The Art of Action - Alain Moussi - Episode 23

[Music] hello musi how are you mate i'm doing fantastic how are you i'm very well happy to talk to you my friend this is our first time meeting absolutely yeah it's quite an honor to be here and especially under this in this format um yeah it's i'm stoked man i'm stoked i've got to get you on the art of action mate new kid on the block come on there you go that's how i feel i feel like i've seen all the episodes and i'm like i've seen everybody go on from you know people have been in their career for 10 20 30 years and uh i'm honored to be here because i'm new so it's uh it's fun it's great no very happy to have you here you deserve to be here been doing some great work took over the mantle of the kickboxer series from jean-claude van damme i know that you are a big fan of vandam as am i so i'm sure that was a great thing for you to have done we'll talk about that and also just having watched jiu-jitsu i thoroughly enjoyed it i absolutely just you know just had a great time i felt like 16 year old kid again uh watching those martial arts did you know it was just great it was just great fun do you know what i mean obviously the action was was really good man top-notch stuff thank you so much i appreciate it then if you know you had fun watching it that's the point i think that's the point of these movies is to you know sit back relax enjoy yourself and be entertained you know so uh so i'm happy you enjoyed it thank you very much coming from you means a lot okay elaine tell us how you got started in martial arts and how that led to getting into the world of films um i was inspired by bloodsport um i saw the movie i saw van damme i had seen martial arts movies before but that was the first time we were really stuck and seeing van damme kick and do the splits and his athletic physique um i was in total off so i had to do martial arts happened that my mom had was already training in jiu jitsu in uh canadian style kanrio jiu jitsu which is japanese style jiu jitsu essentially mix of striking uh to throwing takedowns grappling it's a big mix of everything really for self defense for street defense i started there became obsessed um i started when i was 10 and i think i got my black belt and carried i was 16 years old that was when i tested for my black belt um and at that point my our head instructor mr tyrion his name was john taryan was the head of an international organization a martial arts organization called the world kubudo and essentially they did these huge events these huge conventions with uh instructors from all over the world um you know from canada from the us from the uk from france from and it was a multi-discipline organization so you had a chance over a weekend to train in karate in jiu jitsu in brazilian jiu jitsu in capoeira and like there was instructors from everything and what you would do you would jump from matt to matt every day six hours of training and train with all these top-notch instructors from all over the world um which was really cool because it exposed me to so much and that's developed this intrigue and love for movement i got into this whole thing about understanding that every single martial art moves a certain way and i what i wanted to do is and one instructors told me this every time we trained with them i think was uh yeah it was kevin block an aikido master and he said what i want you to do in my seminar is steal from me um steal and make it your own and that stuck with me early on steel and making my own i'm like oh so he would show an aikido move something with a with a turn and a wrist lock and then i'm like oh i've never done it that way so all of a sudden i would take that go back home and start training but incorporate it in what i would do and i started doing that with a lot of different martial arts with you know i had friends that were masters in karate uh other friends with my friend jf the shepherd was a tricker um you know all these things i would steal elements and just start blending things together in my jiu jitsu which was fun because it kept me entertained um and always try to push the envelope um when i did shows and demonstrations i it just so happened that our club the um kickboxing world champion johnny is training there he that's where he was from from ottawa and uh i started training kickboxing with jaive he was 23 time world champion he was my first kickboxing coach um you know i remember being in the ring with him the first time and uh it was insane i i we just we're just doing jab drills and uh he it was on me trying to attack him you know and he's just moving around for some reason i was always backing up and i was on the offense but backing up it didn't make sense to me but here we go and once i almost i almost hit him almost well from that point on i was getting boom boom boom boom like everything started coming in it's like i started switching this on that one was close now i'm gonna have to teach you a lesson pretty much and i had never i had never lived that i had never experienced that before so that was my my first uh i guess experience doing kickboxing and from that point on i said i gotta learn from this guy so i started in that and i also started training in brazilian jiu jitsu um when i was 18 years old i was so inspired by the chess match i loved the chess match on the ground you know the idea that i could submit somebody um that was bigger than me and stronger than me possibly faster than me it was japanese jujitsu into kickboxing brazilian jiu jitsu with dabbing into all kinds of different cool things to learn more about different types of moves and i guess the last the the other martial art that i really focused on for a while was um kali uh filipino martial okay yeah and i ended up training with jun the guru jun de leon who was very good friends with danny no santo so hang on a minute elaine so while you're you're you're on your martial arts quest and it's such a great time isn't it when you're on this sort of like i want to learn as much as i can and do this and do that and i'm really just trying to grow as a martial artist but were you always in the back of your head thinking i want to get in the movies and be like van damme absolutely it was the the number one motivator in my in my in my soul to keep on going to keep on getting better watch movies do what they do in the movies throughout the entire journey i'm looking at everything and seeing oh how does this fit in the movie and then i watch a film and i see a move that i just learned like like when i saw segal and i had done an aikido seminar like oh my god look at this i have just learned this thing that seagal does so maybe that gets closer to being in a movie every single time i learn something new i see only the strong oh my god i learned a couple moves how does that get me closer to being last time i saw him do the um the 360 butterfly twist and only the strong i was like wow what is this i've never seen so i've never seen such a thing before it's mind blowing and i'm like and i felt exactly that way every single time how old are you i'm 39 yeah okay 39 years old going on 40 next year the big year it's not that bad hopefully not i don't think it is 44 that it all changes listen you're still kicking ass like like you're like you're you're an athletic phenom okay i watch you move and i'm like i emulate everything you do i'm like i see something i'm like how the hell can i do this and i asked jeremy marinas you also know jeremy and i'm like well we because we're all trying to copy jeremy that's right i know so then i'm like that's my reference so hey jeremy scott did this how does how do you break this one down how do i do this move you know and then all of a sudden jeremy shows me like does it and then i'm like oh god yeah jeremy does it and makes it look so effortless and easy you just like forget it yeah pretty much too bad you know you're very flexible is that something that came naturally to you or did you work on it i i worked on it hard but it also came naturally i i didn't struggle becoming flexible it took me like and i started when i was 10 i started stretching i was obsessed with stretching obviously because of i was you know my idol was man down so i i would sit and watch cartoons in front of the tv sit in front of the tv watch cartoons and just stretch and stay in the splits or try to the way i do it man that's the way i like it just watch tv yeah exactly and i would do that every day i would just stretch stretch stretch until one day oh my god i got the splits and i'm not supposed to though are you kidding me not watching the right tv that's the problem i'm not watching [Laughter] do different across the pond i guess i don't know so for me my right leg is not very flexible but my left leg is more flexible so i've got this weird thing going on interesting anyway interesting you see for me it's like it was always the the front the the box splits and that was uh i kind of focused on that and then the other splits a little less um but yeah my but it's my all about my right leg mostly i have way more control on my right leg and my left is my sometimes my quick leg also depending on what kind of moves i do the first time i saw him disputed i didn't understand what i was looking at i was like holy [ __ ] how does how do you do that i couldn't believe the way the choreography was built i was and then all of a sudden i became obsessed with i gotta understand how to do that and then try to imitate and emulate that because i thought it was brilliant you say that elaine because i remember for a long time thinking about myself that i didn't really know what my style was because i knew i was copying van damme even though i didn't want to i couldn't help it because it had been so uh inspired by him you know it's just subconsciously you end up doing like the van damme stuff you can't help it but also you know bruce lee jackie chan all these things and i always was trying to find a style and i guess i arrived at it when i did undisputed two for whatever reason and playing boycott was part of that but maybe it's just that aggressive uh sort of uh violent balletic sort of action but yeah it's interesting because i always felt myself i don't know if i've got a style it found you it's almost like the style found you at the same time as you found it you know what i mean it came together that's what i find at some point it's like without purpose planning it because it's not like now i'm gonna do this it didn't happen that way it just happened it's almost like the combination of the film the character the your skills your skill set mixed with the the stunt coordinator that was there was jj perry wasn't it yeah yeah and alan l did on dispute three as you know but he's similar to jj i feel in choreography i absolutely he is he's very similar he learned from him a lot you know there were jj was his mentor at the beginning and passed on a lot of different um different things to him but you notice you see jj just wants to see people get hit really hard so yeah the cool thing is he found you who is also very acrobatic but not acrobatic fluff it was acrobatic madness and hits and violence so you're like holy crap you do b-twist but land bang onto somebody's face that's like that's it well that's what was so cool about tony jar wasn't it because he did like the tricking but he landed it with with intent and mainness and you know slightly and that's that's what elevated it that's right exactly and i think that connects to um to american the american audience a lot you know compared to let's say the uh asian audience in the hong kong movies and there's very amazing choreography and there's a lot of lot of bouncing back and forth but you don't have necessarily have all the hard hits with the crazy result you know with the aftermath whereas american cinema it's like slugging boom but then you see you focus on well that guy got hit and oh my god his nose is like now here and all that kind of stuff you see the aftermath of that hit which is like whoa the american audience the american audience i find like seeing that they want to see a big hit and a big result um some of those hong kong movies got some big hits in them but yeah i know what you mean their style can often be sort of chat chat chat or flamboyant you know kung fu and everything which the americans don't like so much so i love the violence as well i like to see violence i totally totally like i love seeing that and i think i think it's um dramatically you also can get a lot out of it you know and i like both i also like the bouncing you go back to old jack chan films and that kind of stuff and then there's a comedy aspect too and i i like both your uh flash point with donnie yen i mean that's bringing an end fight right that's probably it's one of the best fight scenes ever made for sure absolutely absolutely so how did you get into the world of filmmaking then elaine um so a friend of mine was a stunt man in montreal introduced me to a stunt coordinator so jean-francois chapelle my friend introduced me to jeffreynet who both in the world of martial arts john for the net yes you know they're going with them that's it there you got it that's all right i've seen him performing live at the martial arts show in in england oh there you go perfect yeah he was world champion for years and performed around the world so zhang was the first stunt coordinator who gave me a shot um so i came in i did an audition with him that started training he was prepping immortals the the film immortals with henry cavill i ended up doing the lead in the previz uh while he was doing the concepts for the director and um i wasn't in i wasn't in film yet i was just starting to train with the stunt team i was accepted in training essentially which i was very grateful for and uh the stunt coordinator noticed me in the previous he said hey who's this guy can we use them and john's like well he's not in yet but we can definitely use him he'd probably be the best for the job even though he's not in the union so uh they vouched for me and they said okay i'll give him a shot and i ended up being lead double for uh for immortals that was my first gig and um i was so fortunate to be on immortals because it really opened the doors for me in a great way often people get to do a day and they'll get to prove themselves right i got to prove myself the first on the first gig which is cool so was it was there a lot for you to learn in terms of screen fighting um when you got that job do you feel like you already had a good idea of what needed to be done i had a good idea i had done uh i had studied jackie chan's uh jackie chan movies and um my stunts jackson's my stunts i had watched that a lot and and i had a somewhat of an idea i had a friend dennis lafon and that had been training with in ottawa and i've done some some shooting with him on independent projects i had done a few independent projects um here in ottawa but then it was the first time on a big set so i had a lot to learn but you know jean was an amazing coach and a mentor so i learned everything i needed to learn the first two months and then it was like sink or swim you know and i swam what's going on with your hand by the way oh a little training accident my wrist uh acrobatic and anyways it's it's almost out i'm gonna get this off in uh in a few days so i thought it was just your your kickboxer style or something it's an injury this is stabilizing my wrist right now so uh it'll be all healed all good in january so yeah a little mishap training it happens it happens hey that's it that's part of the game right oh what was it like getting to work with had you met van damme before you did kickboxer i actually did meet him once before i ended up i was uh i don't know if you've seen his commercials for godaddy yeah exactly so i ended up doubling him for that i was actually in trouble yeah i i was that's the first time i met him i i was i was like doing the splits and he did the bongos he had he had a hip injury at the time so i ended up doing holding the splits for a few of the the takes and stuff just because his hip couldn't take it he had he was in rehab but then you know when kickboxer i got kickboxer and that was a go and i actually suggested the first time uh for i suggested that we bring van damme into the movie um and uh yeah and then ted i remember ted dimitri said you wouldn't mind like i think they all thought it was a great idea and i said yeah no you should come in it would be great not just in a cameo but actually you know come back in a full roll and then they put it all together after that uh dimitri dimitri is the one that kind of did the whole thing and make sure that you know we had van damme in the movie so that that really worked out for the best and when he told me i was like my god i'm not only am i doing kickboxer which was actually i preferred kickbox to the bloodsport as a kid me too did you oh there you go that's awesome yeah man it's great of course the kickboxer it was kind of like bloodsport but even better in my opinion yes absolutely absolutely and i love tong po the villain was like incredible i was like oh my god and the training sequences i mean that was what it was all about especially you know you're on your martial arts journey anyway and you're watching van damme and the whole training aspect it's like watching a rocky film as well i love that side of it that's same so now knowing that i'm remaking kickboxer and then van damme's going to be in it i'm going to get to like it's kind of going full circle for me right i'm like this is incredible um when you're working with him you're on the set now and you're in kickboxing and you're the star and vandam's there and he's playing the master like how weird is that it's kind of weird honestly it's kind of you almost want to say um i really apologize i understand what you mean but you know i was like i deserve to be here too bad i got over it really quick stay out of my way yeah pretty much no but you know what though i have to say i didn't know what to expect because i thought it might be weird for him to be on a set of kickboxer yeah me starring in the movie like because it might be like it's kind of for him stepping into that it's it's it can't be easy the first time right yeah so but you know he called me before because we shot new orleans and then we shot in thailand so in new orleans he gave me a call and said hey i'm happy you're doing the film um if you need any advice if you want to talk about scenes let me know he offered his guidance um which was very nice i appreciated it i thought it was really cool that's great it's funny i didn't get that that was not your experience at all it was it was an assassination games that you uh you worked with them right well assassination games um but for universal soldier four that was a similar situation to you because i'm stepping into like his movie that's right role and he's in it as well so it's almost like you know it's it's a bit odd isn't it it's a bit weird so i didn't get the phone call for do you want any advice well i know i i guess i was lucky i got a phone call about that i didn't get a phone call after that but at least i got that first one yeah and um you know but i felt really good i felt really good about the role i felt really good about the film and obviously there's a part of me that was kind of intimidated at the same time because i knew i was going to be compared to van damme the whole time like you know they're gonna everybody that's nostalgic about the original is gonna compare this one they're gonna compare me they're gonna and it's like you can't really win that that fight right it's really tough no it's it's almost a no-win situation in a way yeah absolutely so my take on it was i actually don't want to consult him about anything i don't want to talk to him because i want to do my own thing and i wasn't trying to um recreate something that was done before i was trying to create something new i wanted to have my own take on it you know i think early on we did this scene in the rain um where we actually fight in the rain and obviously i knew i was losing that fight which helps because if i had helped that fight i don't think it would go over the same way you know this is it because on universal soldier i had to kill him at the end oh you see well that right there is where it gets real that's why i didn't get the phone calls because you knew i was gonna kill him [Laughter] when we did it we broke this down in sequences okay which we knew would probably be the best way to shoot it i i know i can do wonders no problem but i didn't know how it was going to go on the other end so we wanted to make sure we captured most of it i remember telling uh jean-claude like like obviously with positive contact because i wanted that i needed to feel that because i feel that every scene i'm just gonna say you look like you caught him quite good i did i totally did and uh yeah no it's why i said if you give it to me i'm going to give it to you that's how it works so but he was fine he was fine with it he actually said like once i went soft the first time i went slightly no no you can give it to me too i'm like okay no problem i caught him on that no on that one nice one so we did all this this stuff and and to me the theme in this fight was also we wanted to kind of build up and we wanted every hit to kind of where he's teaching at the same time saying here's who i am boom bang we wanted to have good hits and then take the time in between the sequences for the drama so i thought that would pretty much just say elaine can i just say being a big van damme film watching all of his stuff this is the most motivated we've seen him in any action sequence for quite a few years i think just had he got the hip replacement at this point oh yeah yeah he was all good he could kick you could do everything he um yeah he was he was all good but i think it's also um the situation motivated him i think as well because we talked and he said there's this fight and it's like it's me and you and he knew how much i was doing so at the same time if he doesn't do it it doesn't you know it kind of looks it could look bad which i know he doesn't want he loves being he actually loves doing what he does right um i think it's just offering some circumstances that would motivate him i guess um and he loved the choreography that was put together this choreography was put together by um our thai team and also by myself so obviously you know dimitri wanted some new stuff maybe a new flavor from from jean claude but i also know that he is comfortable with what he does best so we had to blend the two you know um and make it about the drama the more you make it about the drama the better more appealing it is to him but after all this i'll tell you um after we did especially this everybody gasped when we did this one that was that was fun yeah man that's great and to me after i fell down and i'm looking at the rain and honestly what i was thinking at the time after this happens i'm there and my my face was up and as he's walking around all i can remember thinking about i'm doing this but i'm thinking about holy [ __ ] i just did a fight scene with van damme that's what i was thinking about at the time i i was like in total like ah i was like man this is this is such an amazing moment right now in my life um in my career so i was very cool costume he's got there yeah yeah did he know that the the rain was going to come out and make his arms look that good beneath the white shirt i think i definitely think you're prepared for it yeah i think you're prepared for it but it's also uh to me at the end what we had to do we had to do white shot so they're like well we didn't have we had limited time as you know on these films we don't have this like 90 day schedule right so we had a limited time so they're like well we need you to just go through the whole thing on wide and i'm like everybody's talking about a long take and it's like uh i was i said no no he's gonna do it and i said hey joe claude what we're gonna do we're gonna do all the sequences on wide we're gonna go one at a time we've done all the the medium shots and all that kind of stuff already so we've rehearsed it so now we're just gonna go through it and he's like okay so we ended up going and then let's say something would not go well just start over at the beginning of that sequence and we put it all together and go go so we ended up doing all the wides in like not even five minutes just because he was dialed into it and comfortable with that at the time and i was kind of like at the same time driving the machine because obviously i knew it inside and out so i could easily help and assist into making that really dynamic even on a wide which certainly brought out the best in him he seemed very motivated i'm sure getting his hip fixed helped totally well yeah he would have been in pain so he he wasn't in as much pain as he was when i met him you know and when i met him he was in pain yeah for sure i know on expendables it was given some uh some difficulty i was like no i wanted to do your job spinning 360 kick [Laughter] i want to talk about this wanna that you did in in the second kickboxer this is really impressive man and you know we all love a wanna i wanna for guys like you and me is like you know it's something you need to do you need to try and pull off and this is uh an exceptional one talks through this elaine uh well so this one are designed by our thai team entirely um we designed the first part and then on the scaffolding myself and jim we put it together together um but yeah the whole point was dimitri wanted something where we would go on multi levels the camera would be passed on with for different on with different operators so this is operated by jim our sun coordinator right now and the whole our thought process behind designing it was kind of like the revenant where every time you you somebody gets hit we didn't want to follow the hero we wanted to follow the victim and then get back to the hero follow the victim get back to the hero and that was how we designed the the camera work so this way you see what's happening boom and you see oh god that must have hurt and that's the feeling we wanted to convey uh through uh i guess through the the lens well these guys are pretty game aren't they throwing themselves dude they are tough as nails and jim the courtney's like you better hit him and i'm like i i have a lot of control and obviously i'm all for positive contact all the time because you know there's there's another aspect of control but look at that that's that guy there yeah that guy's like so how many times did you do this wanna to get to get the one he wanted we did it three times the take that's in the film is the third take we got it on the first take now the background behind it is i came in that morning i had never seen it before i come in the morning and i get myself to set and then jim kind of walks me through it and i rehearse it a few times then we create the second part we rehearse that a bit which is the scaffolding part that lasted about i guess 60 to 90 minutes to where we did that and i'm expecting we're going to rehearse it again and all this kind of stuff so dimitri was shooting something else and then he says oh we want to get this before lunch and i'm like what do you mean lunch is in half an hour he's like yeah we'll get it and i'm like it's day this is day one so it's day one people aren't dialed in yet like cam well like this is a lot so anyways we get to it and they they take the camera out they put all the operators and we rehearse it once rehearse it twice we walk it's like okay let's shoot one and i'm like so we've done an hour and a half let's say at the beginning of the day then we take 30 minutes let's say and rehearse with camera and then we're shooting one and lunch is now in 15 minutes so and this thing lasts four so i'm like how's that going to work anyways so we go for it man we go through the whole thing the guy kicking the face in the middle almost knocked them out and then we get to the scaffolding we're at the end on the last kick or the last of when i kicked the guy off the scaffolding and in my head i'm like holy [ __ ] it all worked that's crazy it act we got it on one no way so as i walk to the edge i step off and i walk away man on the camera at the end as i'm stepping away as i step off the thing he lost the the monitor so he couldn't follow me so they lost me right after the for the last kick they lost me so we had to do it again all the hits worked the whole choreography worked everything worked except the end when i stepped off so we all of a sudden we had to do it again so was the one that you used the third one this is the third so that's the bummer you had it and it was just before lunch we did take one two three before lunch we were gone day one before lunch we had this well this guy is he just landed on wood no there's uh high dance right okay cause that's what i mean yeah a little high dance on that stairs it's a lot of powder a lot of dust well can i just say it's very fortunate that you've got the um the uh the stunt coordinator operating the camera because you really need someone that understands stunts don't you to follow the choreography especially if you've not rehearsed it like with camera and it sounds like you didn't he needs to think like a stuntman doesn't have that brain for choreography right yeah well you know you know as often something things change sometimes when you're doing choreography timing changes so you need somebody that knows how to adapt you know and understands or can anticipate the things that that may go wrong may change and he was great so this is one of our camera operators that tracks on the on the balcony because these are just tracking shots so they could easily follow me so did he pass it off to someone else yeah there's someone else this was so after the we go up the staircase he passed it on to someone else now this kick coming after this after this this kick coming up is when this guy almost got knocked out um yeah that's good but hang on a minute did you worry that you might kick him through the wrong piece of banister at this point i was hoping he would be at the right place so good for him to get the correct one this going on and there was there was boxes on the bottom like there's a box rig down there that they all they're all falling on but this is that the the take where you almost knocked him out was it no the the first take but notice how he doesn't flinch the first take he almost got knocked out i said i'm gonna put it if you're being very kind there you hit him just with the toes yes totally i'm trying i'm doing my best yeah man so this this is like my breather and then after that i knew it was going and also it's like it's cool because this moment like we built into it just to give a little more personality to the whole thing instead of just going through the choreography i also wanted you know to have more also character moments and to slow it down here and there before we speed it up again you know to have uh some pieces and then dimitri's really good at that too he's always kind of looking for those moments um it's also nice to get a little breather oh god yeah yeah as you know yes so yeah man this uh yeah this whole thing and it you know also sometimes i'll and i can be picky i'm like okay sometimes i'm like oh something is a little messy or whatever but at the same time i think it works you know i'm uh yeah well that's the thing about it one or it's uh you know sometimes it's better to keep it a bit messy because obviously it's a warner exactly exactly if it's too clean it doesn't translate as much right it doesn't it doesn't feel as real if it you mess it up a bit it feels a little more real and raw which i like i love i love that i love that feeling in a film yeah but that was that that honestly at the end of that day when we finished this everybody's like we're watching the monitors for playback we watched the playback and it was like okay guys that was great lunch and i'm like hold on a second everyone take a beat here and let's appreciate what just happened because it was like everything was like as a matter of fact like yeah okay cool moving on and i'm like no hold on a second people on big sets if you go on x-men they'll work on this for three weeks then rehearse it for a week and then maybe shoot it in a whole day we rehearsed it and shot it before lunch on day one come on seriously let's let's all appreciate this moment together you know how long was the uh the the take uh i think is it four minutes about four minutes total i mean that's good for a water isn't it four minutes yeah but for me i think the best one i've ever seen is it's got to be the tony jar protector one of course yeah that's unbeatable isn't it yeah that's that's the reference the staircase winner it's uh it's the reference of uh for a real one no uh real one yeah no magic cuts you know yeah i mean old boy old boy you could say well old boy's the best one you could argue that yeah it's your stylistic choice side to side and the performance within it but in terms of just sheer physical prowess and getting the job done and you can see how tired at the end of it jar is oh yeah absolutely absolutely but that's the goal right that's what when we designed this when dimitri wanted this one or that was the reference was tony jaws uh winner that's that was the reference that we all looked at say okay well that's kind of the feel we're looking for so how would we do our own version of something like that so and i think it's it's for for everyone that that is the number one reference when you look at a oner you know especially without magic cuts obviously now there's a few of them that you know a few major winners samurai graves is awesome at designing them um you know with a few a few good magic cuts here and there but still amazing you know amazing even with the cuts it's still you know it's the art of filmmaking still and it's it's cool to see how you can hide those cuts um but yeah to do a legitimate wanna is uh well it means you're fit it means you've got good cardiovascular ability there mate exactly oh there you go thank you i appreciate it i'm planning you know i have one in my head for kickboxer three so we're going to do that one soon but i've got this amazing thing in my head for that one um completely different and a different feel than this and hopefully uh we can make it happen so that's uh that's on my wish list so how involved are you in in the choreography um so it depends like i for the last two films for kickboxing retaliation and for uh jiu jitsu i was very involved um i had a team here and my team in thailand did their own thing and what i did i kind of merged what we did in canada with my team here and then what they did over there into these hybrid previous i took elements from both you know because i liked elements from both and that's how i i enjoyed working because jim and his team come up with such different stuff and that we would so it's like all so many brains working on this and then you get the best of everything so uh in the end i make the end decision on what makes it in the in the cut in jiu jitsu i was involved especially with a lot of uh with the nicholas cage's choreography with frank grillo's choreography with my own especially trying to include some jiu jitsu elements in there um and then again jim was in all of tony jaws stuff the oner the first person wonder that was all jim can i ask you about that did tony jar come with his with his people or no this was jim he uh he's worked with jim and his team before which is the same team we had on both kickboxers in thailand um and jim designed within his team designed this whole piece so yeah i pop in and out like twice and uh at the end but this is i think was more of a feature a tony feature yeah well it's like you get hit and it stops your heart and you have an outer body experience for a little bit and then go back in yeah i like that i love the concept i mean you have people that are like oh my god like when you look at you know people's opinion and most people love this they had a good time it's different and there's a different energy to it um you don't want to keep doing the same old thing it's it's good to be bold and try different things yeah well especially listen it's a fight film so at some point i mean fight fight fight fight fight you all you know it's fighting so how do you change things you change the characters you change the environment you change the film style you change like these are the things that make it unique um and i think that as when you're the audience is watching you want to try to offer um something unique every single time that you go from one fight to the next if you can you know it's like putting a rain tower that changes everything you know you one inside went outside all of a sudden you change something so i think this was cool about this is where the it was uh from hardcore henry that's the eye where the idea came from yeah um and then you know designed it kind of accordingly to go back and forth between washington i thought it was cool because you feel like you're a participant in the fight which is what i think is fun yeah something different now dimitri and i have worked together three times so he was allowing me also to even like help action direct on set so at some point i mean you know we had to get through a scene he's like okay then let me know what do we need and where do we want to do we want the cameras now so i'm like okay well let's go our me and our and our dop madrax okay camera here camera there that's the next piece looking behind the monitors and coming back and forth you know while nick cage was fighting ryan um on set i love doing that i think it's uh it's fun it's a it's a great creative exercise and uh i don't know i i enjoy filmmaking as a whole so i like to get involved in that whole part of it and even in the post-production i enjoy the point in terms of where the camera is placed and things like that probably are you more involved with that with jiu-jitsu than you were with the first kickboxer for instance yes very much so very much i was in the first kickboxer was involved at all yeah we don't want to step on anyone's toes do you there's that thing but now you've got a relationship with dimitri but so we'll get on to jujitsu but there was some very inventive camera work in that that i really enjoyed talk to me about that camera that you you used in jiu jitsu it's like a steady cam but it's on a rig i think they used la la land right yeah i mean i it's the 360 rig i don't know what it's called exactly but it's this 360 rig where the camera can go from a low to high and it can spin on its on itself right so we wanted to explore a movement so one throws where things go up and down see how can we twist the camera with it to give it a certain effect um and that was brought in by our madrax our dp and uh operator adam and um we had a few moments on a knee bar at some point where you use the the spin but on the on the runners on a lot of the wonders especially the ones in the wheat field that's when we use that like to be able to go from one thing and back to the other thing and boom boom and he would be able to really go all the way around and focus on on very key uh moments in those fights you know so i thought that was really cool it gives it's almost the operator say the operator was he i mean he obviously was able to to remember the choreography to a degree he did a good job right fantastic he learned really quick actually he was adapting i think if there's one thing that i would have changed especially in my sequence is i would have made it wider i think we ended up i saw you you did i did lose you at one point uh you went beneath frame or something i remember drop splits drop splits and then pop back oh so i didn't even know it was a splits you see there you go so it was a drop split and he must but at that point in the day we shot all the wonders in one day and then where my was the last i left left my mind for last um just because i wanted to focus make sure we got all the other ones and i say well if i have to cut a take out of mine or whatever i'll cut it to take out of mine and uh you know so i ended up just doing that and at the end i saw that and i'm like oh it's the only thing that i would change i wish it was wider and i was like the lights going down and it's like oh man if we go again we might go again and then we're gonna miss out on what we actually need so can i accept it nice i was very selfless of you elaine it's cool man i appreciate that yeah well you know sometimes you just got to meet you're thinking of the film rather than yourself which is the right way to be in my opinion man i think it's the most important the better the film the better it's going to be for you anyway exactly you're just a good guy um what i like to do is film it a little bit when in doubt film it a little bit wider yeah but knowing that because it's you know if you got 8k great 6k even 4k you can crop in a little bit just to make sure you get the that's my yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna take that that's definitely gonna happen next time for sure because that would like on a resolution you know you can you can go in and fill the frame a bit better once you've you've make sure you've got everything yeah 100 so the editing that are you do you get to have your say about how these things are edited retaliation actually i was very involved as uh kickbox retaliation when i saw the first cut of the train scene um i remember our editor had put it together our editor that was working on it he had never really done action that way so you know if you don't know what you're looking at how are you supposed to piece it together it's hard like it's like it would be challenging for anyone i don't care how good of an editor you are if you don't know what you're looking at you don't know what you're looking at right so he had done a first cut and i was like okay well i didn't see it that way so i asked demetrius like listen can i take the same footage and re-jig it he's like sure so i went on a computer on the side worked for an hour on it came back and see here's what i think it should look like and i showed him and he was like holy [ __ ] that's completely different i use the same footage i didn't even have access to the rest i just used the same footage and i said this is the rhythm this is how you know i would cut it together just based on what you have now if you have other other footage give me that and i'll rejig it even more and he's like okay so then he gave me a full pass on that fight and i put it together and then i showed him and he was like okay you're doing a pass on everything so on kickboxing retaliation he actually gave me a full pass on all the action every single fight scene i went in and i i had a pass on the fight beats and then i'd give it back for him and our editor to obviously do what they want to do and then dimitri focused on the drama of the fight and all the close-ups and all that kind of stuff that you know make the fight dramatic and not just the fight beats i kind of focus on the fight beats to make sure that they're as well displayed as you can you know and the rhythm is proper for me there's nothing worse than giving everything you've got blood sweat and tears for a fight sequence only to have it badly edited by an editor that's never took a martial arts class in his life and just wants to cut footage together just because it's got footage to cut together you know a lot of the time and for me i'll have one main camera that i really wanted to just work for this camera and for it to blow and all the rest of it but sometimes i'll have you know like two second or third camera well for me second camera just in case i need to get myself out if something doesn't work because we're on a tight schedule and you know we can't be there trying to make it perfect because we just don't have the time so i have like the safety net of the other cameras sometimes but in my head i think well i don't want to use that camera for a lot of it and then inevitably that happens so these days contractually i i say what goes on in the fight secrets good that's why i was gonna ask you actually if you actually have that contractually where you actually have your say and what go because i don't have that congressional we just collaborate because we're friends and i ended up you know here yeah i don't need it with someone like jesse johnson or isaac florentine obviously trust isaac but you know if i'm working with someone i've never worked with before it's going to be like no look when it comes to the fights it's my way or the highway make sense well you have to protect it that's important protect yourself yeah performance i mean you have to do that you know that's what the audience expects and and you're right and i i didn't you know obviously the first time around the first film like you like you said don't want to step on any toes yeah it's your first opportunity you don't piss anyone off you just want to be a good boy and maybe we could do the sequel but then yes you want you want you want to you've got your ideas you need to put your your stuff forward and see the way especially if you're creating the choreography you i'm sure you're thinking of the angles as you're designing the fight of course and you know but i'm lucky like dimitri like you said like isaac you know dimitri likes having the camera wide he sees action he wants to see it so dimitri already has that in his head he wants to see the wide shots he wants to see everything happen i mean he wants less cuts he wants just like wide shots yeah and it's like okay cool you know that's what he wants to see so already being you know of the same i guess we have the same mindset when it comes to action um dimitri is that's why i love working with him because i think he's a great action director he's awesome you know he just wants to see the action and i learn a lot from him even the way he floats the camera and moves the camera he's got it on a freaking crane all the time because he likes movement you know and i think it just adds even more life to uh to the shots even sometimes when they're basic like the moves are basic but because of the movement all of a sudden made something so basic looked even better you know was it the same director of photography for the second kickboxer as the first no different same for uh same for the second kickboxer as jujitsu same uh director it looks really good i love the way it looks the the colors the lights are very good no magic his name is madrax and man i call the madman he's uh he's awesome so kickboxer one how many days did you have to shoot the whole movie was it 28 or 29 i believe yeah yeah 28 or 29 kickboxer um kickboxing retaliation oh i got a bit more and in thailand yeah yeah wait wait hold on we got maybe no no that's it about 32 total because we had five days in las vegas and then we had 27 in thailand so yeah it was that was about that okay cool man what about jiu-jitsu how many shooting days for that uh jiu-jitsu was a man was a challenge we ended up having i think 22 days at the end what the hell are you saying moosie 22 days now that is a movie that is jam-packed with action in fact the action pretty much doesn't stop yep 22 days now i thought i was good yeah no that was 20 21 or 22 it's uh one or the other i have to re like but but anyways a whole bunch of stuff happened we ended up like collaborating so much this is why jiu jitsu ended up wearing so many hats because there was so much to do dimitri was producing directing so he ended up you know saying all right i'm going to rely on you for some things and let's collaborate and i ended up getting involved in choreography in action directing in you know what happened how do you manage to get that much action into a 22-day shoot is there consecutive units shooting we had a splinter unit right we ended up adding a splinter unit at uh because when we just to clean up some scenes um so we had to do that at some point but it's also you know there's three cameras all the time so we were able to get away with a lot of stuff because we had three cameras so at some point we just move on and we know that we covered it um you know obviously we'd love to have more of it but uh but yeah we ended up shooting that's why dimitri shoots with three cameras and that saves us a lot you know [Music] [Music] so how long did you have to shoot that in fight with him oh we had a total a day and a half really a day and a half and a half flipping that's a long fight now what happens is like if you compare to kickbox retaliation that's something dimitri talked about it was like kickbox retaliation we we shot the end fight at the beginning which is normally what we do we shoot because if we want to allocate more time it'll be to that because it's so important right it's very smart that's what stallone would do with the uh rocky films as well because you know you got that covered so in the end if you want to cut something in between it's easier you can cut like if i want to cut a fight sequence that's in the middle of a movie i'd rather do that and cut the end piece the end piece is so important right you don't want to change the audience you want to the end it's got to be the best find the best action sequence exactly so so but in jiu jitsu because of actor schedules we couldn't do the same we were we were kind of locked into something different so we ended up at the end having to cut an extra day that we had to do it and just we but we powered through it with extra overtime essentially we just pushed push push hard and because it was me and ryan uh together which no stun doubles obviously we were able to get through a lot faster so actually sorry i have to say we had let's see let's call it two days because in the end we had a day for the stunts my whole theme for jiu jitsu in the end because we had done so much fighting throughout the movie i'm like what what's going to give it a slightly different flavor i want it to be a kind of a power fight so at the end i wanted to be slammed essentially to have him use his extra powers to fly me and slam me and then fly me into the wall and kick me and have me like go back and forth so actually there's some stunts that didn't even make it in the end of the in the end edit um there was a few uh two more slams in there that we added so why am i not saying that um i don't know it's choices in the end i guess that i don't have to control control over but why are we not saying that i don't know there's definitely i don't have to be nice to you like elena's he's playing his moves god damn it what we're on the subjects mr dimitri i wanna i've got a bone to pick with you because one of the the things that i love about you elaine is that you do your own stunts i can see that it's you doing this stunt bang bang bourgeois where's the reveal where's the reveal face that might be an editor thing i don't know i have no idea when we get um kickboxer three can we can we and he does a stunt and he sacrifices his body for our entertainment see his face that's what would happen with jackie chan you better believe that if i'd done it it'd be happening with me i ended up posting behind the scenes on my own you see you're forcing him to post it onto the behind the scenes come on man oh man i know right you never so that's the thing you never know what's going to make it in the end that's the thing right there's not many people like you that are going to do that and sacrifice themselves and smash yourself stupid yeah you know show the face yeah yeah when jackie chan went through the did the clock tower stun it's not getting on his face you're right next time we're gonna make sure we come on don't let me oh down funny yeah hey listen and i and i like this stuff i i enjoy and i guess that's uh that is the thing i like to to do it's not just in terms of like when i do the fighting i love the obviously the fighting but i also love the some stunt aspect of the fighting so it's like when you know that moving jiu-jitsu at the end when he grows with the the bow he goes under my legs and crash you know really man i'm away from it as well didn't see your face really are you sure yeah i watched it okay i'm like are you sure of course you're sure you know exactly what you're talking about it's a great stunt where does it go after that how close does the camera get after not close enough look we should have gone and see it and it cuts oh cuts too you're right you're right well i see that it was you that did it because that that's what's i mean at the end of the day you doing that yourself is what's pulling you away from the crowd of everyone else exactly it makes me unique and it's like and i love doing it i don't and i don't feel i wouldn't obviously i would never do something that i think would put a film in jeopardy i think there's there's two different there's things where i know i'm very confident i'm not going to get hurt um obviously things happen sometimes yeah you know exactly no matter what but uh so in general i wouldn't try to put anything in jeopardy um but i do enjoy pushing the envelope and every time i design actually how can you be so sure that you're not gonna like that stunt there in particular that you're not that it's not gonna go wrong and you land on your elbow and maybe you dislike your shoulder or you know break your hand it's a calculated risk to me i know i've been i've been thrown i've been drinking i've been thrown since i was 10 years old non-stop and so the gnarliest way is possible like we used to imitate all the wrestling throws and the big slams all that kind of stuff i have very good air sense so when i'm flipping and falling i know exactly where i am i'm not going to put my elbow in my hand down that way it's not like that's not what i typically you know 9.9 times out of 10 it doesn't happen so i feel safe now there's one day there's one stunt in kickboxer vengeance that i didn't do there's one i was i was actually i'll admit that and it's because of this it's okay to admit that because it was only one there's one but in batista it was a it was a power slam like uh when he took me up in the air and just boom slammed me on my back that's nasty it's nasty and i've done it before i've been on a tatami's so i i haven't been there but when it came to do it i told batista i'm going to do it he's like oh allah no and i'm like come on don't worry about it and then they were they i went for a drink came back and then they were all planning with the stand up and they're like guys just everybody understand i'm going to do this so you can do it with a stun double i'm still doing it so and i was arguing and dave say how long can i talk to you and i'm like sure so he said listen we're on day two if i hurt you today doing this if you get hurt i will feel that i the movie so why would you do that why would you take that risk now that we're on day two if we were on day 25 or 30 okay after that we're fine but this is day two and then i'm like dave you're trying to ruin the movie or what might and i'm like okay fair enough i'll give it up i'll give that one up so that's fine and i did everything else yeah talk us through this then this was a fun one and you know obviously performing with nick is fun um it's kind of a dream come true as well but then this kind of stuff you see that was all done in one so i did like the front flip off the piano and then jumped into the the kick right away after that and obviously we wanted to do a special on the kick because that's obvious it's a feature kick right so we really want to get that low angle on on that as well but for this for me it was how do we get through the whole thing and especially going between the dialogue and the action but keeping it moving the whole time um to make it dynamic and actually establish this uh kind of the start of a relationship between uh those two characters which is fun so yeah my favorite moments in this are like this one with the sword i thought it was funny i was uh just going like oh [ __ ] you know just because just revealing this sword and getting it all the way to the end and the front flip off the piano and it was uh yeah just fun but this is one of the scenes where we were into it and we had limited time with a half a day left and dimitri was like ellen you got to get me out of this fight and i'm like okay we have we need 10 shots and we're out of it he's like okay tell me what the shots are and then boom we started going through it hang those shots and we got through it at the end of the day um which is really cool and i think it ended up being a really cool fun fight personality driven fight the the end piece i mean brax the character over the course of the film you know obviously we talk about him like he's this all-powerful alien but he chooses not to use it and that was hang on a minute sorry i got a minute was this you doing this stunt of course pulls me where's your face somewhere there i know right it's dark cut no i did all of it all of this this so we did six wire gags in one day that was how we planned it we did all wire gags in one day we had six different gags that we all did in one day and not all of them made it and obviously the one actually one didn't make it because it wasn't really that great and it was i was like oh no it's redundant like let's not use it so but but we did six major wire gags in one day and uh yeah that i did them all i did them all it was fun we had the amazing wire team dre and jack i mean it was uh awesome they were great sometimes i guess there's just too much action maybe you know what you don't want things to be redundant obviously and then it comes to you know as a when you look at the fight the fight if it's too much sometimes it's like not enough so you got to make those decisions here and there and say hey what do we keep what do we cut out and how do we tell the story [Music] hey put me in jiu jitsu too i'll burn his face you got it man you got it brother you're there that's it i can't wait till we work together that's uh that's going to be an incredible moment oh yeah it'll it'll happen man it'll happen well it definitely will it's in the cards it's gotta happen i just hope i'm not too old and battered before it does i thought you gotta do it soon gotta do it now time's running out i feel like you're never gonna be too old that's not gonna happen to you yeah no of course not i don't age you're an age exactly that's how i feel about you you don't age like scott's like still like ninja still 25 aren't we all yeah listen elaine musi thanks so much for coming on the art of action mate i'm really impressed with what you've been doing i've been watching you [Laughter] because i watched you stop stealing my moves listen i steal and then after that i innovate that's how i do it that's what the best do mate we all we all steal keep doing what you do buddy it's great stuff you're phenomenal screen fighter and performer can't wait to see what you do next thanks for coming on the show man thanks for being an inspiration i appreciate it and i'll keep on i keep on watching you all the time so keep on inspiring me please thanks mate thank you [Music] you

Channel: Scott Adkins

Views: 75,221

Keywords: scott adkins, Boyka, Undisputed, Martial Arts

Id: Q1NInkR9IM4

Length: 63min 15sec (3795 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 12 2021