategies for working with them more effectively, and five tips to help you design violence that best showcases the younger performer.

You've done your audition and gotten a callback! But the director tells you that not only will you be reading from the script to see how you work with specific characters, but that there will be a fight callback to assess your stage combat skills as well! What's that going to be like? This week's episode is here to relieve your anxiety, explain the process and give you some easy to remember and achievable tips to help you rock your fight callback and maybe land that fighting role! Also, I look at the callback from the other side of the audition table: as a violence designer. I explain my method for preparing for fight callbacks, running them, and getting the most out of them afterward.

Today, let's discuss the dramatic work that your fights should be doing. Fights do more than simply move the plot along. Fights should also: 1) reinforce the setting and underscore the tone, 2) reveal character 3) cast the future of the play into doubt. I also cover how to use your fights to reinforce the characters we expect to see (Physicalization of Personality) and how to break those expectations for effect (the Dramatic Change), as well as how to create and maintain dramatic tension, and more! You didn't think fights were just a string of cool stage combat moves, did you?

Today on episode #22 of the Violence Design Lab podcast, I'm discussing a book I think every violence designer and fight choreographer needs on their bookshelf: Meditations on Violence by Sergeant Rory Miller. I consider it a foundational work for those on our field, so I want to make sure you're up to speed on it. This book is a great asset and if you haven't read it, there's an Amazon link at the bottom of the show notes to help you find it. I don't claim that everything Miller says is gospel truth (and even he tells you to disregard things that fly in the face of your experience or common sense), but the book is worth the price just for the thoughts about the nature of violence that I guarantee it will provoke in you. And after all, thinking about the deeper levels of violence, its motivations, its goals, its execution, and its aftereffects, this is what will separate your work from the run-of-the-mill fight choreographer.

Today I want to talk about something I never learned in a stage combat workshop or a college theatre class. In fact, it took over twenty years for me to really understand it. What is this mystery topic? Working with fighters who are middle-aged or older. Now that I'm a few months shy of 50, I have a whole different perspective on this issue compared to when I was twenty. So pull up a chair, whippersnapper: let me tell you a story. In this episode I give you seven tips for working with older actors who fight, some suggestions on how to help them become better fighters, and tips for how to tailor your choreography for older characters who are still fighting...after all: there's a reason that a fighting character would survive to old age!