U. Today, especially for FIGHT-FILMS.INFO, I will talk with short film director, fight choreographer, stuntman and circus performer - Dmitry Fedorov! Dmitry, good day!
D.F. Greetings!
I'll start with the traditional question - how did you come into the world of martial arts? At what age and which of the BI was the first?
I don’t remember the exact age, but I was in elementary school, my father took up boxing with me. He himself, in his school years, was a boxing champion in the city of Gorky and the Nizhny Novgorod region. Didn't lose a single fight. So, in addition to acrobatics, sometimes there were boxing lessons.
Later, when I was in high school, I became interested in wushu. The program “Travelers Club” featured a number of stories about Shaolin fighters. Then I first saw an unusual type of martial arts combined with acrobatics. And this interested me very much. True, I learned from some drawings, reprinted, or sometimes even redrawn from foreign magazines about karate and the world of martial arts. Hong Kong action films were not yet widely shown in Soviet times. And the era of VCRs was just beginning...
Yes, I remember the very beginning of the 90s, when books began to be written “on ninjutsu, karate, kung fu” with sketches and chewing gum inserts with karate and taekwondo techniques. But the 90s themselves were harsh times, so I ask - was the ability to fight useful?
Fortunately no. But it would be useless. Everyone was armed. At that time I had: a stun gun, a gas canister, a gas pistol and a butterfly knife. He never acquired a firearm. And thank God (Laughs)! But in the 2000s it came in handy: I had a fight in the Moscow metro... Everything I practiced on the punching bag automatically worked against my opponent during the fight.
Tell us more, if it's not a secret?
It's not a secret, but there's not much to tell. I don’t like fights, I always try to avoid conflicts on the street, this is the safest solution for both parties. My father always told me: the best fighting technique is the Shiny Heels. You feel that there is going to be a fight, you turn your back to the enemy and quickly start and run so that your heels shine (Laughs). Well, or you build a dialogue in such a way as to remove the aggressive atmosphere. It's another matter to protect someone. That fight in the subway was my girlfriend’s defense; I don’t remember the details, but there were hands and a knee with a jump to the head for the final.
Harsh! In general, what is your progress in martial arts? Rank, belts, competitions?
None at all. Everything is private. The most serious sparring was in hand-to-hand combat training. There was also a knockdown from my coach Konstantin Lukyanenko. I had a headache for three days afterwards, exactly three days. I’m not a fighter-athlete, there’s nothing in the world. I'm still a movie fighter. This is a completely different technique. For filming, real athletes even have to be retrained to fight. So that they can stop the blow in time without injuring the stuntman or actor. And so that all movements look convincing and spectacular.
Then let's move on to your circus career. How did you find your way there?
I was born on this road (laughs). There's no choice here. Cinema is a choice, Circus is a given.
That is, you were born into a family of circus performers, as I understand it. At what age did you start training and what is your main role in the arena?
Yes, in a circus family. As they say in the circus world - “Born in sawdust”!
They started studying with me even before school. Afterwards, they took a thorough look at me. But I didn't like it. I had a very harsh school. Tears and blood. I especially didn’t like training with my father. He treated me very harshly. Now I understand that he did everything right. But sometimes I overdid it too much.
Judging by the video, you have more than one role, don’t you? Trainer, clown...
Not a clown. Eccentric. Yes, comedy is my thing. I am also an acrobat, magician, and juggler.
In general, an all-rounder. In this regard, I ask the next question specifically for those who want to connect their lives with the circus arena. Let's say I wanted to become a Circus performer. What needs to be done for this, what should you be prepared for first and what profession (clown, gymnast, trainer, manager, etc.) is the most difficult?
First of all, you need to have a trick base. In any genre and at a high level. Each genre has the maximum trick base. The manager has nothing to do with circus art at all. You can be a manager in absolutely any business. It’s the same in the circus, something specific is not implied here.
Secondly, this is energy....!!! I don’t know how to explain it accurately and clearly. But there are performers and there are artists. It would probably be correct to say that you need to be an actor. And any genre in the circus has its difficulties; there are no easy professions at all. There are genres associated with life-threatening and there are non-life-threatening ones - but there are definitely no easy ones.
Where can I get a good stunt base?
In circus studios and schools. People often come to the circus from sports: artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics and acrobatics. But there are also single amateurs and fans of something - jugglers, or tightrope walkers... Simply enthusiastic people who independently master some accessible genre in everyday life.
You say - there are performers and there are artists. I heard that many people go to work in the circus “because they don’t know how to do anything else,” and many “because it is their calling.” Which of them is the largest at the moment, in your opinion?
The phrase - “because I don’t know how to do anything else” or, as we joke in the circus - “If only I don’t work in a factory” is nothing more than a joke.
By the way, I actually heard “because I can’t do anything else” from the traffic police officers. That’s what they said: “They didn’t take us anywhere, we don’t know how to do anything else, so we went to the traffic police.” Most of all just performers from sports. Well, half and half - many athletes turn out to be very artistic. And here it doesn’t matter your vocation or where you came from, there are performers among those born in the circus. Here it depends on God’s kiss whether it’s talent or not. Well, that's if it's to the maximum.But it is important to be and work on yourself as an artist. First of all.
During my life, I visited the Circus several times, even as an adult, and I was always curious - why do circus performers often work with families, growing up in the Dynasty? What are the pros and cons of family-dynastic work under a dome?
It varies. Dynasty - a circus man marries a circus woman. It happens that a circus man takes a wife who is not a circus woman, but brings her into the room, or vice versa: the guy lived an ordinary, settled life, met a circus girl, and now walks the tightrope with her. But such cases are rare.
Pros: overall budget, salary for the family, more opportunities to create additional rooms. And all the time together, the whole family on travels and adventures.
Cons: Together all the time (Laughs). Both at work and at home: any conflict at work can move to home and vice versa. Therefore, wise families separate work from family life and leave work disputes in the circus and do not take them outside the arena. But it's very difficult.
Name the circus performer you most respect
My father!
Often in films (The Wrestler and the Clown, Poddubny, Gutta-Percha Boy), TV series (Cassandra) and music videos, it is shown that the work of a circus performer is very dramatic and nervous, tragedies and scandals often occur, and books about the lives of artists add even more “creepiness”. To what extent does what is shown and described there correspond to reality? Are there many “cranberries” for the circus in such a movie?
Cinema is cinema: everything there is exaggerated, there is an alternative reality, there is an artistic presentation of real life.
A movie about any profession will be inaccurate, partly fictitious and exaggerated.
BUT! There are plenty of tragedies in the circus, and it’s all much more tragic than in the movies, by the way.
Then let's smoothly move on to cinema. Let's talk about your work first. The first thing I saw was the action movie "Dacha Number 13", where you fought with Alexei Kalashnikov - I was very impressed, especially after the action movies with the flicker. Dmitry Shadrin told me that there was no camera operator and everything that was there was filmed and done by the two of you. Tell us how the idea for this film came about and how it was actually filmed?
I had a lot of ideas for stunts and fight choreography. I had filmed something before, but only individual elements and tricks, and it wasn’t very interesting to watch. I wanted to give the stunts artistic form and meaning, so I created a "conflict" and incorporated the plot into the fight scene itself. According to my idea, this is a trick film; I did not set out to show the complexity of the concept, philosophy, or the “twisting” of the plot moves. It was a test of the pen. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a cameraman, so everything was static, the camera was placed on a tripod. And the camera was so-so, very cheap, miniDV, for 4000 rubles. But I tried to do everything as artistically as possible.
It seems to me that the lack of a cameraman did not interfere at all.
It didn’t hurt, but it made the process very complicated and time-consuming: it took almost two weeks to shoot. With everyday busyness... Alexey and I are very tired, both physically and mentally. Much of what was planned was never filmed; much was simplified.
The second work with your participation, which impressed me, was the fantastic melodrama “Cloud Nine” (Director Yongri Kim) about a blind musician (Dmitry Sotiriadi), where you played one of the roles. It was shot so well that for a minute I believed that the leading actor was really blind. Tell us how this short film was made.
Well, rather, this question should be addressed to Yongri Kim. A very good friend of mine, a talented person. Youngri is from South Korea. At that time he was studying at VGIK. This is one of his wonderful student works, in which he invested his own funds and organized the process at a high professional level - we only had four make-up artists; there were cranes, rails and a lot of lenses.
By the way, in Moscow, Yongry Kim received his second cinematic education, his first was in Korea. And I auditioned for him as a magician, but I didn’t show him anything special; I didn’t even have some of the tricks that were shown in the film. But, apparently, he saw in me the one who was needed and everything happened. I rehearsed the extra stunts and all my scenes. And then there were more joint works with him, but in a different capacity: I was with him as a driver, and as a stage camera operator, and a stunt coordinator and understudy, etc. And the main thing is that we became very close friends.
The production of "Cloud Nine" is excellent, I would like to see some action work from Youngri Kim. In addition to him, as far as I know, you also worked in the domestic film industry (cinema, TV series for channels). What films have you participated in (stunts, stunt work, dubbing, roles)? How difficult is it to work with famous actors?
I’ll say right away that the more professional people are, the easier and more interesting it is to work.
My track record is small, because I combine circus and cinema. And cinema is more of a hobby for me than my main profession. As a stunt coordinator he worked on Channel One and on TNT as a director and actor. He choreographed stunts for videos and dubbed actors. He also did a lot of serious work in the theater - as a director of illusion stunts and action scenes.
Among the famous ones are “Inhabited Island” by Fyodor Bondarchuk (played the Monster), the series “Joker 2” (prisoner), “Night Guards” - dubbed Leonid Yarmolnik.
It’s strange, but when they ask questions like this, I can’t remember half of my works. I remember the brightest ones or the last ones.
Apparently it's really a hobby.
You can't sit on two chairs. But cinema and circus are very similar professions! (Laughs)
But so far the circus feeds me better than the cinema. So cinema is a hobby!
Which action movie actor/director should everyone look up to and why?
Buster Keaton and Jackie Chan. They are the best. They have elevated the Trick to an art form! Gave it meaning. Their tricks are smart, tricks with meaning.
Your current work is a feature film about "The Guy in the Hat" (based on the series with Sergei Morin starring). If I’m not confused, this is the same project that Dmitry Shadrin was closely involved in, calling on his team to help and even briefly managing to attract me as a co-author for ideas. But after I left due to disagreements with him, I didn’t hear about the project again - until the teaser. What is the current status of the film, what will the genre be, what will be the percentage of action from the total running time and who will play?
There is an expression - “Don’t say hell until you jump over.” For now, this is all a “naked” idea conceived by Sergei Morin. And I wouldn’t want to scare away luck - in our circus they try not to talk about ideas until they come true. But as soon as the process begins, there will be a thorough start to this project, I will definitely tell you about everything. And this is best done by the “Guy in the Hat” himself and the author of the idea, Sergei Morin.
Let it be so. As soon as the first full trailers appear, we will talk about The Guy in the Hat again. Now, I would like to talk about modern action films. The question for a screenwriter and director is why is it so bad here (Russia, CIS) with the genre of hand-to-hand (and in general shooting or adventure) action films and only regional directors and short filmmakers try in this regard? Where are our Scott Adkins, Isaac Florentines (I’m not even talking about Jackie Chan)?
The first thing I will say is that in our culture there are no martial arts as a national tradition. The same way it is done in China. And since it is cultivated in China. Even everyone you listed, except of course the world famous Chinese Jackie Chan, are heroes for a very narrow audience.
In this direction, such fighter-actors as Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Don “DRAGON” Wilson, Mark Dacascos very successfully broke into world stars... And their films, which became hits, have, first of all, interesting plots. All the rest are for fans of martial arts films. And this is not a very large layer of viewer interest.
But in our cinema, there is no such genre with martial arts. And it is right. This is obviously a failure. The fact that we, Russians, watch Chinese action films is like exotic for us. This is an interest in another culture. Our cinema and films, loved by everyone, are based on spirituality, Russian literature, feelings and soulfulness (incomprehensible to no one except us)! And the only thing I don’t agree with is that we don’t know how to film adventures and “shooters” - there are a lot of films in Soviet and Russian cinema that can be classified as “Action” genres, shot at a very good level!
We need our own way. You need to rely on the plot, the idea, the unusual cinematography, and of course the emphasis on stunts. Combine all the best from the heritage of Soviet cinema and modern trends. And you definitely need to enter the genre - the priority should be the trick, as the engine of the plot. Change the system of attitude towards such filming.
Now the director invites a team of stuntmen who prepare and perform everything. They are filmed by a cameraman from the director's team who works on the entire film. Next, the material is edited by the editing director, who, together with the main director, puts everything together in his own way. And often little remains of the work of stuntmen and directors. Or the wrong takes are chosen, which spoils the whole impression of the stunts, or they simply give very little time to stage the action scenes, which affects the quality of the work. If we are to take on genre cinema, then we need a different approach, a different system. Each scene must be prepared and filmed entirely by its own Action Team. With your cameraman and editing director - then it will make sense.
By the way, I can give an example of a very cool, domestic stunt work from the last - this is the film "Hardcore Henry". Of course, this is an experimental film, not for everyone, but this is the coolest action I've seen in a long time.
I agree, Hardcore is a controversial film in many ways, but for our cinema it is a breakthrough, I hope Naishuller will move further on this path. But the time for our interview is coming to an end, therefore, according to the already established tradition, I ask you to name 5-10 elements for creating a good action movie.
- Plot
- Cast
- Originality of tricks
- Humor
- Spectacular shooting
- Good voice acting
- Music
- Style
- Color, picture
- 1Love
And one more point, very important! This is a trick performed in one frame. No installation.
And the numbering doesn't matter - it's all in the aggregate.
Well, thank you very much, Dmitry, for a fairly informative and detailed conversation, I wish you success in all areas in which you take part, and I look forward to seeing you for an interview again when new trailers of your work are ready! See you soon!
Thank you! See you!
Great interviews! Thank you!
DIV,
Thank you for reading. But more active, more active, people)))