Violence designer!

Came across that title reading a blog, by a self titled Violence Designer
It is hard to find a name for what we do. We know what a set designer does, lighting designer, movement director, voice coach, whatever. But for what we do it's not so easy. It's not so specific. Fight choreographer, Fight Co-ordinator,  Fight Director, action co-ordinator now Violence Designer!
Why is it so hard to give ourselves a name that sums up what we do and that everyone can understand?

Well first up have you looked at how broad a subject human violence and aggression is? The range of uses it is put to? How it is modified by culture, era, context within both of those. You need to understand the effects of clothing, armour, footwear, etiquette, general history and military history.

Then you have to understand the mechanics of the different kinds of violence, whether unarmed or armed. Body mechanics are the same for the human body around the world, but there are still many different paths to the same goal, and humans have come up with different ways of doing violence, even though much of those differences are in the packaging. Different era's favoured different kinds of violence over others, used different kinds of weapons in different ways or the same kinds of weapons in different ways, Give me a rapier fight! Well are they really using a rapier (define a rapier exacaly) What country? Italian, German, French, Spanish, English, Danish? What style in that country? There could be different styles in the same place at the same time? Note that the reasons for choosing a specific weapon more often have less to do with how effective it is for killing people and more to do with fashion, society or even things like how well does it match my outfit! A proviso, no weapon is ineffective as killing or maiming etc, however they are often only effective in a narrow range of circumstances.

Then we have to be able to all of this in a "theatrical" context, understand what is required of telling a story, to an audience on stage or through a camera. We need to be able to transmit that to actors. Actors who may not have training, or confidence in what training they or they may not have confidence in themselves, or the people they are working with.

We'll need to understand and work out and get people to trip and fall  and how it actually happens, get pushed and shoved and to do that to others. Get whipped, strangled with rope, hung, work out a rape a groping and all that as well as then get someone to have a fight! How to throw a punch, block one, take one and react appropriately to all the different things that could happen. Hide the tricks, sell the knaps. Tell someone how to react to poison, or what it might feel like to be punch or stabbed in the kidney as opposed say to the liver!
We have to fit the violence and action on to a stage, around a set, work with lights

What about where the fight comes from? The actors and director will have normally gone up to where the violence happens, maybe dipped their toes into the violence and then confidently moved on after. The problem is that actors and directors like most people don't actually have knowledge about the whys and wherefores of actual violence and aggression, how it develops, what really happens and the aftermath. SO we have to direct the lead up, the aggression and violence it self and the immediate aftermath and advise on the long term impact. After all if you don't set the whole context appropriately, then all that flows from and through it won't be appropriate. So we have to direct the story before during and after the aggression and violence that "we are there for". Oh and we have to do all that without rocking the boat, stepping on anyone's toes and keeping the actors and director happy and ego un-bruised
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Of course we have also at the same time got to understand and consider and be able to to apply the sense of what the violence is part of and how it needs to serve the story.

Are we looking for the actuality of the violence and aggression? The reality? What is the reality of the story and the actuality of the time. The actuality of Shakespeare's play and what he wrote it for. R and J great... Elizabethan England! Whose? The actual Elizabethan England form 30 years plus of personal research and all that one has learnt from others who have studied it? The Reality to actors or the director? Or the reality of an audience?? Oh but wait, we are setting it in 1930 prohibition Chicago, that's our reality....

Or are we looking for Theatricality. Well "we" don't do theatricality! ;) At least not for its own sake. It's there if it suits the reality of the production. Of course there is the theatricality of eight performances a week for run lasting several months or multiple takes for a camera, and all of which have to be as safe and as well performed as every other!

SO! How do we come up with a job title that describe all that! In TWO words! ;) Answers on a postcard to.... OK Good luck and .... GO.

Now to be clear, I don't think there is one that sums it all up... Aggression and Violence, doesn't sum it all up, hell it doesn't even sum up what violence and aggression is, let alone everything thing we do. The technical crew and designers do technical stuff, the things the actor can't do while acting. The Directorial crew, Director, voice, movement choreographer etc. guide or tell the actors what to do. OR guide them in doing something they can already do and/or already understand. But we sit somewhere in the middle, where we are dealing with things outside of the actors control or knowledge and skills. while at the same time guiding them to do that through things they can already do. All the while in a story which isn't ours, being on the fringes of the production, coming on odd occasions to get people to naturally tell someone else's story.

So what will I call what I do when I am working in a play or for camera based story telling... I shall keep using Fight Director. People understand what it, or as much as anything else, it is an accepted term and of all the terms used it gets the closest for me, to what the job means.

Personally Violence Designer doesn't do it for me. Yeah the Violence OK I can get that part partly. Designer? Not so sure. Yes I can design the violence, but I don't see that as the job. Designer implies that I create the violence, and also that what I am designing is a construct of mine not something that it natural, normal and part of all of us. That's why direction still works for me. I direct the violence and the aggression like the director works with the rest of the play... when the action becomes physical I don't design it, I direct the actors to do things they can already do or at least direct them to adapting what they can do and make it more appropriate, safer etc.

My reason for not really liking the Violence part is that yes violence is part of it. But where does violence come from? Violence does just happen suddenly, it is part of a continuum of other activities most of which are viewed as normal, that leads to violence when certain of those aspects are mixed together in certain ways. "Violence" might be a better a description than "Fight" but it still doesn't cover everything by a long way. Is helping an actor to faint safely on stage Violence Design or what ever name we give it?
So I don't really like any of the names we have, but when you use them people understand what it means or at least most of it. Why change the name to something that is only marginally better and that has the down sides of being incomplete still and people don't know what it means!
I'll be sticking with Fight Director.