Stuntman required
Mon, 24 Nov 2003, 04:40 pmAndrew20 posts in thread
Stuntman required
Mon, 24 Nov 2003, 04:40 pmCurrently seeking a stuntman for a short film. The stunt requires the individual to drop through a plastic skylight and land on a padded couch two metres below. The individual will be bound at the wrists and have a pillowcase over his head. Pay: $100. Waiver required to be signed. This is a non-union film. An army medic will be on site. Anyone mad enough to be interested, write to anupstartcrow@hotmail.com Cheers.
Re: Stuntman required?
Sat, 29 Nov 2003, 01:16 amWalter Plinge
Hey Craig,
That was an excellent post and I'm glad I managed to tickle you! You raised some very worthy thoughts (as does David in the subsequent post). I'll attempt now to give my response, again from the Fight Director's point of view, to the issues you've raised and I hope I can match the same considered, open, debating style of your post. Here goes...
You mentioned "...that stage/film costs, set costs, publicity costs are things you save and budget for, whereas people you can expect to come for free..." and later on you say, "...in Perth at least, people are never part of the fixed expenses that you must budget for."
In my opinion, this is the crux of the issue. People SHOULD be part of the fixed costs that you must budget for. The reasons are varied and depend a great deal on the actual "people", but with regard to a Fight Director, if you get one on board, you cannot help but make the fight sequence both safer for all involved, and be more effective dramatically. Even if someone thinks that they can do it themselves and it will look just as good (highly debatable!), then it still brings us back to the safety element and that really is the bottom line. The Fight Director will look at EVERYONE'S safety, not just the actors involved in the fight moment. Other non-combatants on stage/set, crew in the wings/off camera, musicians and, most importantly, the audience must all be taken into consideration. The Fight Director has the skills and knowledge to make the environment as safe as possible.
Therefore, I believe that a Fight Director's involvement in a project which calls for a fight moment is compulsory. No one will ever persuade me otherwise (bias declared!). However, it is unfortunate that the prevailing attitude in the entertainment community, stage or screen, amateur or professional, is that a Fight Director is some sort of luxury item. This mentality has to change and I'm doing my utmost in Perth to achieve it. Its just that I worry that someone will get seriously injured before I manage it. This is not a problem confined to Perth either. My colleagues in the Society of Australian Fight Directors Inc. are all of the same mind. We are working together on a national level to improve the situation.
Therefore, if the script calls for a fight (or stunt), then set some money aside to hire the appropriate specialist. It never ceases to amaze me that companies will choose plays/film scripts which have fights in them and not make any effort to include those costs when budgeting.
The timing of all this is ironic since just two weeks ago I offered a short workshop for Directors on Working With A Fight Director. The response was miniscule which was a real disappointment since one of the topics I covered was all about budgeting and planning for a Fight Director's involvement in the project. I know that the post was seen by a great many people because my workshop for Actors - Working with Found Weapons, run the following week and advertised in the same post, was fully booked.
Now onto the second topic - what sort of fee? There seemed to be a bit of a quantum leap from my statement about if you can't afford an FD, don't do it, to discussions about Equity rates. Equity rates? That'd be a treat! Look, I'm realistic. There are only a small handful of companies in Perth that can actually afford to pay me what I'm properly worth. And when they hire me, that's what they pay. However, I spend much more of my time doing Fight Directing work for smaller companies at well below what I'd like to charge. Why? Because ultimately the artist in me wins out over the businessman and I believe that if a company has made the effort to try and get me involved, then I really, genuinely want to help. After all, I'm trying to make the use of a Fight Director an automatic decision when called for, not some afterthought. Therefore, I'll do my utmost to make it happen. At the same time, it IS my profession and I've got a wife and a kid and a mortgage, so it becomes about striking the balance between quoting a fee which the company can manage, and also one for which I don't feel I've undervalued myself and my art form. It ain't always easy! Quite often there are battles of Faustian proportions for my soul as I negotiate with companies and my artist and my (clearly not so successful) businessman slug it out. All safely choreographed of course!
How it usually works is that when approached, I get an indication of what sort of budget the company has, and based on that, I'll be able to work out the amount of time (in hours) that I can give to make it worthwhile for all concerened. Companies in Perth with whom this system has worked include Class Act, GRADS, Arena and Hayman. If companies begin to plan a specialist's fee into their budgets, they'll be able to get that specialist for longer thus increasing the quality of the final product.
To tie in with a point in David's post about actors in a co-op show being told at the start of the project what sort of profit share they are likely to receive would work well for me. If a co-op company rang up and said, "Andy, we're doing 'Hamlet' and we'd like you to direct the fights. Everyone involved is going to receive X at the end of the run. Would you be willing to do the job for that?", I would in all probability agree. So you see, there's a great deal of scope for negotiation. But I too get a little disgruntled when the companies with "no money" have glossy posters and flyers all over the place and full-colour programmes, but none of the actual people involved have received any sort of profit.
Am I a mercenary then? I don't think so. You don't wake up morning and just become a Fight Director. It takes years of dedicated training and I, along with my colleagues, sacrified a lot (not just financially) to reach the stage we're at. We all strongly believe its our INVOLVEMENT which is the most important element. A colleague in Sydney tells of how one week he was working on 'Star Wars Episode II', and the next he was doing a co-op 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses'. We want to be a part of it. Nothing bugs us more than to see a play/read a review/etc. where someone who isn't a Fight Director has done the choreography. Of course there's a sense of, "That should've been my gig!", but deep down, at the core, there's the realisation that yet another company has risked the health and well-being of its actors, crew and audience.
Therefore, I can only repeat:
If you can't afford a Fight Director or Stunt Co-ordinator, then don't do the project.
That's my opinion anyway. Thanks for reading!
Happy Swashbuckling!
Andy Fraser
Fight Director.
That was an excellent post and I'm glad I managed to tickle you! You raised some very worthy thoughts (as does David in the subsequent post). I'll attempt now to give my response, again from the Fight Director's point of view, to the issues you've raised and I hope I can match the same considered, open, debating style of your post. Here goes...
You mentioned "...that stage/film costs, set costs, publicity costs are things you save and budget for, whereas people you can expect to come for free..." and later on you say, "...in Perth at least, people are never part of the fixed expenses that you must budget for."
In my opinion, this is the crux of the issue. People SHOULD be part of the fixed costs that you must budget for. The reasons are varied and depend a great deal on the actual "people", but with regard to a Fight Director, if you get one on board, you cannot help but make the fight sequence both safer for all involved, and be more effective dramatically. Even if someone thinks that they can do it themselves and it will look just as good (highly debatable!), then it still brings us back to the safety element and that really is the bottom line. The Fight Director will look at EVERYONE'S safety, not just the actors involved in the fight moment. Other non-combatants on stage/set, crew in the wings/off camera, musicians and, most importantly, the audience must all be taken into consideration. The Fight Director has the skills and knowledge to make the environment as safe as possible.
Therefore, I believe that a Fight Director's involvement in a project which calls for a fight moment is compulsory. No one will ever persuade me otherwise (bias declared!). However, it is unfortunate that the prevailing attitude in the entertainment community, stage or screen, amateur or professional, is that a Fight Director is some sort of luxury item. This mentality has to change and I'm doing my utmost in Perth to achieve it. Its just that I worry that someone will get seriously injured before I manage it. This is not a problem confined to Perth either. My colleagues in the Society of Australian Fight Directors Inc. are all of the same mind. We are working together on a national level to improve the situation.
Therefore, if the script calls for a fight (or stunt), then set some money aside to hire the appropriate specialist. It never ceases to amaze me that companies will choose plays/film scripts which have fights in them and not make any effort to include those costs when budgeting.
The timing of all this is ironic since just two weeks ago I offered a short workshop for Directors on Working With A Fight Director. The response was miniscule which was a real disappointment since one of the topics I covered was all about budgeting and planning for a Fight Director's involvement in the project. I know that the post was seen by a great many people because my workshop for Actors - Working with Found Weapons, run the following week and advertised in the same post, was fully booked.
Now onto the second topic - what sort of fee? There seemed to be a bit of a quantum leap from my statement about if you can't afford an FD, don't do it, to discussions about Equity rates. Equity rates? That'd be a treat! Look, I'm realistic. There are only a small handful of companies in Perth that can actually afford to pay me what I'm properly worth. And when they hire me, that's what they pay. However, I spend much more of my time doing Fight Directing work for smaller companies at well below what I'd like to charge. Why? Because ultimately the artist in me wins out over the businessman and I believe that if a company has made the effort to try and get me involved, then I really, genuinely want to help. After all, I'm trying to make the use of a Fight Director an automatic decision when called for, not some afterthought. Therefore, I'll do my utmost to make it happen. At the same time, it IS my profession and I've got a wife and a kid and a mortgage, so it becomes about striking the balance between quoting a fee which the company can manage, and also one for which I don't feel I've undervalued myself and my art form. It ain't always easy! Quite often there are battles of Faustian proportions for my soul as I negotiate with companies and my artist and my (clearly not so successful) businessman slug it out. All safely choreographed of course!
How it usually works is that when approached, I get an indication of what sort of budget the company has, and based on that, I'll be able to work out the amount of time (in hours) that I can give to make it worthwhile for all concerened. Companies in Perth with whom this system has worked include Class Act, GRADS, Arena and Hayman. If companies begin to plan a specialist's fee into their budgets, they'll be able to get that specialist for longer thus increasing the quality of the final product.
To tie in with a point in David's post about actors in a co-op show being told at the start of the project what sort of profit share they are likely to receive would work well for me. If a co-op company rang up and said, "Andy, we're doing 'Hamlet' and we'd like you to direct the fights. Everyone involved is going to receive X at the end of the run. Would you be willing to do the job for that?", I would in all probability agree. So you see, there's a great deal of scope for negotiation. But I too get a little disgruntled when the companies with "no money" have glossy posters and flyers all over the place and full-colour programmes, but none of the actual people involved have received any sort of profit.
Am I a mercenary then? I don't think so. You don't wake up morning and just become a Fight Director. It takes years of dedicated training and I, along with my colleagues, sacrified a lot (not just financially) to reach the stage we're at. We all strongly believe its our INVOLVEMENT which is the most important element. A colleague in Sydney tells of how one week he was working on 'Star Wars Episode II', and the next he was doing a co-op 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses'. We want to be a part of it. Nothing bugs us more than to see a play/read a review/etc. where someone who isn't a Fight Director has done the choreography. Of course there's a sense of, "That should've been my gig!", but deep down, at the core, there's the realisation that yet another company has risked the health and well-being of its actors, crew and audience.
Therefore, I can only repeat:
If you can't afford a Fight Director or Stunt Co-ordinator, then don't do the project.
That's my opinion anyway. Thanks for reading!
Happy Swashbuckling!
Andy Fraser
Fight Director.
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