January 20, 2009 - by David Lavallee Jr.

I met Nathan and Brandon on the set of another film, and after working together periodically on other films, we came together and initially decided to come up with three ideas for some very simple, short scenes to be filmed and edited by Nathan, for the sole purpose of providing material for our demo reels to showcase our skills(be it acting, fight choreography, etc). What we did not realize is that this idea would snowball into a full blown endeavor to produce three short films to be filmed back to back. It was definitely a learning experience in more ways than one. Sons of Lemuria was definitely the film I would say was the most challenging in terms of all the preparation-acquiring props and weapons, locations, costumes, etc- alot to undertake for a first time filmmaker. It was also my first time attempting to choreograph a fight with multiple people fighting with weapons, which was a huge undertaking. i feel one of the main things I began to learn on this film in regards to fight choreography was to adapt my style of choreography to the appropriate setting. What I mean is...I come from a background in Chinese martial arts, and from years of watching hundreds of Hong Kong martial arts action films. I spent alot of time emulating Jet Li and Bruce Lee and Donnie Yen. These are my inspirations. They were some of the heaviest influences on my desire to take up martial arts, and my eventual foree into performing on screen and orchestrating action setpieces. Naturally with all of that said when I came onboard to do this film( a period piece fantasy film set in a western, medieval-inspired landscape)my ideas to make the sword fights look like something out of a samurai or a jet li film would not be visually appropriate. So I had to adapt to the story, the setting, the motive and traits of the characters and utilize the fighting as a means to push the story forward, as opposed to my previous desire to merely have a set of really asthetically pleasing fights emulating the HK-style. You can still see a noticeable martial arts influence on some of the fighting, specifically the final duel between Decius and Zarrius, which is forgivable, but it was definitely a helpful experience for me as a fight choreogrpaher to learn how to go about doing things.

Five minutes Flat was the next step, and took me that much farther in my learning experience on how to put together fights. It was a very long process, with lots of difficulties (scheduling!!!) but I learned alot about performing fighting for the camera, and what techniques translate well, or don't translate well on screen, amongst many other things. It was definitely my biggest help in my fight choreography. By the end of filming that film, I felt much more confident in my abilities to put together fights because of all the preparation and practice done both on this film, as well as outside of this film, working with other stunt groups to perfect our skills as performers and choreographers.