Video: How to Write a Fight Scene

With visual inspiration from the John Wick movie series.

Just the other day, I featured a video courtesy of Vanity Fair: “Hollywood Screenwriter Attempts to Write a Scene in 7 Minutes”:

Featuring screenwriter Emily Carmichael (Pacific Rim: Uprising, Jurassic World 3), it is a lively, instructive video, and here’s what I wrote:

I suppose only people interested in screenwriting would watch it, but I’d love to see this as a web series.

Well, as the Good Book says, “Ask and ye shall receive.” Courtesy of Studio Binder, this video:

So maybe this video scene-writing challenge is becoming an actual thing.

My advice about writing fight scenes: Read scripts by professional screenwriters who work in the action genre. When I broke into the business, Shane Black was THE action guy. Check out his writing style from his script The Last Boy Scout:

DOWN ON FIELDThe huddle breaks.
The L.A. team trudges through the snow to the line of
scrimmage.
Cole adopts a three-point stance.Everything happens in hyper-real SLOW MOTION:The snow falls. The receivers breeze past, in motion to
begin their patterns. Moving like gazelles.Cole's fingers paw the cold earth. Gouging it.
He is like a spring. Coiled and ready.The ball is snapped.Turf and snow. Erupting.
A firecracker series of POPS as linemen collide.
Legs churning.The ball floats through the snowy air. Pitch-out to
Cole.He takes it on the run. Tucks it under his arm.
Behind him, the quarterback bites the dust, leveled.Cole turns the corner. Picks up a blocker.
Feet pounding. Arms pumping.Up ahead, the free safety barrels toward him. Low and
hard.Cole does not blink. He reaches beneath his jersey.
Pulls out a GUN.
Pumps THREE SHOTS into the free safety's head.

The bullets go straight through. On the back of his
helmet.
A mixture of blood and fiberglass.Cole keeps going, jogging for the end zone.
Around him, sound. Fury. Impact. Confusion.Another defensive back. Straight ahead.
Reacts with almost comical terror. Dives to one side.
Cole FIRES. Blows out the guy's knee. Ends a career.
Keeps going.We are now in full-scale panic.
The players are fleeing the field. Shouts. Pandemonium.
A few brave men gather around the fallen players.

POLICEare on the field now. Running full out. They've got
riot guns, cocked and locked. Sprinting through the
snow.Cole crosses the goal line. Touchdown.
Drops the ball.Turns, facing the cops. His eyes are insane.The crowd is screaming. People are running back and
forth like extras in the Keystone Cops.The first TWO BLASTS from the cops' RIOT GUNS go high and
wide. One SHOT BLOWS APART the base of the goalpost.The forty-foot-high monument pitches over, collapsing
like a wounded giant. Lands in a shower of snow and ice.Cole is oblivious to the bars crashing around him. He
smiles and says: COLE
I'm going to Disneyland...Puts the GUN to his helmet. FIRES.

Strong, active verbs. Vivid descriptors. Short bursts of visual, visceral writing. That spec script sold for $1.75M, if memory serves me.

If you’re into the John Wick series, why not read scripts by its creator Derek Kolstad. While you’re at it, read, watch, and listen to interviews with him:

By the way, Kolstad is having himself quite a week with the rousing success of John Wick 3, Lionsgate has greenlight JW4 and it was announced in the trades yesterday that the screenwriter will be adapting the ‘Just Cause’ videogame.

I bet Kolstad read TONS of action scripts along with watching TONS of movies, breaking them down, analyzing them in terms of scene construction, description, story structure, and the like.

I kind of wandered off into Sermon City there, preaching the gospel of immersing oneself in the genre you want to write, but circling back for the reason for this post: Yay for videos which features screenwriters doing screenwriterly things!