When Roger Corman attended the Raindance Film Festival in 1996, I asked him what he thought made a really good script.

A good script needs a great fight scene (or sex scene) every fifteen minutes. …pause… Actually, make that every ten minutes. — Roger Corman, the King of Independent Cinema

Your first movie is likely to be a gritty slice-of-life in and or around your own turf, is it not? And aren’t you eager to spice up your film and make it look like you have a far bigger budget than you actually have?

One of the easiest ways to do this is to throw in a fight scene (or three). The trick is – how do you make a fight scene look real without hurting your actors? This is something you could learn at a specialist film school.

Another way is to hang out with one of my favourite independent filmmakers, Jason Satterlund. His west coast Big Puddle Films makes web series, shorts, corporates and has several different feature projects on the boil.

Watching this four minute video should give you enough information to make your next movie punch out look realistic. And for this one you don’t even need money!

Practice. And be safe.



Want some more lo budget filmmaking tips? Check out my weekend Lo-To-No Budget Filmmaking weekend course for dozens more.

Have you some fight tips you would like to share with our readers? Add them into the comments box below.