Interview with Larnell Stovall ("Undisputed 3" choreographer)

[Drunken Monk]

I'm not sure if this has been posted or not but it's an excellent and very interesting read...

Tell me how you got started on the road to being a stunt coordinator?

Stovall: First of all I started by reaching out to an individual by the name of Chuck Jeffreys when I was in New Orleans. I was a martial arts competitor at that time on the circuit; NASCA, NBL, SKI, USKA. awards, championships, etcetera. A few buddies of mine had auditioned for 'Mortal Kombat; Conquest', the TV show. As cheesy as it was it gave opportunities to a lot of guys like myself back then who were competitors looking for what was next in their lives. A few buddies of mine got chosen for the show. Once they got chosen for the show, the stunt coordinators name was John Medlen and he chose a few competitors. Now the week before I was supposed to go audition for it I tore my ACL and so I still went to shake his hand and find out exactly what they were doing, which was looking for stunt guys. It basically put that seed in me, like, 'Okay, this is what I think I want to do in life.' The friends who went up there, in one of them is here right now. His name is Jon Valera. He got chosen as well. They went to Florida and worked on a TV show for like two months, made a great amount of money because you have to think that they were kids at that time. They were probably eighteen, nineteen, twenty at the most, and me, I was probably twenty one, twenty two myself. I heard how much they made and I was like, 'Okay, I have to go do this. I have to go try this.' Now back to Chuck Jeffreys. When I got back to New Orleans 'Blade' had already come out and I found out that he was one of the fight coordinators. Now being African American myself, I found out that a brother did this and that inspired me and so I tracked him down on the internet and sent him an email, just introducing myself. He was very kind in responding to me. By the time that I actually made contact with him 'Blade' made some huge numbers and there was already a discussion about a part two. So, needless to say I sent him some of my competitor stuff, which now, looking back at it, it's very hard to impress a fight coordinator or a stunt coordinator just being a martial arts competitor because they just see you in the middle of the ring throwing tricks and movements and sometimes that doesn't necessarily translate to a great stunt fighter on film, unless you have proper training in how to turn those same kicks and movements to a cinematic fighting. A lot of guys don't have that. That's why there's only so many great competitors that try to get into the movie industry and are successful.

Do you have to take classes, like film classes to work around that?

Stovall: Some people try to do that and within this you have to find someone willing to teach, willing to help you, willing to take great talent and turn it into a great movie talent. Sometimes we find them. Sometimes they find us. Like this particular group that I'm with, we find the best talent out there. Some talent has been catered to for years, trained and now they're some of the best stunt guys, best fighters in the world. Obviously the movies that we've done are the huge blockbusters and sometimes we do the smaller ones. But all these guys can translate their natural martial arts talent to great cinema fighting. To make a long story short I tried to get on 'Blade 2' and unfortunately Chuck didn't work on 'Blade 2' for whatever reason but by that time I had already quit my job, got on a Greyhound bus and came to L.A. That was by the time that he told me that things didn't work out for whatever reason. Needless to say that I was here already. From there I just went through the trenches like any other stunt guy; taking headshots, working on independent films, working on short films, working on student films. I was just trying to get footage, trying to translate beyond Thug Number One which is easy. You put on a bandana and a tank-top with a gun sideways, yeah, I'll scare the shit out of most people but that's not what I came out here for, but eventually it paid the bills. It helped me to get a few credits, get a little respect, get some stunt coordinator names on my resume and obviously I hung with the martial arts circuit so that I could keep digging and digging, looking for what that next level was going to be. So, anyway, cut to years later, the stunt thing was okay for me but passion wise, I felt more passionate about being creative and I've moved from being a stunt guy to a fight choreographer. I would honestly say that was maybe five or six years ago. My very test came from creating my own short, a comic book character that I created. Yes, I'm a geek. I can admit that. Being out of work for like six to eight months I made up my own character called Steel and I used the small residuals, I used unemployment checks, used whatever I could to try and create this character and what happened was that I got an artist to draw it for me. I was trying to do it as it's own little comic but then I said, 'The thing in Hollywood is that people have to see it more than they can imagine.' I said, 'I'm going to go ahead and make a short of this so I can stop talking about it and let people see exactly what it is that I'm trying to get across.' I was thinking to myself, 'Okay, who's going to play the lead?' Obviously I didn't have no money, nobody to go ahead and pay to commit possibly two months of their life on the weekends to do this. So I said, 'I'll step in and take the shoes myself and do it since I know the character.' I shot it. It came out great. We entered it into the Action on Film Festival. It was nominated seven times. It won multiple awards. I won Breakout Action Star. I won Best Martial Arts Fight Sequence. It kind of hit the net and didn't make a huge frenzy because at that time people were contacting me, telling me that they wanted to try and make it into a movie. So I was being very careful not to let it spread on the net too much. That short led to me being noticed by these guys because I was already training with them, just on the weekends, doing these fight choreography classes we have and martial arts training sessions that we do on Saturdays for three hours. Needless to say, after that they brought me in after they saw it and made me a part of the unit and the rest is history.

When you make the transition from stunt coordinator to fight coordinator are you sent the script and then you work around that or do they just tell you they want a fight scene here and there and it has to be this long?

Stovall: It varies. Sometimes a script will say exactly what they want in a fight. They might have story points within a fight that I have to choreograph. Lets say that a fight section is eight pieces. The first section might be fifteen moves of punches, kicks, elbow throws, whatever, but in the story the hero needs to have his arm broken and he can only fight with one arm. Then he also needs to get to the gun. So lets just say that I'm going to incorporate that story point that's in the exposition by, like, section four. He gets his arm broke. So then maybe by section seven he spots the gun. Obviously, by section eight he finally gets the gun and kills the bad guy. So that's the way that it normally works. But then other times you might get a script where it just says, 'They fight.' From there that's where you really have to be creative and usually that only happens with lower budget films. For instance, on 'Undisputed III' there wasn't really many story points that had to be followed. Ii just had free reign over creating whatever elements I wanted in a fight. So whatever you see, when you watch it yourself, those came from a fight. That's it. They're just letting me have some fun.

When you're working with martial artists like Scott Adkins and also working with Jason Statham, too, for 'Mechanic', right?

Stovall: Actually, I worked on it as a stunt guy. Another guy here by the name of Dave Leach who's also one of the owners of 87eleven, he was actually second unit director. Noon Orsatti who was the stunt coordinator was one of the guys working with him as well. But Chaz Tahowsky, Jon Valera, Sam Harbreak; they all worked with him physically concerning the actual fight choreography. I was brought in as a stunt guy on that. So sometimes I do play the stunt guy role and back off and have no influence, no say on what punches or kicks or how the action is being setup, transition jobs a lot of times. But we all support each other on whoever's project is going on at that time.

But when you're choreographing a fight scene with an actor who's actually a martial artist, do they have a lot of input or do they just listen to what they're told to do?

Stovall: They have a lot of input. The best example I can give, for instance lets take Scott Adkins. A phenomenal martial artist. He's like a freaking moving videogame. What I like about him is that he'll let me choreograph and he was happy with everything that I brought to the table, mainly because I wanted to push him. I said, 'Okay, I see these moves that you do but what's the next level, the next thing that you've done that hasn't been captured on film yet,' or I try to stray away from whatever that actor has done and basically bring something new to the table. I think the audience expects and deserves that. They might have a signature kick, a signature move, something that's a highlight that they're known for and I might stray away from that. Or if I put it in there I put it in there in a different way that hasn't been seen yet. So when they have martial arts experience it helps me. I sit back and watch what their strengths are and what their weaknesses are. I obviously stay away from their weaknesses, but if I can or have time to teach something new within their caliber of martial arts techniques I'll try to bring something new as well.

Does it take twice as long for you because like in 'Undisputed III' you've got different martial arts styles; you've got a Capoeira guy going up against a kick boxer and so how long does that take to plan out?

Stovall: Planning is like this, if I have a schedule and say that fight number one is the boxer versus the jujitsu guy I look at the schedule sheet and try to choreograph according to what fights come first if I can. But then some fights I might just be inspired by more than others where I can choreograph the whole fight in literally a day or two. But then I have to teach it to those guys, film it and take a look at it and then that's what I'll consider as being my first pass. I look at it and go, 'That's okay but I can change this and I can make it better.' I'll do a second pass and by the time the director sees it and approves of it and says, 'Hey, I love the fight, this thing is ready to go,' time wise I can usually create a fight in a day or two, maximum. But how long the talent takes to catch on can effect the fight because what I may expect might not be performed to the level that I expect on film. So I'm going to have to go back and tweak it just a little according to what their body can handle and what they can pick up in the amount of time that I'm given before we film.

How do you work around injuries?

Stovall: That's a fun story. Injuries. For 'Undisputed III', and a lot of people don't know this and I'll put this one out there, this is funny; the very first day that I met Scott in the gym, we'd seen each other night before when I flew in and we were all excited, ready to get busy the next day, get in the gym with the Bulgarian stunt guys and start creating. I had so many ideas. I just couldn't wait to see him and bring him to life. He comes in and tells the boys hello. We're on the floor, warming up and stuff and so he runs past on this spring floor, does a little tumble to just kind of loosen up. Literally, on the next pass he twists his ankle. Not even seven minutes into him warming up, and I mean a twist where he was limping. I'm sitting there like, 'Ah, fuck. I'm so fucked.' I'm saying to myself, 'I just lost time and this and that.' But he's such a warrior. I'll give that to him. He worked through a sprained ankle, learning all the choreography. Literally, if there was a certain move where I needed him to flip, needed him to do this or that we'd skip past that move and go towards the simpler things; kick, punch, duck, elbow, counter, cross-grab just so that he could get his choreography memory going. So by the time that his ankle healed, it only took him like five days and the next thing you knew he was flipping. But when you only have two weeks five days seems like forever because you can't really see your fight at full speed because of that injury. By the next week he was able to run everything at full speed and then the same thing happened again with the Capoeira guy. He comes in one day and he and Scott finally get together and I'm like, 'Okay, this is going to be a badass fight. I can't wait to see the choreography come together.' So we're choreographing and I'm on the side working with Marko Zaror who's the main bad guy Ilram Choi who's a Korean fighter, it was his first preliminary match. So they're one side of the room and Scott and Lateef [Crowder] are on the other side of the room. I hear, 'Hey, Larnell, watch this.' I turn around and they're trying to show me the move that I wanted. Lateef goes, 'Okay, ready? Three, two, one action. Aaahhhh!' And Lateef twists his ankle. I was a little more worried about Lateef because he only had four days before he had to do his first fight. So he didn't have as much time as Scott did. Scott literally had three weeks before he was going to have to get on film and do his first fight.

And his stuff, Lateef's, is probably some of the most acrobatic in the film.

Stovall: Yeah, and that's what alarmed me, saying, 'Oh, man, this fight might be fucked.' But fortunately it wasn't and literally he was ready to go the day before the fight. He was literally able to run it at full speed. He would hold back just a little but I knew he was good to go by the time that we filmed and so I didn't have to cut anything or sacrifice any moves based on injuries. It was awesome.

With the direction that cinema is going, a lot of wire work and not a lot of actual ass-kicking it seems going on in movies these days, obviously you're still a busy guy. So you're still able to find a lot of stunt work and fight work, right?

Stovall: Well, here's the thing. I've been behind the scenes. I've been real low key for a while. What I mean by low key is that sometimes you're just one of the boys, just one of the stunt guys. You might be on the set one day interviewing somebody and you might see me on the side picking up pads, like, 'That's Larnell.' That's the way the business goes. Sometimes you're not lined up for work consistently, month after month to choreograph stuff and to start preproduction and then be on the whole film for sometimes two to six months. Sometimes you're just one of the boys where I might have to go run in, take a punch, hit the ground and that's my job for that day. But since 'Undisputed' things have been picking up. That's one of my first solo movies where it was my name being credited for the fight choreography. I'm happy that Isaac [Florentine] and New Image and everybody else were comfortable putting my name in the front credit as the movie comes on which is rare. They were that excited with the fights. My next project will probably be 'Bunraku'. That'll hit theaters and so that's my first monster.

What's the name of the movie?

Stovall: 'Bunraku'. It stars Josh Hartnett. This Japanese superstar named Gackt who's basically like the Michael Jackson of Japan. This will be his first American movie. He's as popular as Steven Chow or Rain, basically. This will be his first one. He was a co-lead in that one. Also, there's –

What's that about?

Stovall: It's basically this westerner, Josh Hartnett, who comes to this town obviously seeking revenge or looking for the killer of his father. Gackt is there for his own personal mission as well. He's trying to honor something that I think his uncle or his father wants him to do as a last request. Obviously they become teammates and have to go on the same journey together but what's stopping them on this journey are these fighters who are all killers. It's funny because Ron Perlman is the lead killer and Kevin McKidd is his right hand man. So, basically, there's killer one through ten and most of the killers are played by stunt guys which helps to enhance the action. So there's going to be a tremendous amount of fights. When I first got the script it had twenty eight fight scenes in it.

That's huge.

Stovall: Yeah, and there were no guns either. So we're talking fights. This is one of the first times that I can probably say it got me excited. It really got the creative juices flowing, like, 'Oh, my God, I can't wait to tackle this.' The stunt coordinator, Clay Barber, who brought me on, he brought me on with an extreme amount of passion towards this. He said, 'I know there's probably a bunch of other projects out there that you could be a part of but just read this script and get back to me. I really think you're going to enjoy this.' From page one up until it ended I couldn't stop reading.

A western with twenty eight fights might be the greatest thing ever.

Stovall: Here's the thing, it's not necessarily a western. It's like Josh is from the west. Gackt is from the east and they meet in the middle of this interesting place. Bunraku stands for Japanese puppet theater. It's this paper world where all the sets are made of paper. There's CGI everywhere. I finally saw a sample of some of the work two weeks ago. The director is named Guy Moshe. This will be his first huge theatrical film, funded by Keith Calder. So it's independent which is why it's low key right now but I'm sure the studios are going to hop on it tremendously.

But it takes place in like the 1800's, right?

Stovall: No, no, no. It takes place in it's own individual world. You can't put a timeframe on it. You can't put a setting or anything on it. One guy said, 'It's like "Moulin Rouge" with fighting.' The transition of the colors and the backgrounds but with martial arts. A cast like this, Josh Hartnett, Gackt, Kevin McKidd, Ron Perlman, Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson; it's just stellar up and down. I'm really looking forward to that. That'll probably be my first one in movie theaters with my name as the fight coordinator so things are going to pick up even more after that.

You did some stunts for 'The Other Guys', too?

Stovall: Yeah, that was fun. 'The Other Guys', I think that's going to be a monster when it comes out. It's a comedy. I mean the trailer alone speaks volumes about how much fun it's going to be, but the trailer doesn't reflect the action that's going to be in there. It's going to be some of the most intense action you've ever seen, from explosions to great car chases. I'm going to be in there just doing a shootout, but it's a huge chase scene in the beginning with The Rock and Sam Jackson chasing us. That was fun. Sam was awesome as always. The Rock was very cool.

Hadn't you worked with Dwayne before on 'The Rundown'?

Stovall: Yeah. I worked with him on 'The Rundown' but that was only for like one day. I was one of the stunt guys but a few members of the team that I'm with now worked with him for months on that. So they built up a stronger relationship with him, but that was probably the longest that I worked with him. That was great. I wish him the best and I can't wait until he takes over Hollywood in the action genre. I think he's back now with two current projects that involve action.

Yeah, 'Faster' and –

Stovall: I think 'Protector' or 'Protection', something like that. I think that he took over for Clive Owen or whoever. So he's got some great stuff coming up. That's stuff I can't talk about or ninjas would drop down and kill me.

So you've got a big action sequence then in the beginning for 'The Other Guys'?

Stovall: Yeah. The overall action is more within the chase more than with the individuals, which is funny when you think about what my passion is, fight scenes. When you do fight scenes the audience stays connected to the hero or the villain more but when you start bringing in CGI, guns and big explosions you kind of feel a little disconnected, just a little because you know at some point in time the stunt doubles step in and do the tremendous part. Obviously that's for insurance purposes because producers don't want their heroes getting hurt and I do understand and respect that. But the great thing about fight scenes, like in 'Undisputed III', no stunt doubles. So you stay connected with the characters. Fortunately we had a good script, too, and so the fights meant more by the time you're able to watch them. You want to see if the guy who'd been talking shit the whole time could really handle his business. You can see if the bad guy who's been very blasé about the challenge, what's he going to do when he does get a good challenge? Well, that all came from a good script, building that up and then the pressure was on me to give good fights and at the end make the audience go, 'Okay, that was worth the ride,' because people don't have time to waste ninety minutes, a hundred and twenty minutes on some bullshit. So I figured, 'Lets give them the best.' My whole goal was epic for the fights the whole time. Hopefully the world feels the same when they see it.

Is it tough working with actors that have never done a fight scene and how come you think there are so few fight scenes with women, where chicks are going at it? I remember growing up as a kid I'd see women fight scenes all the time in Hong Kong movies but it's just not there anymore.

Stovall: Yeah. Quentin [Tarantino] did a great job years ago when he started with Uma [Thurman] in 'Kill Bill'. That was one of the first American ones that actually got some respect and made some coin off of it as well. I haven't really seen it since though. But we have Gina Carano who's stepping into that genre with Steven Soderbergh's movie 'Knockout'. She trained here with us, as well. When I say trained, Gina is trained as a fighter already but this goes back to what I said about how you have to take that natural training and skill and grit and make it more cinema friendly because in a fight scene, I might throw a certain way and it works in a fight, but for the camera I might need to throw it bigger, more exaggerated. So that's what we mean by cinema friendly. But yeah, back to the female fighting, man. That's something that I want to conquer as well because I definitely see the potential. Studios always seem to want to give a female a chance, but sometimes what they look at it is the history of whatever the last one was that came out. 'Did it make any money and do we want to take that chance again?' That affects the decisions. So unless you tackle it on the independent scene with somebody and it makes some good DVD numbers then some studios might pay attention and green light a script that's been sitting around that could be for whoever's the newest, hottest actress that we want to see kick ass, so to speak. 'Watchmen' was a good example. I though the female in it did a good job, but right now we have 'Sucker Punch' coming out with Zack Snyder. That was done by Damon Caro. He was the stunt coordinator on that. We had two of the stunt team members there as well. I wasn't on that one so I don't know what the fights are going to be like but I'm sure that with what my teammate had and the vision from the same guy that did '300' up to 'Watchmen' and now 'Sucker Punch', I'm sure that you can expect some great female fighting. Maybe that might open up the doors as well. So, yeah, we're really missing that lead female hero that we believe can kick ass and take names. Everything goes in a full circle and it'll come back around eventually. There's probably some script with dust on it right now that's going to get green lit real soon. Who knows.

You also worked on 'The Mechanic' with Jason Statham. Did you have a big part in that?

Stovall: No. Just small. Very, very, very small. I might be scene for just a few seconds here and there. What was fun about that was that I got to film because I was at home in New Orleans and the team just happened to be down there filming and so they brought me in for a few days to work on it. It was just a quick little shoot, nothing major, but that's just a perk of the job. One day you have the pressure of trying to create a great vision for this movie with awesome fight scenes and two months later you're just picking up a gun, getting squibbed, shot, hitting the ground and the audience has never really seen you. It's fun to go back and forth like that sometimes between projects. Right now I have about five or six scripts that I'm trying to get through and read and see what's the next one that I might help attach myself to.

What can martial arts fans and fight fans expect that they haven't seen before in 'Undisputed III'?

Stovall: What they can expect, for one, long takes. What I mean by long takes is that any time we watch TV shows or we watch, sometimes big budget movies suffer from this as well, they suffer from epileptic choreography editing, so to speak.

It's a nightmare. It sucks.

Stovall: You get a headache trying to watch the fight scene and I feel bad for the choreographers due to the fact that if I put a lot of hard work and came up with some great stuff but then the editor chops it to shit or the director chops it to shit or they darken it up too much or they cutaway; it baffles me that people spend so much money in preproduction, saying that they want great action, that they want this awesome vision but then we give it to them and they chop it to bits in the editing room. The audience suffers then and we suffer as well because unless the movie makes money then nine times out of ten those same studios or producers don't care. They feel that formula worked because it made money. But still in the end that does nothing for us because I can't show you a fight where you feel like you need to take some freaking headache pills at the end of it because it was ten cuts in a fight that only had six moves.

A lot of the problem is that these guys will shoot with the handi-cam to make it look grittier and you can't tell what's going on a lot of the time.

Stovall: I understand that feeling when people say, 'I want it gritty. I want it street.' Think about a street fight you've seen. Think about what you thought was a gritty fight. Would you pay $10 to see that on the screen? No you won't. It was sloppy. People were tripping. People were throwing punches and missing and you're not going to pay $10 to see that, as far as in the cinema. You expect that you go there to be entertained. So our job is to find that fine line of giving you gritty fights but yet giving you a good visual presentation of it. It depends on the director, the DP, if we're all on the same page. It's if they're all comfortable with saying, 'Hey, guy, do me a favor, can we pull the camera back just a little for this section so that the audience can see that he stripped the knife. He cut him on the wrist. Then he untied his shoelace,' and the next you know the boot came off. It's little small details that we don't need put a magnifying class on, going in so close that we can't see it. That's why sometimes it's almost more fun working on independents because they appreciate your vision. Sometimes there isn't as much as a battle to get across your vision. They also understand that, like, 'Hey, you're going to enhance our product with the little budget that we have.' So they respect your opinion a little more. Sometimes you get into the studio system and you're just a puppet and all you can do is cash your check and say that you did the best job that you could. I might be prepared for that. Hopefully the boys won't have my neck in a few years if my name is attached to something, like, 'This ain't the fights he promised me. The fucker sold out!' I feel bad ahead of time and so I apologize if I'm that guy three years from now and I had no control over the action. Hopefully little projects like 'Undisputed' and maybe part four because I know they want to do that, as well; hopefully I can keep attacking smaller projects like that which will keep your vision in tact in case you do have your hands tied if you get to the $100 million films and all they're worried about is angst and teen drama and stuff. They're not really concerned with the fight itself.

What's some of the future stuff you have coming up that we can look forward to seeing?

Stovall: Actually, everything that I'm attached to right now is underground and no one knows about it. There's one project that I'm excited about it and it'll definitely be on a lower scale but I think it will shock the world. It's a project by the name of 'Romp' which is an underground comic book character created by Adam Pollina. He'd actually be the director as well. It's basically in the realm of 'Kick Ass' meaning that it's reality based. There are no powers but what's unique about this character is that he has no arms. So we're talking about a guy, and I did a test shoot for it already and I wish that I could show people and I can't, but needless to say it was interesting creating with that character because I had to think about how he could defend himself, what can he do because we're so used to our arms being our first line of defense. In his whole life everything that he does is with his legs. I had to find the best way to do that. It was like, 'Okay, lets take Aikido.' With Aikido being known for deflecting momentum, counter grabbing, etcetera but if you don't have arms how would you grab? 'Lets use his mouth instead.' So when someone throws a punch, you can sidestep and grab with the mouth instead and grab clothing, use the neck to counter and break it. There are different ways that forced me as a choreographer to become more creative. That's the stuff that gets me excited. Not the candy, popcorn, fluffy 'Hero throws big punch, throws big knee' and then big wire work and CGI FX and the building explosions. Whatever. It is what it is and I know that sometimes you need those big ones to get your name out in the world a little more but then sometimes there are little projects like a 'Romp' whenever it gets it's funding that'll just be a cult classic that will shock people. That might make another studio wake up and say, 'Okay, we need something like this,' and they might green light that dusty script that's been sitting there that might be similar. That's definitely something that I'm excited about. I have two more that I'm attached to but unfortunately I can't talk about them but it will shock some people.

Big thanks to Larnell Stovall for the interview. He's a great guy and martial arts/fight fans should check out Undisputed III, hitting Blu-Ray/DVD and On Demand June 1st.]

http://www.latinoreview.com/news/an-el-guapo-exclusive-interview-with-undisputed-iii-fight-coordinator-larnell-stovall-10102