The question of "how much training time does one need?" has been on the mind of late.

A couple weeks ago I was talking a friend through purchasing their first handgun, what training they were looking for, how much practice time they could/should take and so on.

And recently it's been a side topic of discussion with some colleagues over how much training time is considered good or adequate or even above average over in the stage/screen combat world.

And few outside the fight choreography world know this, but there's a particular boom-and-bust cycle usually centered around pilot season. It goes something like this:

1. Combat-heavy show is announced in the trades.
2. Every actor fitting the description of the combat-heavy roles chases what combat training they can get.
3. The show gets cast.
4. The bulk of actors training, not being cast, suddenly lose interest in combat training.

The short answer to my original question is the ever-dependable copout of "it depends."

That said, I did some math on real-world operator training time, specifically USMC grunts.

So the question becomes, on average, how much combat training time to people who fight for a living get?

Grab a pencil and a calculator, we're off!

Call it 8 hours training time a day starting from boot camp (8 hour days, my ass, but long hours plus hurry-up-and-wait time makes it close enough for government work.)

8hrs/day, 7days/week. Figure 3 weeks of actual combat training (as opposed to other business being taken care of). That covers grass week, range week, BWT and Semper Fu. That takes us to 168 hours by the end of boot.

Off to SOI (Grunt school). Now, our non-grunts go to a short version of grunt school. It's a month long, 7days/week. That adds another 224 hours. 392 in total by the end.

Now bear in mind, this is for our cooks, clerks, and mechanics. 392 hours to ensure that even if they do nothing but push paper the rest of their careers, they at least know what a raid, ambush, patrol, and guard post look like from both sides.

Refresher training? Figure about 2 weeks annually. Call it 80 hours/year.

Now back to our grunts.

 SOI for grunts is a 2-month course, minus weekends but similar hours.

That gives us 320 hours in SOI, 488 hours total.

That does NOT give me an advanced level of warfighter. That gives me a boot that can be called upon to shoot who they're supposed to 4 falls out of 5.

Let's be generous and say that on dropping to the fleet, what with this, that, and the other, our new Grunt gets about 2 month's worth of training before deploying. That covers ITX (which they used to call CAX, Mojave Viper, and other things) and about a month's worth of miscellaneous field ops, ranges and so on. Add another 320 hours.

Now we're at 808 hours. To get someone competent in at least 3 weapons systems and familiar in at least 4 more. (YMMV depending on specific MOS).

Now deploy them. 7 months. Full time. Is that always combat? Nope. But I'll use the 9-5 M-F option again to distinguish patrols, raids, and combat from working parties, standing post, and suchlike. Again, mileage may vary, but it's the yardstick we've been using so we'll get some good rough numbers from it.

Now we're at 808 hours of training and 1120 hours of experience. 1928 in total. To create what grunts call a "one-hump chump." Still might be a dirtbag of some variety. But on the whole, generally reliable and effective fighters with their own weapons systems. Some may have effective cross-training outside their MOS. A few might even be ready to lead teams soon.

A good skillset. And like all skill sets, perishable if not used.

Not only that, but keep in mind what these numbers don't cover...

- Workouts. Training burns some calories, PT builds more. So tack a good workout schedule on that.

- Study. There are a lot more bibliophilic grunts than you'd think. For every one that's reading Hustler, there's another that's reading Gates of Fire and On Combat, and a third reading both, along with some Clauswitz, Musashi, and Kipling.

-Any manner of super secret special ninjas black classified elite pick-your-own-hardcore-adjective training. I've been talking about standard Marine ground-pounders. Highly skilled, not-to-be-fucked-with ground pounders, but ground pounders all the same.

Something to keep in mind when judging exactly how well trained a weekend seminar makes you.

So, 2 big things happened recently.
One, I've just become an instructor for the SAFD's Theatrical Firearm Safety Program.
Big deal in my case 1) because it's a program I wholeheartedly support and needs more instructors, and 2) I was in the 2nd or 3rd class to take it as a student when it was first fully developed about 5 years back, so it's a nice milestone for me to step up.

The second big thing is that I'm going back to Pinewood. My first seminar over at Act Tactical was so much fun they asked me to come back for more in August.

The pic says the most of it. If you're in Atlanta next month and interested, take a gander at the page for it and see if it's up your alley.

Busy, busy, busy over here at the Labs. Among other things, I've been doing a lot of knife throwing lately. Yesterday the Lady had a party, several guests of which tried their hand at it. Most did pretty good.

The above is an intermediate stage of something I've been working on, punctuated by what a friend calls "The Barbarian Voila." I like it.

In other news, I'm teaching a one-day Sword & Shield for Film seminar focusing on Viking styles. It'll be down at the production centre at Pinewood Studios Atlanta. Follow the directions on the pic to learn more.

On top of that, I'm about to pack some knives, shirts, and other fun to head down to vend at the National Stage Combat Workshop in NC. I've been twice as a student and a handful of times as a vendor. If you're into fighting for an audience, it's three weeks of some of the best training possible.

Yep. You read that right.
I'm justifying teacupping.
Hell, I've done so once in a private class and once on a gig in the past month, I might as well keep at it.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, "teacupping" is a derogatory term used for a certain way of gripping a handgun that's currently out of favor.

In fact, nowadays I'd have to say in the top ten of "things to make your firearm advisor happy on set," "not teacupping" might rank just below "calling it a magazine, not a clip," and "not flagging me."

So, what is it? What makes it a bad thing? (if it even is a bad thing?) Why the bad rap?

History lesson time.

For the bulk of its existence, the pistol was a one-handed weapon. Once technology could scale down from the "handgonnes" of earlier times, the pistol became a favored backup weapon alongside the saber and cutlass, not to mention reins or rigging. Until WWI, U.S. Army holsters were designed to cross-draw, reflecting a right-handed officer's instinct to use the sword with the right hand and pistol with the left.  

Here and there, two-handed grips were used for whatever reason, but on an ad hoc basis. It's my personal belief that the first use of a two-handed grip was what we now call The Teacup.

This grip is almost invariably the first two-handed grip that an untrained shooter uses.

The reason is simple. With the pistol operable with one hand, the other is relegated to a support role. The most immediately needed support to a new shooter the vast majority of the time isn't against recoil, but against weight. Pistols are heavy, so the support hand naturally rests under the butt to take some of the weight off of the shooting hand.

Looking at it this way, teacupping is the untrained, but natural and instinctive response to having to hold a pistol two-handed.

It felt so natural the U.S. Army was recommending it in WWII.

(Teacupping ensues at 5:20)

So, if teacupping is a natural and instinctive response, what's the big deal?

Well, the major sin of teacupping these days is inefficiency at worst. When actually shooting, the support hand offers no support against the force of the shot (what with coming from the wrong direction and all), leaving the shooting arm to absorb the recoil.

There's a couple different ways to be more efficient. Jack Weaver took a teacup and turned it into a sort of piston grip by having the support hand pull back while the shooting hand pushed forward. This helped get the pistol back on target after the force of the shot lifted the muzzle up.

The most popular grip these days, however, seems to be a wraparound of one kind or another.

In this particular case, the support hand comes up on the side, fingers sliding into the grooves left on the grip by the fingers of the shooting hand. The shooting hand's thumb curls down and forward, paralleling the thumb of the support hand.

(Hint: if you ever hear gun enthusiasts yell "thumbs forward!" while watching an action scene, this is what they're talking about.)

What this grip ends up doing is keeping the grip balanced between both hands, giving the shooter the strength of both arms (and in some instances, the torso) to alleviate the effects of recoil.

That's pretty much it.

So, why teacup in a gunfighting scene if you know that?

Any number of reasons: an untrained character, a period piece (wraparound grips didn't become popular until the great pistol technique argument was kicked off by folks like Cooper, Weaver, and Chapman in the late 50's-early 60's), character fatigue or injury (where a steady shot is more important than recovery for follow-up shots), or any number of other reasons.

I can recognize the teacup isn't the best grip out there. But it's there for a reason. And knowing why and how lets me and my performers come to a more informed choice, and ultimately, a more nuanced story.

~J.

Been a busy time the last month and change.

The biggest for anyone reading this is the move of the site over to the current digs, which are much, much easier on my limited coding skills. Between a host and a wysiwyg editor that even a savage like me can understand, I got this place up and running in an afternoon, where the old site would have taken me weeks. As an unfortunate consequence, the old email (Jay at Jaythebarbarian dot com) no longer exists. It was mostly a redirect anyway, and there's a handy button at the top that will accomplish the same thing.

Went up to Cincinnati OH to T.A. at the Cease & Desist workshop. Fun was had all round, saw a lot of old friends and made some new ones. Actually went up a day early to go shooting with some friends. Ready Line outside Cincy is a brand new facility with a really nice setup.

Did some work on Public Enemy #1 (an action-comedy short) and a music video for a film school bud of mine, along with a day of military advisement for a production of Ruined.  

Gig-wise, its been a tad slow lately. But I haven't minded, as that means I've had the time to photograph and catalog my rental stock page. Local business has already picked up, and made the "Jay, do you have a ...?" questions answerable with a quick url.

And in the coming soon section, the Theatrical Firearms Handbook, penned by Kevin Inouye over at Fight Designer. Definitely looking forward to this one.

Spent the last several days in the shop, making about a dozen viking-style round shields. By the end I may well have enough to build a literal wall.

~J.

Oh yeah, my new business cards came in the other day, too.

Over in my last post, I gave an overview of killology and my current thoughts on both the science and the 2 seminal works on the subject. This time around, I’ll be using killology in the sense of breaking down a kill made by a theatrical or cinematic character.

For the purposes of this piece, a kill is considered what happens when one character actively takes the life of another. No leaving someone to die, no ordering someone killed (though these facets may get explored in a later piece), this is to explore someone who takes action themselves to end another’s life.

I’m going to try and avoid following any particular acting style here, regarding this less as a step-by-step process and more of a list of things worth keeping in mind. We’re also focusing on the act instead of the person to break away from both the idea that a “killer” is a certain type of person as opposed to someone who committed an action, as well as the rigid sheep/sheepdog/wolf categories of sheepdog theory.

A cinematic or theatrical kill consists of four parts: The decision, the circumstance, the action effects, and the aftermath effects.

THE DECISION

Based on decision, there are three kinds of kills: A rational kill, an instinctual kill, and anundecided kill.

In a rational kill, the killer actively and consciously considers the circumstances surrounding the kill before making the decision.  The killer might not consider all circumstances, and might or might not consider them very carefully, but the killer will make such considerations before the decision to kill is made.

A rational kill that is unlawful would be considered a premeditated murder.

Theatrical examples: Hamlet’s killing of Claudius, Clarence’s murder from Richard III

In an Instinctual kill, the decision happens as a direct result of a particular stimuli, with no conscious consideration leading up to the decision and subsequent action.  If considered unlawful, an Instinctual kill would be considered 2nd-degree murder or a “crime of passion.”

Keep in mind that a kill that happens quickly is not an Instinctual Kill by default. Say a commando enters a building with rules of engagement to kill any armed person not a member of their team, then an armed man jumps out of the closet and the commando shoots and kills him. Despite its speed, it is considered a rational kill, as there is significant conscious thought before the decision.

Theatrical examples: Romeo’s killing of Tybalt. (1)

In an Undecided kill, the decision is either not made at all or made to kill someone besides the intended victim. In other words, an accidental or negligent kill.

Theatrical examples: Hamlet’s killing of Laertes, Tybalt’s killing of Mercutio(2), any number of “taking a bullet for someone else” scenarios.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES

Circumstances will sound familiar to the dramaturgically inclined among us. It examines a lot of the same cultural, religious, and socioeconomic ground that happens in the analysis of any scripted world. But Circumstances here revolve around reactions to the kill.

Tangible rewards and punishments

These are the various consequences of a kill: the legal process including fines, jail terms, and likelihood of arrest and conviction, what government officials, religious authorities, and the character’s employer are likely to do, and the economic ramifications  (legal defense, loss of employment and the like) of all of the above are. This also includes rewards such as medals, bounties, and commendations.

Intangible rewards and punishments

Intangibles fall under unofficial, individual reactions. How would the character’s family, romantic interests, coworkers, and passersby react in response to the killing? Would the kill increase or decrease their social status? reputation? sexual attractiveness?

The character’s thoughts

The character’s own thoughts come into play with what they believe concerning the kill they consider. Bear in mind A) what the character would or would not admit to another, or even themselves, B) what they believe the result of the kill would be, regardless of what the more likely scenario actually is and C) what the character hasn’t considered in regards to their own opinion. After all, how many people sit down and seriously contemplate how they feel about killing someone?

These thoughts can and often do intertwine with other circumstances mentioned. Hamlet’s refusal to kill Claudius at prayer may be considered an intangible reward/punishment (what the predominant faith believes will become of Claudius’ soul should he die in a state of grace), but it also stems from Hamlet’s personal desire to see Claudius experience prolonged suffering as opposed to simply die at his hands.

general vs specific

When looking at all of the above, bear in mind the difference between a kill in general terms and the specific kill committed by the character. Relationship between killer and killed, social status of killer and killed, method used, and cause to take deadly action all influence the circumstances surrounding the kill.

THE ACTION EFFECTS

Action effects cover the physiological state of the character leading up to, during, and immediately after the kill. Current science does not know why certain effects happen to certain people and not to others. What is known is that the effects shown below do happen on a frequent basis.

((Side note: the Color Condition Code

I could write a whole piece just on the possible theatrical applications of the color code(and might). In a killogical sense, the code developed by Cooper and expanded on by Grossman tracks a state of readiness, with accompanying tracking of heart rate, blood pressure, and motor coordination.

Plot the character’s condition using the code through the entire sequence that features the kill. Keep in mind that the character does not have to follow a linear path from white to yellow to orange and so on. The character may or may not skip steps altogether, or enter the scene in a different condition than usual. Tracking the character’s condition through the act of the killing while exploring the action effects can give us a rough framework for the character’s physiological and psychological state during that time frame. ))

time dilation

Time dilation is when the character’s perception of time alters during a combat situation. Time may seem to speed up, slow down, or both.

Cinematically, we’re most commonly accustomed to time dilation in the form of slow motion. Diegetic time dilation is rarely shown explicitly, but it does happen (3).

Having experienced this one myself, my pet theory on time dilation is that the sensory input comes in too fast for the brain to process, resulting in the fighter’s perception of time slowing down. This is similar to a high-speed camera taking many more frames per second than normal, which becomes a slow-motion shot when played back. The fighter may well be moving extremely fast, but will experience it in slow motion until processing catches up to input.

sensory alteration

Going about in our day-to-day lives, our bodies tune out a lot of our sensory input to prevent our minds from being overloaded with the nuances of what is around us. This is aided by modern marketing’s constant fight over the attention of consumers, which attempt to drown each other out even as people actively or otherwise tune their messages out as well.

In a deadly encounter, the human body opens up the senses in an attempt to gain as much input as possible, whether from the viewpoint of a predator (what bit of information will let me catch lunch?) or prey (what bit of environmental knowledge will keep me from becoming lunch?). The trouble with this is that the little-used instincts of the body now have to decide and emphasize what it thinks is important.

The results can be selective hearing (not hearing gunfire while hearing the ratcheting sound of a gun’s action and the clinking of brass hitting the ground), selective vision (not seeing the face of an opponent, but seeing their weapon hand detailed enough to know the length of the fingernails and engravings on finger rings, visual distortions (especially tunnel vision), and imbalanced reaction to touch (ignoring serious wounds while reacting to simple cuts and bruises).

THE AFTERMATH EFFECTS

Aftermath effects follow anywhere from the first few moments to several months or more following a kill.

The important thing to keep in mind when exploring aftermath effects is looking at whether such effects are the result of the kill itself, or the result of surrounding circumstances (sustained wounds, excess adrenaline, an arrest or detainment, deaths of companions in the same scene, ect).

Memory

As a result of the altered senses described in combat effects, it isn’t unusual for someone experiencing a life-or-death fight to have gaps in their memory, especially if specific aspects are looked for. It would easily be possible for someone to not remember the face of someone who wounded them, but remember what their hands or weapon looked like. Sequence of events, number of shots fired, and any dialogue may be remembered differently or even forgotten by a character.

Interactions with others

The heightened sense of readiness and awareness of the killing character do not die with the one killed. Depending on the circumstances, the character may remain in a high color code condition (red, black, or gray) for several minutes following a kill.

Following the scene, the character’s interactions will likely be colored by the circumstances of the kill. How the character chooses to continue their life will govern their behavior to a large extent.

Keep in mind that there is a major difference between the character coming to terms with their kill and themselves, and the character coming to terms with the reactions of others to that kill. A character who is perfectly content with the kill they made within their own mind may still be reticent in discussing it among colleagues, friends, and family members. They may also face various social pressure to speak of the kill in certain ways as opposed to others.

Fatigue and sleep

Combat is a physically intense activity.  Prolonged fighting, especially in lethal scenarios, can easily lead to exhaustion.  Once a character’s body is convinced that the need to keep in a fighting state is over, heavy fatigue is extremely common, and sleep comes easily (which in some circumstances can be its own danger).

Sleep reactions in the days and months following a kill are most commonly depicted in two forms. The first is a “light sleeper” mentality, when the character maintains a certain state of readiness while sleeping, the better to react if another deadly encounter happens. The second are the adverse reactions of insomnia and nightmares.

Appetite and Libido

Evolutionary biology claims that human beings have four main drives: the need to fight, flee, feed, and fuck, respectively. While it’s not uncommon for a lack of appetite for food or sex to follow a deadly encounter (particularly ones that overwhelmingly disturb the character), it may be even more common for a character in the aftermath of a killing to crave both.

As far as food goes, the high-intensity nature of combat can easily be considered to drive up the metabolism as well as the appetite. This is especially true if the character purged themselves (from either end) before, during, or after the kill.

As far as sex is concerned, “combat as an aphrodisiac” may well join the pile of whole new articles I need to write. Some may consider it an evolutionary impulse: an instinct to breed before one dies. For other characters, it may be a need for intimacy following a traumatic event. And for others, it may be a need to burn off excess energy following their hyped-up state.

((A side note on PTSD: Once more, the subject for a whole ‘nother article. But as someone who has experienced combat but has never had PTSD, I have intentionally excluded its effects in this article. Aside from my own personal inexperience, I have been rather disturbed by the use of PTSD as a cheap source of drama in the past decade or so of cinema. After seeing comrades experience it and having been repeatedly tested for it, I can honestly say that medical science has only scratched the surface of what PTSD is and how it affects trauma survivors. With our understanding of what it exactly it is so premature, we do our survivors grave injustice by depicting it as a one-note way to raise dramatic stakes. They deserve better, and so do our audiences.))

Without going on for more pages than I care to think of, this is a rough guideline to consider when depicting a character’s kill. There are no real cut-and-dried solutions, only ideas from what has come before.

What we remember from characters is what we remember from people: the things that make them unique in how they go through the world: The way they talk, the way they walk, the way they kiss. The way one kills is as unique as the rest of their actions, and should be examined accordingly.

~Jay

Endnotes:

(1)Depending on interpretation, this can be argued, as Romeo does have time to speak, which implies time to think. But the short time frame of the scene combined with Romeo’s “either thou, or I, or both must go with him” convinces me that nothing in Romeo’s thoughts is actually considering the ramifications of killing Tybalt, making the kill itself an Instinctual one.

(2)Varies by interpretation. In this instance, I’m going to take Mercutio’s line “I was hurt under your arm” and roll with it as a killing blow intended for Romeo that catches Mercutio instead.

(3) Most notably in the recent movie Dredd, where the lead villain deals in a drug that alters the user’s perception of time.

I’ve got a special spot in my thoughts for Henry V.

When going through MEPS (inbound processing before shuffling off to boot camp) I had a paperback copy to keep handy through the various points of waiting. At some point or another I took my “address book,” (A scrap of paper with the addresses of those you’d care to write to. One of the few items I’d be able to have with me during my stay on the island) and scribbled St. Crispian’s Day on the back of it. The paperback I left on a stack of magazines for the next soul passing through. The speech I had memorized by the end of the second week.

Shakespeare isn’t quite the chosen poet of warriors (Kipling likely holds that particular title), but he’s up there. And if he’s been read and/or seen beyond what High School required, Henry V likely makes it near the top of the list.

If I had to take a guess as to why, I’d have to say that its because everyone whose found themselves fighting a war has a counterpart in Henry V’s world. International power brokers who play chess on the world like Henry and Charles. Stoic professional ass-kickers like Exeter. Bearing-impaired shitbags like Bardolph, joined up for loot, adventure, or lack of anything else to do. Wide-eyed boots like The Boy, with no clue what they’re getting into but knowing it’s the most exciting thing they’ve seen in their young lives and not about to let it pass them by.

And then there’s Mistress Quickly. The bit that always hit me hard about Branagh’s film version has dick to do with Hartfleur or Agincourt. It’s watching Quickly seeing loved ones walking out the door, knowing there’s not a damn thing she can do about it except make sure the tears don’t fall until they’re out of earshot.

There’s someone in Henry V that resonates with anyone that’s fought in a war, or had a loved one do so.

But while Henry V resonates with fighting a war, it’s Troilus and Cressida that resonates with living in a war.

I’d only occasionally thought of Troilus before being cast in a production earlier this year. I’d known the gist of it (Romeo & Juliet-ish set against the background of The Iliad) but hadn’t gotten into the story much. The big exception being using Tersities’ “reason you all suck” speech as one of the Machine Gun Shakespeare pieces.

Where Henry’s war has a progression from England to Hartfleur to Agincourt and beyond, Troilus’ war is stuck in Troy, and has been for years. Boredom and bullshit lead to bad decisions all round. It’s one of the most cynical works in the Shakespeare canon. And to an OIF/OEF veteran’s eyes, it looks like Shakespeare embracing the suck.

It’s got moronic higher ups (the entire Greek contigent), the one guy with a clue being unable to get anything useful done (Ulysses), the one guy incapable of shutting the fuck up (Ulysses again), Coming up with conterproductive bullshit as a distraction from all the suck (the exhibition fight), professional shitbags (Thersites), good people dropping their packs when the bullshit becomes too much (Achilles), and a really hideous toll taken on relationships (the titular couple in particular, but it also affects Hector/Andromache and Achilles/Patroclus to an extent).

Even tiny plot points like stumbling around a camp in the dark trying to find Achilles’ tent reminded me of transition quonoset huts in places like Al Taq and Bagram, which all look the same and make trying to stumble back to your own cot after nightfall a mild annoyance.

By the end of the play, nothing substantial has been accomplished but a body count. The suck carries on, as does the war.

For the OIF/OEF vets that read or see both, I personally think Henry V resonates more like the war we fought, while Troilus feels like the one we had to live through.

~J

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I’m a geek. What’s slightly less known is that before Peter Jackson came along, I was much more of a Hobbit geek than a LOTR one. A slight distinction to be sure, but an honest one. To the grade-schooler I was on discovering the books, the story of a short and quiet everyman caught up in someone else’s adventure was much more resonant than the long, wordy epic going into the backstory of everyone and their grandparents. The Hobbit‘s emphasis on music helped as well (I’m a musician’s son), as Ralph Bakshi’s animated take on the Hobbit is more musical, more coherent, and more fun than the mess the animated take on LOTR was. Growing up in the 80′s, it was hard to read the book in the middle of the night and not hear the bass-heavy goblin chants, or the dwarven choir. And no kid who hated doing the dishes didn’t like the celebrating-a-mess of “that’s what Bilbo Baggins hates.”

Jackson’s take on LotR may not have satisfied purists, but it’s one of the better-crafted adaptations of all time, and he’s given The Hobbit much the same treatment. How much is going to remain true through the next two films remains to be seen, but for now it’s a rich, well-told story. The take on the music is incredible (the soundtrack’s already on my list), the characters are deeper than I thought they would be, and I can’t wait for the next one.

For you technical geeks, I have no idea if the screening I was at was in 24fps or 48fps, so don’t ask, I wouldn’t know how they compare.

Fight folk: This film is awesome. Dwarves mean impact weapons reign. Sword & shield the way it was meant to be, impact weapons that have impact, and polearms that actually use the reach. There’s also some interesting applications of the Romeo Paradox (which I’ll address in another post). But overall, the fights are incredible.

Now we get to the changes and spoilers. I’ll let you leave now.
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No, seriously, SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!
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OK, you’ve been warned, here we go.

As I said before, there’s been some adaptations and additions. I’ll go with them somewhat stream-of-consciousness, and some compare and contrast with the Bakshi version.

Characters:

Bilbo is one of those characters that’s really easy to make annoying if you don’t do it right (kinda like D’Artangan). It would be easy to fall into the “everyman dragged around and whining” trap that touched the Bakshi version. Thankfully, Freeman’s Bilbo gives us more of the kindhearted if put-upon Bilbo as a willing participant. Instead of being badgered off of the breakfast table by Gandalf, Bilbo finds himself alone before grabbing the contract and running. That one small change told us that we’re definitely dealing with Belladonna Took’s son, even if he doesn’t quite realize it yet.

Thorin: Both he and the story benefit the most from the changes. Bakshi’s version had Thorin as an aging, greedy prick. Armitage’s Thorin is given a prologue showing the fall of Erebor, and the fates of Thrain and Thror. Armitage’s Thorin is much more prince-in-exile than treasure hunter, with going home being a much more firm foundation for the quest than the waiting gold.

The Dwarves: To be fair, these guys weren’t given much characterization in the novel, and Bakshi boiled it down to “Thorin’s in charge, Bombur’s fat, and everyone else has names.” While Jackson hasn’t given them all their chances to shine yet, they’ve already grown much from the novel, and I can’t wait to see some of the others. While fat jokes at Bombur’s expense are still there (and be honest, did you think they’d be left out?), we also see Balin falling into the advisory role we know we’ll see him in later. Fili and Kili have their young, cute and impulsive moments. A lovely touch is in the first distinct words out of Gloin’s mouth. You can so see his son Gimli in them.

Gandalf: What a difference 60 years will make. He’s still the powerful wizard and chessmaster, but not quite yet the magnificent bastard we’ll see in LotR. Seeing Gandalf have his early “oh shit” moments does a lot to humanize him.

Now we’re getting into story parts. As before, I’m not a Tolkien purist, and I found a lot of these changes enhanced the story for me. Most of them are relatively minor, too.

- Setup of Old Bilbo writing his memoirs (and trying to hide from Eleventy-First Birthday well-wishers)

- A prologue comes in detailing the rise of Erebor, the discovery of the Arkenstone, and Smaug’s arrival at the lonely mountain.

- Bilbo’s impulsive move detailed above

- Azog comes into play with a serious hate-on for Thorin, actively pursuing the company.

- A story by Balin detailing events at Moria.

- Radagast the Brown makes an appearance, both drawing more threads into LotR and bringing the Necromancer into the story. Both characters were only mentioned by Gandalf in the book.

- The entire party doesn’t discover the trolls. Fili and Kili notice them after screwing up their pony-watching duty, and shanghai Bilbo into his burglaring.

- Politicking in Rivendell, mostly between Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf and Saruman.

- The dwarves lose their ponies before escaping to Rivendell, and do not get fresh mounts there. I’m guessing this was to make a sequence involving the storm giants easier to do.

I’m probably missing a few. I’ll just have to go and see it again to be sure! (I know, twist my arm, right?)

Watching an onstage (or onscreen) gunfight happening can get very frustrating, very fast. Ask just about any operator, and they can probably name a film where they saw a gunfight and their response was a variation on the tune of “fucking bullshit! That never fucking happens in real life!”

I’ll admit to being annoyed at an action movie using the “have a star shoot a few blanks, have a few stunties fall down, instant badass” formula. It has a time and place, I’ll admit, but it just feels lazy.

The unfortunate fly in that jam is that it’s all too often not a case of impossibility, but (occasionally ridiculously) high improbability.

Bullets can (and occasionally do) go damn near anywhere. The axiom that covers this is as follows:

“Firearms are precision instruments by design. Humans are not precision shooters by design.”

There are exceptions, but overall, this applies. The action of a firing gun and the travel of a bullet to the target is a known, quantifiable, and trackable phenomenon that lies well within the boundaries of Newtonian and Einsteinian physics. Then you put humans into the mix and the fucking quantum shows up.

(I realize most of my work is aimed at actors, and I’m bringing in math and science. I’ll try to make it as painless as possible here)

The basic idea of that is that a firearm is designed to send a tiny projectile in a specific path in a specific way, and every variable that a shooter, a target, and the environment brings into the mix affects that path.

Take a laser pointer. Aim it at a spot on the wall. Now see how small a movement it takes to move the dot a foot to one side. Multiply that by all the excitement happening in a gunfight.

(And people don’t believe me when I say pistol shooting is a lot like smallsword)

There is training that compensates for this. But even that only goes so far.

So, getting back to the title of the piece, how this affects performing a theatrical or cinematic gunbattle. There’s a multitude of ways gunshot wounds (hereafter GSW’s) can occur and effect. But for acting purposes, we can distill these down into 5 categories. Organized by severity.

Instant Kill: This is one of the most debatable kinds of GSW’s, mostly for arguments over the definitions of “Death,” “life,” and “instant.” Truly “instant” death for purposes of this category involves massive trauma to the brain stem upon impact of the projectile. In short, the bullet hits a plum-sized target inside the skull, and everything stops.

Instant Shock: Often mistaken for an instant kill, Instant Shock in this case is a GSW that causes enough damage on impact to cause instantaneous loss of consciousness. Short version: getting shot causes enough damage for the victim to pass out instantly and die soon after.

Disabling wound: A wound that causes the loss of use of an extremity or mobility. Major joints and the spinal column are all targets that can result in a disabling wound. Short version: a GSW that renders a limb (or more than one limb) unusable.

Noticed wound: A wound that doesn’t cause loss of consciousness or use of an extremity, but does cause trauma, blood loss, ect. The most “playable” of GSW’s, as the victim is able to continue the scene with the widest range of possible choices, but still noticeably reacts to the wound as it occurs and through the remainder of the scene.

Unnoticed wound: The wound occurs, but is not visibly reacted to by the victim. This may be the result of adrenaline, shock, a supernatural nature to the character, or other reasons. The audience may see the shot occur, or it may be a reveal later in the scene.

As with anything involving firearms, introducing one rule will summon a legion of exceptions, but I’d like to think this at least provides some sort of broad, useable generalization.

So yesterday I had the afternoon free, moseyed on over to a multiplex and sat down to watch Step Up 3.  This naturally means that the first question coming to mind is “Jay, you’re a sex-crazed adrenaline junkie who concentrates on action movies, what in the blue fuck were you doing seeing a cheesy dance movie sequel?  Did you just need somewhere to cry over the lost potential of The Expendables?”

Valid question.  The answer being that SU3D is the first movie to come out recently that was A) shot in 3D instead of converted, B) has a lot of body movement throughout by the performers, and C) isn’t a CGI-laden effects fest.  That made it a workable (I refuse to use the term ideal) platform to see how modern 3D shows the way human bodies move.  Kind of important for one who does a lot of work with fight scenes, no?

Not to say that I haven’t seen 3D fight scenes lately.  Beowulf back in 2007, Avatar last year, and the crappy 3-D add-ons of Clash of The Titans this spring all had their share of combat.  But they also were loaded with CGI effects in the process.  No real way to tell what was a human in front of a 3D camera and what was a tennis ball on a stick slathered in CGI that never saw a 3D camera.  Here I was reasonably sure I was watching human beings.

Early on I started noticing a particular kind of “body blur” during certain movements.  At first I thought it was related to performance speed, but it would happen regardless of whether the move was done at Western or Eastern combat speed.

(Once again I start making up words and have to explain myself.  Pre-The Matrix, fight scenes in western movies usually were performed about 3/4 to 4/5ths the speed of fight scenes in an Asian film.  The whys and wherefores are enough for a book, let alone another article.  Bottom line: it’s my term for the speed of fight scenes.  Eastern is a bit faster than Western.  Good to go?  Roger.)

Anyways, speed wasn’t the sole culprit of the 3D body blur I was seeing in various dance sequences.  But the more I watched, the more I saw it was a combination of speed and crossing planes.

And once again I have to explain what the hell I’m talking about.  Fuck the ellipses, I’ll just keep going.  I’ve never gotten to see any of the early 3D movies from the 50′s, and was really too young to catch much, if any of the big 3D features in the 80′s when I was a kid, so I can’t speak from experience.  But in a nutshell, 3D works on showing different planes.  Early or crappy 3D mostly just differentiates between foreground and background.  A picture of 3 people in front of a wall would only show distinction between 2 planes: the wall (Background) and the people (foreground).  As 3D gets better, it establishes more planes.

What modern 3D appears to be coming close to doing is establishing a plane for each and every object on screen, making the illusion of depth greater.  (I’m far too lazy to look up tech releases, but this is what I’m seeing and guessing).  Which means for the picture I mentioned earlier, each person would have their own plane.  3D body blur happens when somebody moves at speed and either crosses different planes, or occupies more than one plane at once.  This is most striking with the money shots that try to make people or things jump out into the audience.  A body moving perpendicular to the camera (towards the audience) can have their hands, arms, head, torso, and legs all occupying different and/or multiple planes.  It’s between these planes that 3D body blur kicks in.  Human eyes aren’t fooled by the multiple planes, and don’t “fill in the gaps” missing in the image.

I’m wildly guessing here, but I believe that this doesn’t affect CGI objects as much as it does real objects because modern CGI designs are rendered 3-dimensionally as a matter of course.  Because it begins and ends as an image, CGI winds up being more adaptable than flesh-and-blood performers when it comes to such effects. 

I don’t doubt that camera techs are already coming up with new ideas to compensate.  Off the top of my head I’m theorizing some sort of dish-shaped image collector to get the POV of every point in the theater where an audience member can be.  But that leaves the question of how to choreograph fights for 3D in the meantime?

Since I don’t have anything resembling the equipment for trial and error, I can only speculate, but here goes:

- Avoid Bourne Editing (excessively rapid cuts during a scene) at all costs.  Fortunately this is now common knowledge among directors and editors, as it has a habit of causing nausea and headaches in viewers.

- Keep the framing of fights as lateral as possible, moving across the camera’s POV rather than toward or away from it.

- Save perpendicular action (toward or away from the camera) for “Money shots.”

That’s about all I have for now on the topic.  It does mean I’ll be keeping my eye out for upcoming 3D releases.  Particularly ones that put the emphasis on real-world movement than CGI.

Oh Gods, did I just come up with a good reason to see Jackass 3D?  Help.