Choreographing Brutal Battle Scenes in Epic Film Production

The brutal battle choreography in Troy showcases the actors' dedication to realism and physicality.

### Choreographing Brutality: The Making of Epic Battle Scenes in Troy
* ⚔ The script presented a daunting challenge, but Simon Crane's choreography for the battle scenes was **nothing short of remarkable**, creating a **brutal and realistic portrayal of warfare**.
* 🏹 The primary weapons used in combat were **spear and shield**, and the production team faced the challenge of **training actors and stuntmen to effectively use these** instead of the more common swords.
* 🗡 To maintain authenticity, rubber swords were used in the film, reflecting the historical reality that **bronze swords would often bend and cause severe injuries** rather than clean cuts.
* 💥 The violence depicted was intentionally graphic, serving as a **necessary reflection of the brutal world of the story**, with the battles designed to be "**very, very gory**."
* 🎭 With around 800 soldiers trained for their roles, the preparation involved **rigorous training** to ensure they could **convincingly portray Trojan and Greek warriors** in massive battle scenes.
* 🌪 Production faced significant setbacks, including a hurricane that **destroyed the wall of Troy**, necessitating a **complete rebuild of the set** just before filming a crucial fight scene between Hector and Achilles.
* 🏋 The physical demands on the actors were intense, requiring **extensive training** to handle the **challenging conditions of filming under harsh sunlight** and the physicality of their roles.
* 🎬 Ultimately, the film's fight choreography aimed to **reveal character through combat**, showcasing the actors' skills and dedication, with each battle scene crafted to **highlight the raw brutality of warfare**.

good okay let's shoot that. Here we go. My first thing when I read the script was, Oh Christ, how are we going to do that? Simon Crane, he was instrumental in getting these, these, well, I think, amazingly choreographed battles together. The work they've done in those battle scenes is just unbelievable. The story is a love story, but above all, it's a war. They fought with spears, they fought with swords. It was brutal, brutal, brutal. When you're reading about what weapons they had and what horrific injuries they suffered, it's really key to keep it all real. [Applause] [Applause] Uh, the main instruments of war were spear and shield. Most actors and stunt men want to work with just swords. The stunter rangers had a kind of challenge there, trying to get the stuntmen and actors to work more with spears. We had silicon heads of dummies that we were taking spears right through from one side to the other. The Iliad describes Hector's lance as being five

and a half meters long. Well, you just, you know, we made one just to prove the point that you couldn't work with it. So, you keep bringing it down until you can get a length that you think, well, this functions. Every time we make something, we all go out into the yard and fight each other to see if it works. We've made this so Brad can have the shield in his hand, do a tracking shot behind him, see in the distance the Viagra's character throw or mime to throw the spears. Visual effects would CG the movement of the spears, and we would have the tips come through the shield, one there and one there, as close to Brad as he likes. Not everyone had swords, and when they did fight, they're often made of bronze, so they would often bend. So, in the film, we were actually using rubber swords, and some of them did bend, but that was very realistic. And knowing that the swords are made from bronze, they're going to do more damage in a particular way. So, that's the way we created the effects.

to do more damage in a maybe in a crushing um of limbs manner rather than a cutting like a samurai sword would be extremely extremely sharp. So even if you don't cut somebody and you hit them across the arm, you're going to break that bone. If anyone hit someone else with one of these, I mean, it wouldn't kill them outright, but you know, if they cut themselves badly enough, it would lead ultimately to their death. It must have been a very, very brutal, horrible, slow way to die. They used to, you know, fire arrows, you know, it's the bow and arrow background, ready and action. If people got arrows in them, it wouldn't kill them. They'd fall down maybe, but you don't die straight away. One of the problems with arrows is that they weigh, and so you can put them into a prosthetic, and they want them pointing out, and they drop. So we made the arrows out of paper. We fired them out of air cannons that were specially made so we could fire

10 arrows at a time. The amount of gore, blood, and decapitation, sticking of swords in people, was quite extreme. My edit from Wolfgang Rice at the beginning was, you know, as much as possible. The violence in the story is particularly necessary because it's a reflection of the world they were in. We weren't trying to glorify it; we're just trying to show realistic action. One group is on one side, another group is on the other side. They're armed with spears and a few shields, and they run together. What do you think happens? It's going to be very, very gory. My job is to prepare the soldiers for their roles as Trojan or Greek warriors. We've got about 800 soldiers, 300 of them are Bulgarians, which we bought from Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and the other 500 are Mexicans. The backside of that pen are four flags. There isn't a figure on them, but it's a

b c [Music] We've had about three weeks to prepare these guys to be fully trained soldiers. They've started without any kind of weapons at all, and then after about a week, they go on to using weapons. And then after that, in the third week, we actually take them down onto the set and start trying to get into the format that they will actually be using. Treat these as real spears. They're dangerous. That's it, and then recoil, and then over the top. Attention, good, excellent. One more time, this time more aggressive, stronger with the spears. And if you're getting killed, you've got to fall down and die. All right, aggressive, no aggressiveness, kill him, then go again, kill him more, yeah. Open up the shield a little bit more so that there's something for him to hit. Do not get too close, yeah, to each other. Sometimes when you get too close, you know, remember you've got a spear in your hands, so always try and keep the distance, yeah. If you guys quit concentrating for two seconds, the whole day is [__] up.

so it's got to be very serious. All right, when action, everybody goes. We've got the psychological actions and everybody's on the same page, angry, angry action, action. So it's a life and death situation. It's your him, yeah. So you have to be really aggressive as if it's your last move, yeah. Prepare to match, prepare for battle, move back into a position of, um, so you got some space, battle positions there, and then charge on this [Applause]. Most of the Mexican scenes that we're shooting here are huge battle scenes where we have two enormous armies coming together and a car crash together, and that has to be done with a great deal of control [Applause]. Good, good, good guys. Any epic film like Troy is going to be difficult, but this was extremely difficult just because of the numbers of people, the locations where we were in. They were extremely hot, and the costumes that people were wearing, the vision of it all is harsh sunlight and

you fight with your armor, and you're sweating, and it feels painful. That's what Hector says to Paris. He says, If you see men dying, I have. It's nothing glorious about it, and our battles are not glorious. You know, we were working six days a week. There were two units shooting at the same time, six days a week. It takes its toll, especially, you know, filming for five months. We're gonna keep doing the same as yesterday. There's gonna be some fireballs thrown by the Greek encampment, so you're gonna keep moving all the time until you listen. God, we had one there that sort of went bouncy-bouncy. It just looked different. Yeah, and you know, and then that feels this whole frame. The rest is visual effects. So nobody runs straight to the balls. Everybody runs away from the balls, and then you find another one on your way. Avoid that one. Near misses. Okay, that's it, guys, so get ready. And we do a rehearsal when we can. Is everybody ready? Rehearsing.

Everybody set back and one, two, three, four, five. Okay, cut it. Okay, here we go. Okay, working on a beach at night with those sort of inclines in sand for three months, and then at night this whole other element kicked in of the creepy crawlies. Everyone's sort of keeping near the lights. I remember standing there one night, I was standing next to the camera, and I've looked down at the operator's leg, and he hasn't noticed, but he's got a spider on his boot being eaten by a scorpion. Oh my god, have a look. So there's all those elements. It was very physically hard. It was a hardship. We did a lot of training with the actors, you know, especially Eric Bana and Brad Pitt in that. They had a lot of fighting to do, and you know, there's one main fight between the two of them. We were just a week before finishing this movie. We had just the big fight between Hector and Achilles left. We want to do it at the very end so that all the other big scenes are out.

of the way we can completely concentrate now on the physical part, so no character work anymore for the actors. And right when we were ready to do that, a hurricane came and destroyed almost all of the wall of Troy with the gate and everything. An unbelievable huge set, and the fight had to take place right in front of this wall. And we decided there's no other way than rebuilding the whole set again. That took weeks and weeks. Of course, the hurricane came in, wiped out the wall of Troy. Plus, I got injured that weekend, so it was just not gonna happen. Brad, funnily enough, tweaked his Achilles tendon. And with what he does in his fights, he does lots of jumps and lots of running. And obviously, if he can't walk, he can't really do it. And the doctor told him, You cannot work for weeks and weeks. I think we've finished production sometime in September or so. Finally, finally, Brad was ready to do this fight in the middle of December, and it worked well. In Shakespeare's terms, it's sort of

the death of kings. It's the big moment. This is the monumental fight. Actually, even if we saw 50,000 already against 25,000, this between these two is the most spectacular and the most fascinating and frightening of them all. You see absolute rage versus someone of absolute respect. I've seen this moment in my dreams. The Hector character represents equality. He is under attack from someone who has pinned all his life's frustrations and anger on this one man, and he's gonna make him pay. He's gonna destroy him. There are no pacts between lions and men. The thing that's most exciting about it is it's the actors doing it. I mean, that's true of all the fights in this. It's the revelation of character through the fight, through the situation, rather than it being just a sort of a spectacle of moves. The fight scenes themselves, I know they've spent months and months and months choreographing them, and we obviously spent a lot of time actually learning them, but I think the hardest part is is

the work that they've put into creating them because they needed to choreograph fights not only look spectacular and that work but that actors can do x501 takes six okay and action when you read the script and it says oh achilles fights in a godlike manner you think that's very easy to write thank you very much and now you've got to come up with a totally new sort of style of fighting. I looked at all different styles of fighting at that time. I was working with Thai stunt people, so I got them to prepare a fight. So I looked at that. That obviously wasn't what we wanted, but there were bits in it that were good. We used a speed skater as an image, um, Carl Lewis, the sprinter and long jumper, because in one of the first fights he just moves and moves really quickly and with a great economy of action. It's not martial arts, and it's not not matrix or Hong Kong fury at all, but we sort of used a bit of that just in his body.

reaction say he's always trying to lunge with the sword, but he uses it like a box set in that he faints maybe with one hand while he brings in like an uppercut with the sword. He'd always try and get in over the top of the other person's shield to try and bring the sword through the back of the neck. It was a real, you know, Achilles showcase to show off his style of fighting, and Hector also showed that he's totally skillful as well. Hector has pretty much the most fights of anybody in the movie. Rather than having something like Achilles, which is very stylistic, his skills have been learnt through fighting. I like the fighting in this film because it's quite brutal, and it's not like a martial art. There isn't an exact place to hit someone, but everything's a kill shot, just no, everything is a kill shot, got it. The worst nightmare for any sort of fight group is somebody getting hurt. It pretty much all fight choreographers will avoid doing any attacks directly to the face.

so nothing in the 8x10 or the headshot because you're going to change somebody's career. Obviously, we work with blunt weapons, but I mean, they would still hurt if they hit you. Eric got hit. He got a bloody nose once, which looked—it was good because it was the end of the fight. No, it's not. It wasn't good. No injury is good, but it was actually in character or in keeping with continuity. Essentially, you learn that you can never train too much because ultimately the shoots are very long, and to get through it mentally and physically, you do need to be fit. There's just no shade, and the sun is so intense, and then it's reflected off the ground as well because it's all the stone. And then there were days when I would see 200-pound grips just do a header. Was it was not uncommon. If you see the fight, you just can't believe that these are actors who are doing it. They're not stunned man hiding somewhere, and they do it for

the actors. It's the actors. They can be very proud of it, and I am too for them. And if you talk about blood, sweat, and tears, about the reality of a fight, that's one [Music].

Troy | Behind the Scenes

MovieBestBits

The battle scenes in the film were meticulously choreographed, with a focus on realism and the brutal nature of warfare.

The main weapons used were spears and shields, with a challenge in getting actors and stuntmen to work with them.

Visual effects and practical techniques were used to create the illusion of spears and arrows, while rubber swords added to the realism of the fight scenes.

The violence in the story is portrayed realistically, reflecting the harsh world of the characters.

The production has 800 soldiers, with a mix of Bulgarians and Mexicans, who undergo a rigorous three-week training process.

The battle scenes involve intense coordination and aggression, aiming to create a realistic and impactful depiction of warfare.

The Challenging Filming of a Battle Scene

The filming of the battle scenes was physically demanding, with actors working six days a week for five months.

A hurricane disrupted the shoot, destroying the wall of Troy and causing delays in the final fight scene.

The production faced additional challenges with injuries to both the director and Brad Pitt, but they eventually completed the fight scene in December.

The Epic Fight Between Achilles and Hector

The fight between Achilles and Hector is the most intense and dramatic moment in the film, representing absolute rage versus respect.

The choreography of the fight scenes involved months of preparation, aiming to reveal the characters' true nature through their actions.

The fighting style is unique, combining elements from various disciplines, with a focus on brutal, kill-shot moves rather than traditional martial arts.

The Challenges of Filming Intense Fight Scenes

Filming fight scenes can be physically demanding, with actors facing intense conditions and the risk of injury.

The long shoots and harsh sunlight make it crucial for the cast to be fit and mentally prepared.

Despite the challenges, the actors take pride in their performances, often enduring tough situations to create realistic fight sequences.