Fight Direction at George Brown College!

We've been hit!

Fight Direction is an exciting addition to the 3rd year curriculum at George Brown College's dynamic school of Game Design.  George Brown gives faculty incredible latitude to hire guest instructors and we got a couple of the best!  Riot Act's Simon Fon and Michael Dufays - fight choreographers and stunt men with many years industry experience.  Over 3 action-packed weeks students got schooled in the basics of choreographing hand-to-hand combat techniques, knife fighting, and sword fighting. I am relieved and somewhat shocked to report that not a single student was injured although our low-hung projector nearly took a beating.

Michael is actually twisting his
own arm - it's all in the acting!

I would highly recommend all animators - especially game designers - take classes in fight direction to help you: 

1. plan your choreography for maximum visual impact  
2. 'feel' the motions you're hoping to animate - it's always a better to act things out!
3. learn to film fight reference SAFELY - seriously. That stuff is dangerous! 
4. get some exercise. Animators sit in desks all day. We need more exercise :D
5. how to telegraph impact through REACTION is in fight sequences - acting is reacting!

*Update - This class was repeated in 2012 with another class and combined with the new MoCap facility.