Premise: Investigating Stylized Fights + Poses and Camera Work

In order to improve the fighting aspect of my animation, I will investigate TV shows which contain over-the-top action. This will help me in order to identify how to portray large amount of action and make it digestible for the audience so that they are able to still follow along with the events. 

Fight scenes - Two established chracters who have their own motivations being there. This can be broken up into 2 parts, the technical aspect (the physical aspects of the fight) and the emotional narrative (the characters stake in the fight, what are they fighting for?). 

Emotional narrative takes a fight which is technically accurate to another level as it conveys to the audience what victory of defeat means to both sides. This plays into the drive and motivations of both charcters to win, which in tern surpasses that persons ablilty to win on a technical level, making the emotion more memorable for the audience than the actual fight. 

I have begun to explore this idea with the knowledge of my two characters back stories. The two are fighting for their world to win. For the Samurai, victory means absolutely everything as he is quite literally the last stand for the world that he knows. This is further ephasised within the narrative when he realizeds its too late to save his people, his world comes crashing down when he finds that the palace is being burnt down while he is distracted by the robot. This is the turning point for the character in the narrative. Up until then he has been dodging the robot, an opposition who is technically more powerful than him in every way. The only thing which has saved him up until now is the fact that the enemy chooses to follow his moral code and fight with a fair weapon. The Samurai believes that he will be saved by his people, with him being informed that he should wait for backup. When the palace is burnt down, the Samurai realises the true situation he is in, he has been set up. It is at this point his emotions come out and he is truly able to stand on equal ground as the robot, going as far as to disarm him. 

The idea of emotion from the Samurai is contrasted against his enemy, the robot. The robot does not have any emotion as it is believed that he has lost his human side on his pursuit of power from machinery. The character believes he is better than any human could ever be and so this is the reason why he pauses a lot within the first half of the fight. He does not defend himself when scanning the Samurai for the chip as he does not see the Samurai as a threat. This idea however is a factor which lead to the Robots potential downfall. Its arrogance leads to its weapon being disarmed and its only by breaking his moral code he is able to win. 

It is important to weave the characters personal story into the fight itself, which makes the victory or defeat more impactful. I feel I have been able to convey this well with both characters.

With this in mind I wanted to analyse fight scenes which involve over-the-top action from popular anime. I have looked at the realistic side of fighting by analysing Jackie Chan, however I want to go with a more stylized looking fight. 

I picked the anime listed below as I found that they have compelling fights within them, which all draw emotion directly from the characters themselves. 

Dragon ball - Over-the-top, visually intersting

One Piece - Over the top, 

Cowbow Bebop - Stylized, slick, interesting

One Punch Man 

Cowboy Bebop

starting firstly from the anime which inspired my project, I want to look at how the camera works with the movement of the character in order to make a stylish fight scene. I also love the inclusion of music in the series and how each episode has a track which optimises the them of that episode. 

I decided to investigate fight from the first episode as this is the episode we know the least about the character Spike. This puts the audience in the same situation as the audience for my animation. I want to see how Spike is portrayed in order to get the audience over to his side, identifying his motivations as well as fighting style. The scene is also grounded in reality with no flashy beams of light, or over-the-top super powers, just two men going back and forth in hand to hand combat. 

Spike is identified as a cocky bounty hunter, who is going out of his way to stop someone he considers a 'small fry'. His motivation is to claim the money set on the bounty. After the two interact over exchanging money for drugs, its important to note that Spike reveals that he in fact weilds a gun. This is revealed with him shooting the precious vial in front of Asimov, the villain. This is an important part in revealing more about Spikes personality and overall motivations as a character. He could simply shoot Asimov in the head and take him in as a bounty, however he intentionally chooses to use his fits to fight. Its as if he is toying with he's prey. This idea is further emphasised by how one sided the fight turns out, with Spike even dancing as he beats his opponent. Spike chooses the thrill of a fight, knowing he can win with ease without having to get his hands dirty. This shows the audience that he wasnt just being cocky when calling Asimov a small fry. It makes you want to learn more about the charcter, what sort of people has he been fighting to consider Asimov as a small fry. 

In terms of camera movement, the camera matches the energy of the fight. I particularly like how it shows off the characters feet, revealing Spike as particularly dancing, while Asimov is stumbling around. This subtly shows the power difference between the two and gives us an insight into both of their mindsets. The camera makes sure to capture the emotions of the characters, whether this is done through quick shots or slow ones to emphasis an emotion. This is important as again it plays into the emotional narrative. Even though this is a hand drawn animation, the camera work is done in a way to seem as if someone is filming the fight in real life. This is seen with shots such as when the camrera zooms out to show the full food court (1:27). The camera zips about as if struggling to keep up with all the action, but wanting to capture it all. This idea is then transitioned into the perspective of Katerina, Asimov's accomplice, who is looking down the barrel of the gun. As the character tracks the movement of the two fighting, she hesitates to find an opening to shoot. This once again brings in the overall narrative of the episode and shows the characters personality wining over her motivations. She cannot bring herself to shoot, even though she seen the damage the lifestyle has brought to her and her husband. 

Finally what ties the whole fight together in such an intriguing and enjoyable way is the perfect needle drop moment as the fight begins. The inclusion of the song 'Rush' by The Seatbelts, ties the scene together perfectly. It fits with the actions on screen really well and syncs up to each punch to deliver an intriguing fight. The fact that it is so up beat also ties into Spikes laid-back nature, ensuring the the audience also feels confident in our protagonist. 

One Punch Man 

The next fight I want to investigate is the last fight between the hero and antagonist in One Punch Man. One Punch Man is such an interesting concept as it follows the hero Saitama as he struggles with his life as a superhero who is so powerful that he can defeat his enemy with a single punch. This has caused Saitama to become depressed as he is unable to enjoy the thrill of catching the bad guy. This anime is a comedy and plays into the fact that anime characters have become too over powered. This idea creates an interesting dynamic between the two character as by the end of the first season Saitama is still able to beat the big antagonist in 1 punch. However even knowing this fact, the fight is still engaging and well done. 

The fight is good because the two characters share the same emotional narrative, they are both motivated by the fact that they are the most powerful beings in exitance and yearn for a battle with someone as their equal. After punching Boros and breaking his armour, Saitama realises the potential Boros has to be the opponent he's been searching for. However as the battle continues he realises that he is far to strong to use his full potential. Therefore Saitama decides to hold back in order to give Boros the fight he wants. Boros is able to use his full potential however is constantly met with an unharmed and equally unbothered Saitama. By the end of the fight neither character is able to achieve their goal, with Boros realising that he was not fought by Saitama at his full potential and Saitama being disappointed that he could not trick Boros. 

The fight uses over the top lighting and music in order to convey the power levels of both characters, particularly Boros who is the big baddie of the series. This gives the audience the impression that he may be the villain Saitama is looking for. However after finding out that Saitama is still unharmed from his opponents attacks, this dramatic use of lighting and power is shifted and use as a form of comedy. The use of destruction to the people and environment is also used to further emphasis the impact and power the characters poses. 

In this instance the camera is assisted with tracking the movements of the charcter, by animating the character as ball of light. This makes it easier to show off the characters moving at a great speed. The camera makes sure to stay zoomed out so that the audience can see the impact the attacks Boros does has on the environment. This is important to show the scale of power Boros has to show he is a villian that should be feared, however is still below Saitama's level of power. The camera zooms in on characters faces throughout the fight in order to see how each character feels. Saitamas expression remains unbothered throughout the fight, much like how he has been throughout the series. Boros continues the hope that he has met his match and so his expression is positive until he slowly comes to the realisation that this is not true.

The fight is good because both character struggle with the same problem, they are both far too powerful to enjoy what they do. The series does a good job of relaying the this idea from Boros's background which mirrors many of the issues Saitama has stated about his own life so far in the series. 

One Piece 

I decided to look at a fight in One Piece between the characters Zoro (green hair) and Mihawk (red hat). The two characters are fighting with swords, however this time the protagonist is the one who looses the fight. I thought it would be good to look at the opposite way of fightin g

One Piece uses its dramatic charcters in order to convey an emotion to the audience. No matter how goofy a character may be, their motivations are compelling enough to get the audience to root for them. In this instance, the character Zoro wants to be known as the worlds greatest swordsman. In there travels Zoro is confronted by the current worlds greatest swordsman, Mihawk, and he takes this opportunity to confront him in order to test his skills. 

In order to display the power difference between the two characters, Mihawk descides to use a tiny blade in order to better Zoro who is using his full power. The use of dramatic lighting conveys this idea, using flashes of light to ephasis the characters emotions as the battle progresses.