Stunt coordinator for Netflix's 'Daredevil' describes how he made that mind-blowing single shot fight scene
It's an amazing show. Gritty, well-acted, and done with an incredible amount of intelligence and fun. It's the kind of superhero show that is perfect for 2015. Before Christopher Nolan launched his fascinatingly dark Batman trilogy, a show with this kind of grit wouldn't have fared as well. But now, the way has been paved for "Daredevil" to be a huge success for Netflix.
The show follows a man named Matt Murdock. Murdock was blinded as a young boy and as a result of the event, his other senses were boosted to superhuman levels. For example, Murdock can tell if people are lying by hearing the sound of their heartbeat. Murdock is a lawyer by day and a blind, crime-fighting superhero at night.
Part of the grit of this series is the violence. There is a lot of violence. In fact, at times I've had to turn away from the television "Game of Thrones" style to dodge the inevitable cringing from broken limbs and spurting blood. But this is all part of the show's dark charm.
Another part is the amazing innovation in the fight scenes.
The most notable of these is at the end of the second episode where Murdock, decked out in rugged black costume and mask, takes on a mob of Russians in an attempt to save a kidnapped little boy.
It's an amazing scene done in a single shot. That means the camera never cuts away.
Philip J. Silvera is the stunt coordinator for the show. He recently spoke with The Observer about that scene, and described what it was like to choreograph a single shot fight sequence for a blind and very injured superhero.
... a good amount of planning had to go into it but again, we had such a short amount of time to do that planning. We had maybe a few days to set up that fight. You know, most feature films would get weeks to rehearse something like this. Even the remake of Oldboy probably had at least a couple weeks to plan this. We had literally days. I felt like the New York stunt community stepped up in a big way. To me, it's going to be a highlight of the show.
There is plenty more great stuff in this interview with Silvera, you can read the whole thing at The Observer here >>
