#4 – Burning Mountain
Siobhan Richardson and Matt Richardson are actors and fight directors. Siobhan’s theatre credits include Credits include Mo and Jess Kill Susie (Harley Dog Productions), Sofia’s Doll (Film Freak Productions), and Duel of Ages (True Edge Productions). Matt’s theatre credits include (True Edge Productions), Measure for Measure (Shakespeare in the Square), and A Complex Verdict (Do Your Thing Productions). Through Burning Mountain, Matt and Siobhan offer fight direction, consultation and instruction in the art of violence on the stage.
Siobhan:
demo reel: www.tinyurl.com/SRreel
twitter: @fighteractress
Instagram: @fighteractress
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SiobhanRichardsonActress
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ActorSR
Matt:
www.MattRichardson.ca/MattRichardson
Imdb: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0724695/
Burning Mountain:
twitter: @burningmtn
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BurningMountainSummit
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/theburningmountain
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BurningMountainCan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burning-mountain
www.patreon.com/BurningMountain
blog: www.tinyurl.com/fightblog
also: http://www.burningmountain.ca/connect/soapbox-blog
Stageworthy:
http://www.stageworthypodcast.com
Twitter @stageworthyPod
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/StageworthyPod
Transcript
Transcript auto generated.
Phil Rickaby 0:05
Welcome to the stage where the podcast I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Recording this at my local coffee shop on stage where the I interview people who make theatre from actors to directors to playwrights to stage managers and more to find out what makes them do what they do. You can find stage really on Facebook and Twitter at stage where the pod and you can find the website at stage really podcast.com. If you like what you hear, I hope you’ll subscribe on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use, and consider leaving a comment or rating. on Episode Four Shavon and Matt Richards in a burning mountain join me. Matt and Javon are actors in a fight directors through burning mountain they offer fight direction consultation and instruction in the art of violence on the stage. And both Matt and Siobhan will be appearing as part of the immersive show Hogtown opening this last week of January 2016 at Campbell house in Toronto.
Matt Siobhan, thanks for coming on. Why don’t we start with what is burning mountain?
Siobhan Richardson 1:32
So burning Mountain is our company together? It’s not exactly a you can’t just say it’s like film production or just teach combat teaching. It’s essentially
Matt Richardson 1:41
not just a school, either. Yeah, it was a school. Yeah. It’s
Siobhan Richardson 1:48
in some ways, it’s a way for us to work together without saying I’m not available, but my husband can. But But this way it It allows us to sort of be grouped under one name, and have our own brand, of course. And so it helps people associate us with a particular feeling as a brand does. And allows us to refer work to each other when when either of us can do the job. But it’s it’s a little bit more professional to say my business partner than my spouse can do it. Even though we’re both skilled and
Matt Richardson 2:24
pre burning mountain we had encountered a couple of times when Shavon was was tapped to do fight direction for something but she wasn’t available, and several mats available. And they’re like, Oh, well, your husband or shabam would be working on a project. And they said we need more we need more male actors who are fighters. Well, my husband Matt is available, oh, husband, we can have the two of you working on a project because we know that always ends terribly and not in this case, people want to put experiences they’ve had in the past right on you. Yeah, they want they want to know, they want to think that everything they’ve been through Well, it’s exact same for everybody else.
Siobhan Richardson 3:05
And that’s that’s another reason why we want it to sort of to brand ourselves is because there are three sort of different types of fight directors just as there are different sort of types of actors. But because the fight direction pool is like compared to a directing pool or choreographer, like a dance choreographers pool, because the the direct the the fight directing pool is that much smaller. There are some types that are kind of prevalent, and others that are not so. So it was it was a nice way to go, well, we’re not actually quite like that. So that again, we could sort of set ourselves up as the burning mountain brand. With and without having to sort of be a were the independent guys that are different. Yeah, we can just sort of set ourselves up
Matt Richardson 3:52
as identity instead of being well we’re not these guys, we’re not the stunt guys. And we’re not these theatre guys over here. We’re actually guys on our own and then there’s kind of a
Siobhan Richardson 4:03
great conversation starter to start having that, that discussion with people about oh, so how How are you different than then you get to talk about your ideologies and and and then it’s a great opener as opposed to sewing sort of saying yeah, I trained with these guys. And then people assume things about about you and the way you want to work what kind of artists you want. Whereas I mean, what’s fundamental to the way we work is that everyone’s an individual artist,
Matt Richardson 4:27
and that has a lot to do with the name as well because burning mountain originally we were in Scotland training
Siobhan Richardson 4:34
as well, as we do
Matt Richardson 4:38
with a fight fight guy over there Under Armour, Paul McDonald,
Siobhan Richardson 4:41
who makes amazing stuff. But but it’s worth every penny and every second waiting,
Matt Richardson 4:47
but we’re over there in Scotland and you know, one side of my family of Scottish and the clan the clan badge is is is the grand clan and standfast And what’s neat about it is the clan
Siobhan Richardson 5:00
to podcast listeners were in the room with us. You could look behind Phil’s head and see the the banner on our wall.
Matt Richardson 5:07
Actually, it’s a it’s a mountain, they would light bonfires on to call clan together meet. So we really liked that idea. We thought it was really cool. And we thought, oh yeah, the mountain with the fires on it, you know, so we like we like it to represent the yes, we are igniting the fires of creativity and learning and, and calling people here and lighting the beacon fires to call people in to learn.
Siobhan Richardson 5:32
And in fact, when we when we upgrade to another studio space with more living space, and as well, we want to call the beacon house. Nice. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby 5:41
Now to go back to one of the questions you sort of alluded to just a couple of minutes ago. So what is it that makes you different?
Siobhan Richardson 5:49
Well, part of part of what we do is we are we are always retraining and we and we tell our students as well, and anyone who comes in touch with us that as a as an artist, and this is something that everybody knows, if you’re not moving forward, you’re standing still, you never step in the same river twice those kinds of ideas. So part of what we feel is fundamental to our process. And the way we work is the idea of continuously climbing the mountain. As it were always moving forward looking to work with other people. A lot of our a lot of our time together has been in in seminars and workshops or we’ll attend something like the paddy crane together, and then we’ll take completely different classes, and then meet afterwards and share what we’ve picked up.
Matt Richardson 6:34
And we both have a different viewpoint on I work very instinctively I have foundation martial art that is a little more based in St defence and in in instinctively responding to things as
Siobhan Richardson 6:49
I come from more of a dance background. So things like small sort of that has a lot of rules, really, really appeals to me, and I quite, it’s part of the reason why I love teaching as well, because I like sort of digging into, like, what are these foundation biomechanical principles? And how does your particular body of work? And how do we help that body reach its full potential, which is not the same as another body’s quote, rules, that and that’s another thing that sets us apart, as well as that we, we tend to focus a lot on things like biomechanics and foundation ideas, and really, really working with the individual and like, what’s, what’s their particular process, not that other five directors don’t do that at all. But it’s really quite foundational to the work we do is, is looking at the individual and seeing how this art form sits best on them.
Matt Richardson 7:41
And and from my side of things, the martial and the tactical concepts of what’s happening with with the art form, how do you how do you defend yourself? How do you counter? And what are the what are the openings and opportunities, many of our teachers that we work with, and that’s that’s another big thing, we go work with instructors, whereas some of our contemporaries, they’ll, they’ll crack open books, and they’ll explore stuff, but some of them have, like no martial arts background at all. And so there’s a lot of guesswork whereas to be going to the source of the people who have been translating the books or who have been working these as a martial art. And we looked at the tactical foundations of that. And and of course, Esther wants a biomechanical foundation.
Siobhan Richardson 8:30
But because we both come from martial arts, like I also took martial arts in my teens as well, as I danced from the time I was very small. It helps us as actors to understand what’s the tactic that we’re playing? And so we, for us, we find it’s really useful to approach from the inside like that, as actors, we’re always looking at like, what’s, what’s the basic psychology of this? What’s my, what’s my objective? What’s my tactic? So in, in our system and burning mountain, we tend to look as well at, well, my character would understand what’s my objective in each moment. And if I’m playing a character that has some kind of martial training, then that’s something my character understands. So as a fight director, when we’re setting those fights, that’s something we we look at, and the actor might not always ask us, but we always have that answer, and it’s built in there. So even if the actor doesn’t know, there’s so often some little thing that clicks inside we talk a lot about, like the the forebrain and the lizard brain. And we talked about how like the lizard brain understands these things. Some people like to ignore the idea that humans are also animals, we have to remember one of my one of my mentors, Bob Shrum. He talks about the Renaissance mindset, and how humans are at the bridge between the angels and the animals. And so that we we balance between that angel brain and the animal existence so that when we are when we’re looking at those moments of high violence, that those those those deeply engaged Interested in those deeply passionate moments, sometimes we lose sight of our of our angel selves and we engage in the animal self so that the the lizard brain instinct part takes over.
Phil Rickaby 10:10
It’s interesting because the I mean, the lizard brain is that is that, you know, that reason why we get scared why we have that fight or flight that. And I think you’re right that. Yeah and it’s the thing that if we ignore we’re ignoring as actors, we’re we’re being cerebral and sometimes too cerebral. It’s the thing that we forget about that. That is the reason why we’re scared, or why we are willing to fight at a moment’s notice.
Matt Richardson 10:38
We don’t look for and it’s funny because we don’t look for martial perfection from
Siobhan Richardson 10:42
we used to we went through a phase where we’re like, some of us
Matt Richardson 10:47
look for martial perfection, I perhaps. But but I like to. We had two students we’re working with and they’re doing a rapier and dagger fight and no one was retreating, and doing cross parry to it for a cut. And his structure was completely breaking. And he was he was losing his stance and he was reaching up, like really stretching up for this parry that was coming in. And I said, I corrected his structure. And I got him back into his stance and his retreat. But I took a picture of him doing the way where he was really reaching. And I took a picture of him doing the way where he settled into a stance and did the proper period where it was supposed to be. And I showed him both pictures like oh, yeah, that’s so terrible. Okay, I want to when I said no, no, remember that. Because while that is bad technique, that is a possible acting choice you may have to play. So, you know, my favourite fight scene to go to is dangerously zones. When when and sometimes historical martial artists, they harp on us, they pick on us for not doing the martial perfection they strive for. And I like to say to them, guys, you’re striving for martial perfection in your pursuit as a martial artist, but we are playing fictional characters in a life and death situation. And it’s not always going to be in the solid with your protective gear. What Sorts doing trying to get maintain perfect technique. It may be shovel a don’t say, who was a frickin music teacher for crying out loud at a very young man and a young a young guy. Very emotional, challenging. A very dangerous older man, Val mom has probably fought his share of duels. He knows how to fight. But by the same token, Velma is not looking to kill this young guy. He doesn’t hate him he and he’s heartbroken over the situation with his with his two ladies, one who’s dying because of him and the other one who’s cast him out. So we have to look at all of that stuff when we think about. So are these two guys going to square off and do martial perfection completely cold and impersonal? No, that’s a boring fight scene. We got to we got to take into into account in training the character may have So yeah, that’s one of my favourite. Because it perfectly illustrates and just about every historical martial artist, I say that to goes, Oh, yeah, this guy wouldn’t be perfect with the small sword, this guy would be emotional. So when no one does his really bad parry where he’s reaching, sorry, if you can hear this. But if he’s if he’s reached, where he’s reaching, it’s good to to clock that what that technique looks
Siobhan Richardson 13:30
like. We several many, many years ago now, we stumbled on the phrase, what is success on this? And it’s a way that we help the actors understand, well, this is what your character would do in the perfect situation, this is what they’re trying for. And then your emotional state means that they’re doing more than the swing they need to, or that they hesitate. But that’s one way that we help actors sort of understand what’s what is Marshal perfection in this moment. And then they can allow their interpretation of events create the larger proportion, or the slogan always,
Matt Richardson 14:06
I can guarantee this that and this is something that may set us apart from some other directors is when an actor says Why am I doing these move particular moves, we can specify the exact tactic that they’re doing. And we can give them you know, either historical or martial precedent for trying this thing that they’re trying to do. And we can say, here’s what happens if this works. And we can show them what it would would really look like
Siobhan Richardson 14:33
and often will also say and this is why it doesn’t like you’re you’re too early in time on your partner’s response, or you’re too late. Or you’re you’re so enraged that your body is stiff. So you’re putting too much force into this and that’s why it fails. That’s why they’re able to reverse it on you or something like that.
Phil Rickaby 14:50
There are a couple of a couple of questions that the vid cert have been occurring to me because you both mentioned your background and things like that martial arts dance It’s and, and also martial arts. But I’m curious and this question is sort of twofold. Just for each of you. You What drew you to theatre? And what drew you to stage combat?
Matt Richardson 15:18
Well, it’s really simple for me. I, I wasn’t good at anything else. And funnily enough guidance counsellor in high school. A guidance counsellor in high school. You know, we’re all getting these scheduled meetings in our last year. Oh, okay. And it was like, so we’re going to talk about what you might want to apply for secondary education. And I was freaking teenager, I was like, Oh, well, what do you like to do? What are you? Well, I do public speaking. And I’m in the drama club. And I really I masked marks and drama in English class. Oh, would you consider going to acting school and I was like, they have acting schools.
Phil Rickaby 15:57
And my response to that is a guidance counsellor said you should go to acting school.
Matt Richardson 16:02
So there’s a number of different programmes and I had visited Toronto, I grew up in a small town outside Ottawa, and I visited Toronto several times, I’d gone to Second City because it was a huge fan of, of SCTV in that and so, you know, he said, check out these various schools. And when looking at the breakdowns of their programmes. Humber had a full year of stage combat back in 1989. And that was rare because at the time, I think a couple of the other programmes had a semester or workshop. Humber had a full year. And I was like, oh, that sounds cool, because I was also a huge science fiction fantasy fan. And I grew up reading Robert Howard and Michael Moorcock and, and comics like crazy. So I was like, oh, sword fighting and stuff. And of course, growing up playing dragons, of course, yeah, role playing games and stuff. So that was a big sell for going to going to acting school at Humber. And then in second year, we had stage combat. And when I went back for third year, I repeated stage combat because I had a spare the same morning, the second year said stage comics, I wanted to do it again. And then of course, in 93, a bunch of flight directors in Canada got together and formed fighter actors Canada and held the first national workshop. And I went and trained and got my basic act combatant at that and that was it. I started choreographing flights. In fact, I think we met the year after I did that doing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? That’s right. And and then shortly after that we did him when I did the fights with with templates for Hamlet, and that was my first professional fight direction. Is that fight with Jonathan Lee. And to this day, funny story. Johnson did something one night in that fight that he forgot a piece of choreography. I saw it in his eyes, because he came at me with two attacks. And then I saw him go blank, and he looked me in the eyes and he took a couple of steps back, I thought, Oh, he’s lost a quarter. Yeah. And I’m thinking, Oh, what’s the contingency for this? Well, I guess we go back or we go, and he wound up with the biggest overhead cut. I saw him winding up on like, okay, he’s gonna cut to the head and he cut to the head. And I said, Okay, I can fix this. So we cut through this room, this stage cut to the head, I parried. I grabbed his arm, and I pulled him in and I went, where, what are you doing? And he was like, Where are we? I said, we’re thrust here. I bind I counter, you throw us back to here and then you throw me upstage into this. Oh, right. Right. Right. Okay, good. And we broke. And afterwards I remember Simon green Slade say Was there something a little different in the fight. But the people on stage didn’t notice the fight was. That’s that’s actually a pretty good if all else fails, because it is the parry to the head. Raising your arm to block to your head is the most instinctive move that most people can do. It’s a pair you never really have to correct people to latch on. And so I still use that if I say here’s a here’s a final failsafe if you forget your career Feeny can’t go back and find this spot. Do a big cut to the head, parry grab each other close in, talk it out while you’re pretending
Phil Rickaby 19:21
you’re gonna you’re gonna borrow a little bit from from Pro Wrestling and figure out what you need to do.
Siobhan Richardson 19:29
So the short answer is theatre felt like home. I did my first play in grade nine. And we ended up going to the the provincial workshop and serious Drama Festival and to the provincial level. And and that was a it was a really great year for me. I had done theatre stuff before that, but I think that was the that was the time that I went, ooh, I could do this. I could do this for a living. Shortly after that, I’d started studying kung fu but I started to answer was very, very small. And yeah, so I mentioned went to school for musical theatre and that there’s a long version of the story too.
Phil Rickaby 20:08
But whichever version you want to tell will hear. So So apparently
Siobhan Richardson 20:13
I started dancing when I was four, I don’t remember when I started. My sister had feet that were kind of turned in. So she went and I was like, Hey, Big Sisters going and they I ended up going to ballet class with her too. She left at one point, but I stayed, and I danced on and off, actually, until, until my early 20s. So I danced for many years, and I stopped for a couple of years did Girl Guides and brownies and things. And then I went back to dance, then I stopped and I did Kung Fu for several years, and I helped teach the kids programme. And yeah, I did that. And then I went back to dance, because by that point, I had decided that I was gonna go to school for musical theatre. So I wanted to make sure that I sort of got caught up on all my dance forms. And so I could, like go to school and feel good about getting started. And then while I was at Theatre School, JP Fornia, came in and did a week of sword. And at that end, I just kept doing it. I went, Oh, I’m enjoying this. And I would go in after school and do a whole bunch of extra practice and did some extra scene work with it. So that was my first professional stage combat class. I mean, we had some in, in high school drama class as well, but it was I count my classes with JP is my first stage combat
Phil Rickaby 21:24
I would have because when I was in theatre, school, everything they told us about stage combat was raw. Like after taking actual stage combat, I was like we could have killed each other or dislocated Jaws with slabs and things like that.
Siobhan Richardson 21:38
The reason why we do a lot of teaching in high school, yeah. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a great day job. And I’m forever thankful, forever thankful that we get to do that. But also, I find it really exciting and fulfilling to go into a high school and see young people getting good information, like whether it’s us or anybody else. But as long as they’re getting good information that’s going to make sure that they don’t get accidentally hurt by some director who maybe doesn’t know what they’re doing and says No, do it, do it my way. This is the way I know how to do it. And they slap you for real use this retractable knife do neither of those things. Yeah. As I stare at the microphone, do neither of these things. But knowing that we have introduced people to something new, introduce young people into ways to keep themselves safe. And it was from my cry now. It was one of the great joys in my life when we were applying for the artists and education grant and we were getting reference letters from different high schools. We taught it. And the one teacher handed us his letter. Of course, we hadn’t seen it before. They told us what he’s going to write. So I’m reading it, and I discovered I’m reading it yet here comes that’s one of their students, a 16 year old girl had decided she was going to be a flight director because of the work that we had been doing. And she’s she’s doing it she’s doing it now. She’s She’s on her way. She just finished her intermediate and did a fantastic job, Carolyn. And, but But what a wonderful moment that was for, for us to go. This is it’s it’s working we are we’re introducing new generations to this stuff I wish I had when I was at age.
Phil Rickaby 23:14
Now I kind of derailed you on your on your, on your your story. I do want to come back to stage combat in schools though. Yeah, but let’s let’s get back to well, let’s get back to because, you know, we derailed your your story of you, and coming to theatre. And I do want to make sure that we we cover that.
Siobhan Richardson 23:32
So my first professional stage combat class was was was with JP Fornia in college at the Canadian college Performing Arts in Victoria. And, and then, in my at the end of my second year, I happened to be in the office doing something and then the fax came in for the stage comment workshop in Montreal. And I’m like, Whoa, why should go to that? Oh, good. It’s like one week after I’m done school, I’ll be able to make it. So I did that workshop in Montreal, where I you know, where I met people I still know today. And in fact, I met people in my grade nine drama stuff with the serious Drama Festival that I still know today. And I met people in the first theatre company that I worked with in Kitchener Waterloo, that I still know today but on all those people I still work with and it’s been the year of going oh my goodness, I’ve known these people for hire.
Phil Rickaby 24:22
Yeah.
Siobhan Richardson 24:24
So that I did the Montreal workshop and then while I was in Montreal, I heard about the workshop that was happening in Ryerson immediately after so we wrapped up Montreal on Saturday I came back to Toronto and I was it Sunday morning. It would have been Sunday morning that I walked into Ryerson and started my second workshop. My second professional two week workshop. I just come out of theatre school and I wait I don’t know something tiny and I had like 4% body fat or something ridiculous.
Phil Rickaby 24:49
Was it was that the workshop that you guys?
Matt Richardson 24:52
Yeah. We decided to my friend and I was like well, we started Take a look. Look, look at them. I started flirting. I started flirting immediately, like instantly start flirting. And then
Siobhan Richardson 25:10
after this poor girl, it didn’t know what was going.
Matt Richardson 25:12
Yeah. And then after, after a week, I was like, yeah, maybe I’ll keep flirting with this girl. And then maybe you know what the year end party I’ll chat her up, I’ll get her number. And then, you know, halfway after the first week, I was like, what? Why am I waiting till some sort of stupid day end of the thing, party casual situation, I’m going to ask her out now. And I just I was walking, I was leaving. I was looking for apartment at the time I was leaving to go house hunt. And I turned around and walked right back up the stairs, walked in and said, Hey, I find you really attractive. And I think we should go out and we should have dinner and sit across the table, have a conversation, etc, etc. And oh, yeah, she was all it was all smiley and gloat. She’s very
Phil Rickaby 25:57
smiling. You guys, you guys are adorable. Adorable.
Matt Richardson 26:01
And and that was it. Like we went over in a data started gig. And that was that was the start of everything.
Phil Rickaby 26:08
Did you guys derailed your stage? No. I mean, let’s just okay, this point.
Siobhan Richardson 26:16
My little bit, though, and so that in those in those two stage combat workshops, back up a little bit further. Yeah. When I went to musical theatre school, I knew I felt like home the more when I walked in, one morning, when Good morning, and the whole lobby replied, good. Marnay, of course. And then, and then when I walked in, I was in stage combat workshops. The FTC workshops after that, I, it was even more was this profound sense of just just being so, so comfortable, and so happy? And just, everything felt so right. And I felt like, ah, these are my people. Yeah, it was, it was, yeah, there’s this profound sense of belonging and happiness. And just, and just knowing that this, this was the work I was going to do, like this is somehow this was going to be part of my life.
Phil Rickaby 27:10
You guys, as as a couple, you’ve worked together as a team, as well as those opportunities when one of you is not available. And you, you know, a different
Siobhan Richardson 27:20
opportunity. Someone calls one of us directly. Yeah,
Phil Rickaby 27:23
but I mean, you’ve worked together as a team. There are a few couples that can manage to work together in their day to day and not want to kill each other. And the two of you have a weapons. So I’m wondering, well, of course they do. The big, like, like we walk in, that’s it. That is a rack of weapons. That’s so nice rack, and you could do over a nice rack. Did you guys have any conscious choices that you made about how you were going to work together? Or did you just did it just sort of happen?
Siobhan Richardson 28:00
I know. Okay, so this is why I was so young, when we got together, that I was still very much in a wanting to please people. But also, I mean, Matt has many years of experience ahead of me. So a lot of our early working time together was was definitely me learning from him because he absolutely knew more than I did and everything when it came to stage combat. So that sort of started the report. And there have been sort of events along the way that made me go, oh, wait, I can we can we can rebalance this role a little bit. But
Matt Richardson 28:32
there’s a different perspective because of the age differences. Not just like I was working. I started training in 1990. Citing stage combat, I was in my second year started. And sort of we were cool. We choreographed our own fights for classes back then. And now all the instructors do almost all of it. Pretty good fight directors, Canada. So we got back in the day. Me and a bunch of my other contemporaries, we got we had to choreograph our own fights.
Siobhan Richardson 29:01
Whereas when I was a student at the same time, there was there was a bit of if you choreographed fights for people understand that their lives or in your life, there was a little bit like Virgin verging on threatening, you’re just putting more sense into you have you I mean, when you fight directly really do have someone’s life, or someone’s career in your hands. Yeah. And it’s important to know that but we this is again, one of a thing that we like to foster in our classes, not that other people don’t but something we focus on is the is the concept of ability. We’re not going to say do this or somebody dies, we say hey, guess what, if you can kill somebody with a baseball bat, you can kill somebody with with a sword that is blunted, and just like you know, on the baseball field not to swing this at somebody who’s had a by the same token, when you are in the rehearsal hall, you don’t swing these things out, people’s hands up, put your fists actually in people’s faces. So we go from a sense of ability as opposed to fear.
Matt Richardson 29:55
And like I was saying, but with the age difference thing, so I have this this sort of almost a decade Well, decades of training at least and at least eight years or so of professionally choreographing fights. Some more professional than others and some things minor. And some things something’s fairly substantial and but also, I think there’s a really, with with Chawan being like a decade younger. I didn’t mentioned numbers. But there’s something about being a teen and watching 80s movies. There was some somebody posted an article which I don’t read a lot of these but a few things catch my eye on one of them is what we what we really should have learned from 80s movies. And I grew up watching 80s films and I grew up watching a lot of Bruce Lee and I just recently was showing my student I haven’t watched any Bruce Lee movies in many years, and I pulled these fights up saying, check this out, check his timing out here check is act on watching spice going, Wow, Bruce Lee had a huge influence on the way fight. But But I had a cultural influence as a teenager that Chawan didn’t have. Yeah, I read books, and I read comics, with very specific story tropes that she never had. So when it came to designing a fight, and having moments very particular moments of triumph of moments of heroism or moments of adventure, I find a lot of a lot of problems I have with with media today, in particular for looking at action and fight scenes is it’s all about trying to make everything look bigger and fancier. And let’s parkour our way across the walls before we attack, whereas there was more motivation and there was more there’s more of a sense of adventure and heroism,
Siobhan Richardson 31:45
the adventure and heroism is really the big goal. Yeah,
Matt Richardson 31:47
it’s it’s a huge thing. So and these are, these are sort of core characteristics to a lot of our characters. And so whenever whenever I start looking at a fight, I have this decade of really well presented stories. And of course, I’m not saying every movie in the 80s was great. Of course, there’s always
Siobhan Richardson 32:09
and nor are you saying of course, every movie now is terrible. No, it’s just like this this standard. Yeah, the the more common style of storytelling.
Matt Richardson 32:20
And people are always because of the internet. People are always looking for excuses to pick up a story. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so we have to have so I find Movie Makers now. And Action filmmakers now are trying to find all of these deep reasons why people would do things whereas back in the 80s You know, we didn’t care we we knew the superhero was going to do the superhero thing because he was the good
Phil Rickaby 32:44
guy. Yes. Yeah. Oh, the
Matt Richardson 32:45
dinosaur someone has been spinning a meme around and I love and it’s this pterodactyl supervillain and spider man and spider man is saying to this dinosaur villain. But Professor Why are you doing this with your knowledge of genetics you could you could help mankind you could cure cancer. And the supervillain gives the perfect response which I wish our modern day film writers and players could could take to heart he says but I don’t want to cure cancer. I want to turn people into dinosaur villains like that. But no villains have to have a backstory have to have been have had a terrible father. Yes. They have to have once been good and been betrayed by their best friend. Yeah, like we can’t just have a bad guy because he’s a bad guy because he’s corrupt. So anyway, I getting getting back around to the point. I have a perspective it’s just a slightly different perspective on fight choreography. Where Shavon has a she has a very particular love of of rural technique. But no technique and biomechanics so
Siobhan Richardson 34:00
mechanics oh my goodness, I completely nerd out when when it
Matt Richardson 34:03
comes to doing jobs when people approach us if it’s a fight direction job, we kind of tried to steer it towards me where is it’s Can you do a workshop for our actors? We kind of steer towards Shavon she’s better at structure and, and classes and routine and regimen and I’m better at instinctively finding moments and things and connecting with actors and what an actor needs and I’m very manipulative
Siobhan Richardson 34:30
Yeah, I just I’m just so blunt. I’ll say like yes that’s working or no it is it I have a little bit of the of the craft of manipulation but it’s mostly just like yes or no.
Matt Richardson 34:41
Whereas with me I’ll go okay, this actor is one of these people who needs to hear this to get him to do the work that I need him to do. And I gotta say the the elect. That’s one thing about the electronic age the iPad is amazing. Oh, it’s fun when I have an actor particularly who thinks he knows more about stage combat than me, or knows what moves this feels better. And I’m like, it feels better. Okay, do it that way. Record. Okay, now do it the way I want you to do it record. Good. Let’s look at those back. Yeah, yeah. And nine times out of 10. The actor goes, Oh, geez, geez, my way. It looks really terrible. And I’m like, yeah. So which way you want? Oh, yeah, ultimate
Phil Rickaby 35:17
ultimate this way? Yeah.
Siobhan Richardson 35:19
I mean, of course these are these are not to say that we don’t have the other qualities but no, I mean, one we’re swamped. And we’re like we and we can we what do we need to divvy up the work? That’s general generally the way we we send
Phil Rickaby 35:34
when you do work together? Yes. What? Do you have any kind of particular rules that you guys set for yourselves? Or do you just sort of have you guys know each other? So well, you’re finishing each other’s sentences? Is it just sort of?
Siobhan Richardson 35:51
Yeah, well, we will, we will literally finish each other send each other so say
Matt Richardson 35:55
something simultaneous Lee, or we’ll start singing something. Like some reference some pop culture reference will remind us of one of our favourite pop culture references like something from Futurama or dangerous? Oh, yeah. And we’ll both say it at the same time. And and students will look out and go, What just happened? Yeah, we just had married prenups. Yeah, so no, we don’t, we don’t really discuss her put down. So written out, sometimes the teacher will ask us, we really there are a lot of girls in the class, a lot of them are not going to take stage combat seriously. Some of them are in the class, because they think they don’t have to, you know, bird course. And so we would really like to want to take lead. And I’ve been teaching, I’ve been teaching intro classes for a very long time. And so I have once once Sean, I start to launch into the routine, we kind of go on autopilot,
Siobhan Richardson 36:54
we have a certain sort of we. So here, I guess here’s the big thing that’s different for us is that we kind of have our stick worked out. So that we and depending on the context, certain parts will be highlighted and that kind of thing. But we tend to bounce things back and forth. And there’s certain there’s certain moves that work better when the tall person is the aggressor to the shorter person and vice versa. So we in the interests of demonstrating the technique as clearly as possible, that we tend to be cast and in particular roles. And I’d say that as far as like agreements as to who does what, it’s a little bit more of that. Or if one of us is like sort of nursing an injury of some kind that will be like, Oh, can you do this one today, or we’ll have those little discussions, but
Matt Richardson 37:39
Sean’s just better at doing some techniques than I am just better at doing others.
Siobhan Richardson 37:44
And, or because again, because it’s a story based thing that we do. If we’re trying to get across the point of this is a really brutal action, when you do it this way, then we’ll make sure that Matt kicks me in the head. But when we want to go, here’s your action hero moment, that will make sure that I kick him in the head and with like, the back to the camera looking over my shoulder Hero Pose, but it does. And it helps to highlight to people that we’re teaching the different story qualities that just happen when you put certain moves in, in certain contexts.
Matt Richardson 38:14
And and when we, when we build choreography, if students are saying we’re saying it’s like they’re flirting with sword, to finish. And I mean, that’s that’s a huge thing that the historical martial arts have given us. We will pick up pair of swords, and because we know each other’s distance, and each other’s cues really well.
Siobhan Richardson 38:36
And because we understand the weapons in a particular way,
Matt Richardson 38:38
yeah, science tells time in which they work.
Siobhan Richardson 38:40
Yeah, yes. And then the science tells us, when you when you work with an object long enough, your brain actually maps it as part of your body. Like think about when you walk around with a knapsack? Yeah, in your particular bag. And then you don’t bring it one day. And you have this vague sense all day that something something is missing. Yeah. Because as far as your brain is concerned, something is missing. Yeah. So it’s actually that quality that we endeavour to have with each of our weapons, you should feel like the weapons part of your hand. So because we’ve we’ve learned how to use our tools in this fashion. When we’re working together and spontaneously building choreography, we can do it like we’re just sort of, we’re just moving together with particular leverages and timing.
Matt Richardson 39:19
Yeah. And I think one of the key things about that is, is I know there are some there are some fighters out there who are very fast. They can do stuff very quickly once they’ve learned it. And what we can do is we can change our time and knit attack with the control we
Siobhan Richardson 39:38
have over the weapon. Yeah, we Oh, and then the other one can respond because they respond in the right time because a great fight for performance is not being perfectly repeated exactly the same way every time. It’s being perfectly present. Yeah. And I would, I would almost endeavour to say especially on film because the camera picks up those little nuances of thought changes when Oh, their timing is different and this person has reacted to it in that way. Wilmot so it’s so important to be present and responsive more than it is to do it exactly the same way every time I can’t remember
Matt Richardson 40:08
who it was first you know going back to what you want said about feeling that backpack but it I think it’s either Dwight Dwight Macklemore one of our one of the guys we’ve worked with who’s really lovely guy with amazing stories to tell and just the love for exploring this this this how’s he say this nonsense I like to I like to this silliness I like to explore that. So so he has a real love Ford any and so he’s and he’s eager to teach and explore and try stuff. But it might have been him or it might have been John Lennox or Huff but they say they talk about one of their favourite weapons is the tomahawk or the beltex and came over from Europe and from the boats on the boats, and was was akin enough to a native war club that had a name that sounded like Tomahawk I don’t think, yeah, I don’t want to do a disservice to the pronunciation that it means that spelt axe started to get known as a tamaak. So there’s a little nerdy history lesson. But they talked about this as being a tool along hunters were carrying with them all the time. It wasn’t just a weapon, it was something useful kindling with something and caught up hefty cut cuts meat with or cut through bone with when you were doing your dressing an animal. It was you know, a survival tool as well. And they knew it really, really well. So
Phil Rickaby 41:41
when I’m doing a class with
Matt Richardson 41:43
these guys, I can’t remember which one of them said it to me first, because if you put two people in a pit and you tell them to fight, you each give them a hammer, and one of them’s a carpenter, the carpenter is probably going to win the fight because he knows the weight and the length, and hammer and for us as stage combatants. If you put two stage combatants and you give them fight choreography, the one that’s going to be the safest is the one that treats his sword like a carpenter treats a hammer uses it all the time. Which again is another is another little snipe. I can take it I meet actors all the time. Actor I get actors all the time, but oh yeah, I’m really I’m really good at stage combat. Yeah, I did a fight last year. Yeah, I did a fight two seasons before that, like great. I pick up a weapon every day. Yeah. So excellent that you have some experience. But unless you’re handling this on a daily basis, please do not presume to tell me it’s like choreographing
Siobhan Richardson 42:41
attacks. Somebody who does dropins once a week, like it’s, you’re gonna do something? Yeah, it’s not going to be it’s not gonna be the same as hiring the people who have doing this since before they could crawl. Yeah. Oh, it occurred to me. Oh, so the only time Matt and I met now we’re together a lot. The only time we’ve ever almost fought because we’re not really fighting. Yeah, in our real lives, like we don’t have yelling matches with each other. We don’t do that. The only time we’ve ever come close to fighting in our lives together is when we’re working on fight choreography. And particularly when we were first learning historical martial arts and adapting it for Steve so when we were both sort of figuring out how do we take this martial art and put it on stage but maintain safety? So we would you know, we’d spend hours in here building fights and trying stuff out. And both of us would be like, No, I really think it should be this weary but it’s the closest we’ve ever gotten to really fighting and yelling at each other.
Matt Richardson 43:47
Getting frustrated it that’s that’s that’s the worst that’s our that is the worst we ever get frustrated with the way each other is working. We go I think we should put this down for now. Oh, why are you really yes yeah, I’m getting frustrated. Usually to point fingers he is me getting frustrated because because Shavon is very technique oriented. And I’m still very connected with the drama of things I will do an inefficient action that doesn’t support the art and if Shabbat is just facial let’s say doing three days of personal training long sword training on the CRA method of long sword with Bob Sharon, like she came back from a weekend and I give her a very bad opening and a cut and she goes sure path and she does a perfect little false edge cut across my wrists.
Phil Rickaby 44:42
Okay, so
Matt Richardson 44:43
the in the opening move of the fight you ended the fight. How interesting that for the audience. Yes, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But it’s every once in a while that will that will happen will will start to try and build a fight and I like Joan and Talbot or Joan in the dough fan. And I’ll be like, Shavon you need to be big and inefficient here and doing. John has a little bit more trouble doing bad technique than I do.
Phil Rickaby 45:13
I was about to ask if you have difficulty with the inefficient movement, it’s things like that.
Siobhan Richardson 45:18
It’s, I think part of it sometimes is when we’re building fights I was I start nerding out on the exchange itself. And I forget the characterization. Right? And really, that’s just, that’s, it’s that’s, that’s me being in the wrong context. Yeah. But once once I’m reminded of the context as I shoot matters sideways like once a reminder, the context like oh, right now, now she’s desperate for this now. Now she’s on her heels. She’s way behind the time and trying to recover. So once I’m once I’m reminded those things, and it gets back on, but that’s yeah, I usually start nerding out going, Oh, this would be cool. Oh, I can do this from here.
Matt Richardson 45:57
And I’m constantly ready to remind the HEMA guys or the other historical martial arts guys. Yes, that would be the perfect response to this, but I’m really angry and I oversell this. I overdo this cut down, or I’m off balance, or I’m scared. Yes, we funny enough. On that note, we one of our flights, trespasser. It’s one of the fights we’re a little less satisfied with now with the way we filmed it.
Siobhan Richardson 46:23
Well, I mean, that’s you, you create something, and then for a little while, it’s like, oh, that’s the best thing I’ve ever done. And like two weeks later, you’re like, No, I’d, I’d fix most of that now. But that’s, that’s what it should be like, You should be dissatisfied with your old work, because you should see that there’s different things, but
Matt Richardson 46:44
in particular with trespasser. It was the scenario is she’s she’s this forest elf, and I’m this guy, who understands a few words of the language. He’s speaking but I’m a scout. We have an emissary to talk to her. Yeah, we’re supposed to, we’re supposed to talk to the elves. And I’ve wandered away from the camp. And this elf has just decided, Oh, well, it’s what’s helpful, some fun with this guy. And so she’s a teacher. I’m terrified. I don’t know what she’s doing. Oh, crap, she’s pulled out her sword. What the hell am I going to do? So I’m playing this character who’s off balance, who’s who’s desperately responding. And we’re trying to make Shavon look like she’s dancing this blade around. And we’re trying to make me look clumsy and Paki. And the only thing that saving me as my instinct. And of course, I think we came across with that very well, but a little bit too well, Shavon showed some people over when she was teaching over in Sweden. And they were like, it’s a very good fight scene, but you know, you need a better fight partner. You’re clearly a better fighter than we’re like. That’s the point. I’m so glad you got it. That’s great. But I’m face palming. You know, that’s, that was an acting joy. Yeah, I realise not a lot of people realise, oh, well, he’s clearly not as good a fighter as her. But still still people. People look at some of the other stuff. And we have what I feel some better flight technique and some other things we’ve shot. Trespasser still really popular because the film quality is very high. And despite the fact that I think this choreography or this story is told over here a little bit better, like the quarter staff and X fight. Trespasser look slick and cool. And it’s amazing how far that goes with with a movie related internet audience. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby 48:34
Getting back for a second to working with high school students. Yeah, I think it’s pretty clear you both have a real passion for for that. Even though sometimes the groups that you work with might be difficult at first, you find that that with a high school class, that it’s difficult to bring them out of their shells and get them to actually do it or
Unknown Speaker 48:56
it really depends on the class. It depends
Matt Richardson 48:59
on the class it is, but it’s incredibly rewarding when you get them up. And then there’s the ones who have to put back in a little bit. There they have no shell. They’re very much like me in high school wearing my beloved cat t shirt and running around being a weirdo there. There. There’s always those those children who have who are wonderfully expressive, but they want to try stuff with way too much energy. And they’re the ones you have to rein back in.
Siobhan Richardson 49:27
So your floodlights, and we want a little bit more laser. Yeah.
Matt Richardson 49:32
So, so it ended, like she wants us depends on the class. I mean, the grade nines, you’ve got a mix of have way too much energy, and I don’t want to try anything or I don’t want to look uncool. Yeah, yeah, it’s gonna be a tough one.
Siobhan Richardson 49:49
And some classes, the whole group of them are just not wanting to do anything that somebody else might think isn’t cool. And then you get like, remember one class we had It was like 90% of them didn’t want to look. Cool. And then three of the students were like, having a blast. Yeah. And there of course, like the awesome nerds in the corner that were like, I don’t care what you people think anyway,
Matt Richardson 50:13
there was it was I think that was the class that was mostly girls with a couple of boys. And the teacher warned us anytime she goes, Just say no, every single one of the most of the girls in this class are trying to be the coolest girl in school. And there, there are four little collectives of super cool girls who do not want to be seen to be doing anything foolish or unusual. Trying isn’t cool. So we don’t want to look like we’re trying. And there were two girls in the class who were clearly they’re the ones I would have identified with in high school, who were clearly nerds were in that one word or her doctor who t shirt. They were the best. They tried everything they went. They went like crazy. And they were great. We got we got a bunch of them, actually, because we don’t let them get away with not doing the work. When they get up and they start going. And which I it sounds like I’m exaggerating. Seriously, that is the sound they make. They laugh the whole time and one of our teachers, Tamsin,
Siobhan Richardson 51:17
not all of them. Not all, not all kids. Not all girls. But once in a while.
Matt Richardson 51:22
Tamsin has a great note. And we stole this from her. And Kelsey. She said to to the first pair of students that did this, she said, you’re giving us permission not to care about what you’re doing by laughing and not taking it seriously, right? So we don’t let them get away. With that. We’ll go Okay, good. Now we’re going to work this scene. Now you’re going to do this, and I’m going to correct your technique integrated ground yourself. We and even if it takes extra time, we keep a pair of students that have decided not to try up there and we make sure they do it. Right.
Phil Rickaby 51:55
I was going to ask what what what you do with people who don’t want to do it. But that’s, that’s a great answer.
Siobhan Richardson 52:01
Part of it is also not paying attention to the behaviour. Because it’s that cover behaviour, they don’t want you to see them. So instead, we’re gonna actually we’re gonna, we’re, we want to see you. And we’re going to spend some extra time until we get to. And so in that way, we don’t reward the behaviour we don’t want to see.
Matt Richardson 52:20
And we make sure they do it right. And when they do do it, right. We’re very enthusiastic about it.
Siobhan Richardson 52:27
Naturally, just really excited.
Matt Richardson 52:29
So, so a pair of students who get up and they kind of they kind of half assed a punch and a slap and everything, we get them to do it right. And usually, you know, most of the time, we don’t have to guess that’s so much better because of the class response. Right? Right. Yeah, they see a good punch and a good crack and a good cell. And suddenly their whole class goes, whoa, and and make some noise. And suddenly that you students who decided not take this seriously, oh, wow, we just got a huge positive response from our peers. Which really, really helps.
Phil Rickaby 53:02
That’s one of the interesting things. I was having a conversation just a little while ago with someone. And we were talking about the difference between movies and theatre and things like, like, what is your theatre movies are passive. And in a theatre, it’s hard to be positive. And I’ve never heard an audience in a movie, gasped at a fight. But in an audience in a theatre, I have frequently heard people gasp or move to the edge of their seat when sorts come out, or when there’s a fight. And that’s one of the one of the unique things about about theatre, one of my
Siobhan Richardson 53:37
one of my dearest friends and colleagues, Hilda, in, in, she’s Norwegian, living in Sweden now. She’s also she’s also studied opera. And in fact, actually, my opera teacher talks about this as well, my singing teacher talks about this as well, the idea that when you’re in a space with somebody, when you make sound, the air that passes through you, literally touches other people. Like I can literally speak in a fashion that moves your body. Yeah, I can also literally speak in a fashion that chooses not to Yeah, and, and the audience can feel that, again, it’s one of those lizard brain things where you can when we’re on stage, we actually literally move
Phil Rickaby 54:17
Yeah. And the audience can tell the difference, absolutely. Between something that is projected on a screen and when the actors are actually there.
Matt Richardson 54:25
And, you know, just relating this to action. physical bodies moving in space on stage doing something live, you can’t cheat the physics. And why why we harp so much on martial structure, is because an audience will instinctively know that this person grounded moving this way they know the physics and the mass moving behind them. Whereas a lot of complaints about a lot of action movies these days is their CGI. Oh yeah. A lot of action. Yeah. And physics don’t we know when something CGI apps Doing the physics and the maths and the weight distribution is wrong. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes they get it right. It’s not always bad, but live it has to you, it has to obey the laws of physics
Siobhan Richardson 55:12
and likening it to the breath again. When we’re doing action on stage, Matt and I talk a lot about make choices with your breath when you do it. When there’s when you when you get caught with something. And you know if that breath into something, and making a really specific choice with your vocal quality, as opposed to up is a really different kind of moment. So making choices with your breath and with your vocal qualities. And the shape of that voice, again, touches the audience in a way that they that they feel that instinctively relate to we bypass that thinkI part and get back to the fields.
Matt Richardson 55:47
That’s a burning mountain note. Some, some people might say I hear this note, I always hated it when I grew up. Because I studied in martial art. I do control breath when I fight. So I would be doing a sequence of choreography. And one of one of my contemporaries in the class would say, don’t forget to breathe, you’re not breathing. And I’m like, No, I’m controlling my breath. Yeah, through this series of attacks and defences. I’m slowly letting it out at the end, as I finished this particular punctuate the finish of this phrase of combat. Don’t tell me don’t forget to breathe. And what we like to tell our students is and the burning mountain method. Be conscious of your breath and be conscious of where you’re holding it, where you’re pushing, where you’re putting effort, where you’re taking it in and where you’re pushing out. So always be conscious of it. Instead of just saying, don’t forget to pray and pray if you’re not breathing. Sorry, that’s a pet peeve of mine.
Phil Rickaby 56:47
You guys are so goddamn passionate about this stuff. It is hard not to get caught up in it. And it’s it’s it’s pretty, it’s pretty awesome to watch you guys and see see how passionate you are about it. I want to talk for a second about your use of Patreon. For for burning mountain what’s. So Patreon? I’m sure that there are people who don’t know what it is. So briefly, it’s a crowdfunding platform that allows people to pledge a certain amount every month to be able to keep you going as a creator. Yes, you
Siobhan Richardson 57:25
think of it like like a magazine subscription, for instance.
Phil Rickaby 57:27
Yeah. And so what? First off, what are you guys, how do you guys use Patreon?
Siobhan Richardson 57:34
We use it in in two in two ways. I have a blog that other flight people will already be aware of. And it’s it started actually as a way for me to prepare my students for a large workshop I was teaching it to give them some stuff to look at beforehand, sort of what they’re
Matt Richardson 57:50
going to expect when they walk into a nationals are or two week intensive,
Siobhan Richardson 57:56
simple things like make sure that any bills that are coming to you are paid before you go because you just don’t want to have to think about that while you’re working on. Two things like if you have a favourite drink or something that’s really soothing for you, make sure you have that you’re gonna have stressed out days, you’re going to need to really calm yourself and do something that is home and warm for you to things like this is when I say structure, this is what I’m referring to. Or like when I was teaching in martial arts, the the martial arts component of the certification. It was a style guide. And here are several different styles of martial arts but you start seeing what we’re talking about Eastern martial arts. So the another way you can use Patreon is to fund per thing as to use a technical term. So one of our things is the blog post. Okay. But the other thing that we’re doing is all the short films that we made, yes, we post that as part of it. So those happen less frequently. These days, it’s every two, three or four months, it kind of depends on you, Matt and I are both in Hogtown right now. So we’re we really don’t have a chance to work on other large projects. So the next film will be will be a little while. But so our Patreon patrons, we thank you all their pledges per thing, which is usually the blog post, which is all all sorts of support for the stage combat artists, not just people who are teachers and fight directors. But part of our focus is to support the stage combat artist is someone who wants to become an advanced martial advanced stage combat artists, but not necessarily move on to instructing and they want to enrich their performance skills. So maybe there’s not a workshop that they can attend, but they have a sense that there’s more stuff they want to work on. So short answer blog posts and the short films that we do. Part of are really part of our focus, as artists ourselves as artists, as performers, as teachers, as flight directors, is just to get the best stage combat out there. that we can so in any way that we can do that so whether that’s through the way we teach through the way we direct fights through the way we ourselves perform. And also just that’s why we make the short films is to get content out there is to get stage combat out in the internet sphere in the internet verse.
Matt Richardson 1:00:20
A lot of fans hopefully good stage combat as well. Yeah, I we have both have a real pet peeve when people posting their test fights, because test fights. The archival video, the archival video for test fight, always, always does not look anywhere near as good as it looks like. It’s no of course. Yeah. It’s meant to be performed for a live audience. Yeah. Usually the archival cameras not at the right angle. It hasn’t been choreographed for film. Yeah. And it’s two actors at the end of a probably a burnout workshop wearing their sweat pants. And it really, when you watch it, you’re like, wow, that’s what stage combat looks like. Yikes. And, and so it’d be very distracting.
Siobhan Richardson 1:01:03
And we want to say as well, though, that yes, the people posting that you have done a lot of great work. And yes, you should be excited about the work you’ve done. But for the for the for the people who don’t know about stage combat, what they see. They don’t understand where it’s coming from. Yeah, that there’s two weeks of burnout leading up to that. Yeah, and understand the cameras in the wrong spot. No. So what we endeavour to do is just go Okay, so here’s this, this other thing that you’re seeing, here’s how to place that in context, right. And this is how, of course, the technique is slightly different. When we do it on camera, of course, it’s going to be a different medium. But our hope is to get the kind of work that we do out there in a shiny package that really shows it in a really in a light that anybody can understand as opposed to needing the context to quite understand the skill level that you’re seeing.
Phil Rickaby 1:01:56
Where can we find most burning mountain and you guys online,
Siobhan Richardson 1:02:00
so burning mountain.ca/connect That’s where you can find us as burning mountain richardson.ca and Shavon richardson.com. And for those who need to know how to spell it, I’m sure it’ll be in the comments. It’ll be
Phil Rickaby 1:02:13
it’ll be in the show notes in the show notes. Are either of you on social media at all?
Siobhan Richardson 1:02:18
Yes, goodness, all those as well. Showing my Acer so burning mountain on Twitter is at burning MTN so burning mountain as a as a acronym. Word, whatever the word of whatever it’s for. Yeah. Why is apostrophes such a long word?
Phil Rickaby 1:02:40
I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s, that was so much. So much.
Siobhan Richardson 1:02:48
So that’s us on Twitter. And we of course have a Facebook fan page. For Bernie mountain. It’s burning mountain summit. Apologies for all the inconsistencies. It apparently turns out that there’s a burning Mountain Music Festival watch. So the different media have different parts of taking taken up on Vimeo, you’ll find us at vimeo.com/the Burning mountain. I’m on Instagram at fighter actress. That’s also my Twitter handle fighter actress hasn’t been taken off course. So that one’s good. That one’s easier.
Matt Richardson 1:03:20
But if you get confused if you click on something and there’s this the burning mountain symbol is a mountain with a with a bow and a sword. That’s,
Siobhan Richardson 1:03:29
that’s if you see a bunch of people standing in front of a concert stage,
Phil Rickaby 1:03:33
not you, not you. Well, that’s great. Thank you so much for coming on today. My pleasure. Thank you
