Through punches, kicks and clashes; Stockdale, an equity-registered-fight-director, spoke to Leeds Trinity University’s Journalism and Media Week about the craft of stage fights
Beginning with an explosive fight demo that saw Jack getting his head slammed into the microphone desk by his scene partner, trainee fight director Birte Widmann, he talked about the ways choreographers use communication and preparation to create dramatic fights.
After a trip to Spiderman 2 at age six spurned his love of “pretend-fighting”, Stockdale began training in combat sports and fencing. Soon he pursued it as a full-time career becoming a fencing coach, Historical European Martial Arts instructor, and stage combat teacher. In 2021, he became the youngest recorded member of the Equity Fight Director Registry and now he works as a fight director cross film, television and theatre on projects across the West Yorkshire area.
“It’s more dance and magic tricks than actual fighting.”, he said. “As actors, we are essentially dance partners. It’s a collaborative effort between the two of us.”
He emphasised the use of communication in a scene, using small movements such as a squeeze on the back shoulder to ensure scene partners were on the same page and were comfortable.
While he does occasionally step into the action, such as when he stood in for a 90-Year-Old woman in a scene, he prefers to be behind the camera directing the action.
“I prefer sitting down [behind] the camera, getting the actors do it”, he said.
Choreography isn’t just clashes and clangs, however, trained fight directors use a secret language to bring performers up to speed on scenes. Terms such as “Canadian Riposte into seven” and “Faulkner in three” may seem like gibberish to the untrained ear, but to professionals like Jack they bring a fight to life and create a series of instructions that both performers can understand.
“Something that makes me re-employable is the fact that I can step on set with one my students and say let’s mix it up, I’m gonna throw something up if you can do bell clangers, starting with a two”
It’s all part of a process of preparation to ensure the fight can be acted out as fast and safe as possible.
“We’ve had whole shoot days where it’s like; ‘Right, we don’t need a second shoot day, got it all done in one morning because we’ve done the prep work’.”
While he admitted his love for the physicality of action, he argued that this wasn’t the most part about staging a fight
“My favourite part about choreographing a fight is probably, aside from just the adrenaline of the swords going ting, ting, ting, I think it’s when you start plugging characters into moves”, he said. “It stops being just moves happening and it’s starts being storytelling through the medium of violence.”
You can follow Jack on Instagram at @jackofallblade and on his website https://www.jackofallblades.co.uk/