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 Written by: Dejah Thoris at MartianChess.com 7/15/2010 3:58 PM UPDATE 07-28-2010: From MartianChess: I spoke to Kev about the Dejah Thoris character and the controversy her question has raised. His reply is: "The Dejah character in the script, women will totally identify with her. She's a strong character, intelligent and has her own mind but still has to deal with the 'politics' of the realm. 'Dejah' can fight and you're right, she only fights when it's absolutely necessary. When she does, she's brilliant." As you know, John Carter is the greatest swordsman on two planets, so we went to the man responsible for all the swordplay in the upcoming film John Carter of Mars, Kev McCurdy, and asked him the questions we all want answered. MartianChess: Ok, so according to IMDB you're the swordmaster for John Carter of Mars. Fans of the books will know that all of the Mars novels have a tremendous amount of swordplay in them. Is it safe to say the movie is no different? Kev McCurdy: It's very safe to say that there's loads of swordplay in the movie. MC: Does the swordmaster choreograph all of the weapons-based fights, or do you work with another fight coordinator or stunt coordinator? McCurdy: The swordmaster choreographs with the core stunt team. The stunt coordinator then films the fights, gives them to the director. The director then says "cool". The stunt coordinator then 'signs' the fight off. We then teach the actors concerned. MC: What approach to sword fighting did you take here? Does each character have his or her own style of fighting, or special techniques? Did you try to play to each actor's particular strengths or abilities? McCurdy: Each character had their own style and I fitted their style to the way they were playing their character so moves became organic, they flowed easily for them. I also looked at how 'functional' the moves were so I did a lot of academic and practical research into the template style that I used. When formulating the styles, I had to know that it worked so I did a lot of sparring with our 2nd unit director (who's a very handy sword fighter). That was fun. MC: Had you ever read the John Carter of Mars books before you were hired for the film? If not, did you read them after getting the gig? How did they influence how you staged the fights? McCurdy: I'm a big comic book fan so I had come across them but, to be honest, I didn't read them. When I heard that I was on the movie, I read a few that were on the net and I wished that I had read them before because they were brilliant. The books had a large influence because it showed how 'real' the characters were. For the swordplay to work, my team and I had to take that into account. Hopefully we did it justice. MC: Tharks have 4 arms -- did you have to train any quad-wielding Martians, a la General Grievous from Revenge of the Sith? McCurdy: We had a lot of fun developing the Thark style and making it as brutal and minimalistic as we could. I won't go too much into it cause it may spoil some of the action, but we had fun. MC: You've done a lot of stage and cinematic fight choreography. Most people know that there's some differences between actual fencing and stage fencing: in your opinion, which actor is the best actual fencer you've worked with? McCurdy: There's a question. Everybody who I've worked with have been superb. Every sword fight that I've choreographed has been a challenge and the actors that I've trained have taken that challenge and run with it. I wouldn't like to say who's the best but David Tennant, Nicholas Cage, Ron Perlman are up there. MC: What are the different kinds of blades you worked with on John Carter of Mars? Were they like european long swords, or more like single-edged katanas? Does each race have its own style of weaponry, and did this play in how you staged your fights as well? McCurdy: The style of blade were designed by Mark Andrews (2nd Unit Director). They fit the different races and this was helpful when designing the fighting styles. The Zodangan blade was straight and I used that for a very brutal close quarter combat style as well as long distance striking. The Heliumite blade was slightly curved so their style was, as I call it, 'living on the 45 degree'. Their movements were straight lined and diagonal whereas the Zodangans were straight lined and totally in your face. The Tharks had huge axes and spears and used those as well as anything else they could get their hands on (pardon the pun). MC: John Carter was the best swordsman on two planets... How's Taylor Kitsch at it? McCurdy: Taylor is a natural at movement. He clicks into what is needed for the fights very, very quickly and he's awesome with a sword. Can't fault him. MC: Speaking of the best things on two planets, Dejah Thoris is the most beautiful woman of two worlds, did you get a chance to work with Lynn Collins at all, and do you think she'll fill the role well? McCurdy: Lynn was lovely to work with. The fans will love her because she's feisty, intelligent and beautiful. Everything that the character is. She has a beautiful movement about her and I didn't want to lose that when I was training her so I made all of her moves flow by using circular movements then using straight line moves to use her core strength when blitzing the Zodangans. She did an awesome job. MC: When you’re not out training Martians, what keeps you busy? McCurdy: I'm an instructor and examiner with our stage combat academy: 'Academy of Performance Combat' and we teach people who are interested in swordplay and other styles of fighting for stage, TV and film all year round. We have a base in London and we hold courses and workshops around the UK. If anybody’s interested in coming along to learn and to be graded, log onto www.theapc.org.uk for full details of our grading levels, workshops and details about all of the tutors. |
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 This LIVE TWITTER FEED is FORUM QUICK LINKS
- The 3D or Not To 3D Poll
A TARS TARKAS This is just too cool! This creativity piece of work was made by Khanada Taylor, webmaster for www.jamespurefoy.us RARE DISNEY MARS & BEYOND ANIMATED SERIES
What the?!?! Yeah, that's what I said too when I saw this... this is a Banth from Disney's 1957 space series, Mars and Beyond. Click the photo above to view the clip. This hysterically funny video mentions Barsoom in pretty good detail at around 2:44 in the timeline. Check it out! |
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