How to Choreograph Realistic Looking Fights for Animation
54Fight choreography is a difficult thing to do for first timers- often, people get lost in the idea of making a fight realistic but are only armed with the knowledge of what they THINK realistic fights look like.
This video was made to walk you through the steps I take to choreograph a realistic sword fight for my animated webseries, Levaslier. Levaslier is a Minecraft styled 3D animation but what I'm saying also applies to 2D animation. While principles of what I say can apply to real life, it often comes with a higher risk. In animation, nobody is really getting hurt and you can make your fighters perform their moves perfectly without flaw- the same cannot be said for real-life stunts.
By no means am I a master fight choreographer but I pride myself in being a martial artist and knowing how to fight. I've choreographed, animated, and participated in action scenes before; I also have experience with actual combat.
I am formally and informally trained in multiple disciplines of martial arts but am by no means a master of any- these include:
Wing Chun, BJJ (10PJJ and GJJ), Boxing, Kickboxing, Muay Thai, TKD, Hung Kuen, Wrestling, and HEMA.
This video examines a less talked about aspect of fight animation choreography that is the mentality of the fighter, what they are thinking and why, as well as how character traits affect the way a fighter fights.
My "protagonist" in this case is a Rapier user. From this, we can deduce that he would move very quickly and thrust a lot. I've also established that he can fight well and can handle himself against the Antagonist. Speaking of the Antagonist, he will be using a big, bulky, longsword. This sword is often paired with Medieval knights, the difference here is that I understand that Medieval armor is not as heavy as some like to think and mobility is not very limited. As the antagonist takes the role of the Medieval Knight, he will not be slow or movement impaired, but will instead be confident in his armor and be willing to take more risks.
I also break down the fight into several phases- this is a breakdown that works much like video game bosses. Each phase consists of 3 steps, "Evaluation", "Trial and Error", and "Solving". This is also a reflection on how fights work in real life.
Skilled fighters often spend the first round or so evaluating their opponent, seeing how fast they move, how fast they react, what they react with, how hard they hit, etc. They do this to understand their opponent and reduce the chance of something unexpected happening.
The "Trial and Error" stage is put in to maintain tension in the story. A rule from Jackie Chan is to always start the protagonist off on a bad foot, this is exactly what this stage does.
The final stage allows the protagonist to solve and respond to the enigma that is his opponent, effectively allowing him to retaliate and deal damage.
A fight scene, in reality, is a whole bunch of these Phases repeated over and over again.
Each time a phase repeats, the protagonist and antagonist would have learned more about each other, this should be visible in the actions they make during the fight. If the protagonist notices a repeated behavior in the antagonist that leaves him open, he should capitalize- if the antagonist catches himself leaving himself open, he should act immediately to fix that or continue to use that opening as a bait.
These are things that go through a fighters head unconsciously as they are trained to do this. No trained fighter reverts to "throwing away all martial arts" when encountering a life-threatening situation. Humans revert to what they know will save their life, any trained fighter knows their skill will get them out of a sticky situation.
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Music by Adrian von Ziegler:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiwuQ6UHMQg
I don't know who drew Yang Xiao Long from RWBY in the Thumbnail, tried a reverse search and it didn't come up with anything. If anybody knows, please tell me so I can give the proper credit!
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