The Action Sequences of Dragonball Evolution

Badtaste.it posted a preview on what you can expect from the action scenes of Dragonball: Evolution. In it are quotes from the director, cinematographer, Justin Chatwin and the stunt team. We’ve translated the article (to the best of our abilities) from Italian.

“How do you make sequences of action different from what the public has seen so far?” This was the first question that [director] James Wong placed on his team when he started to reflect on what people expect from a movie like Dragonball.

The answers arrived from acclaimed stunt team 87Eleven, as the director of photography Robert McLachlan and the visual effects supervisor, Ariel Shaw, have certainly pleased Wong and they promise to delight not only fans of the series, but also fans of action films.

The visual effects supervisor (Ariel Shaw) took what Wong defines as “fist-cams” using the renowned company Iconix, cameras so small that they can be linked to the hand of an actor and that allows the stroke of a character’s [fist] to go directly to the [audience].

“It’s kind of a point of view of the fist,” says Wong. McLachlan [the director of photography] suggested that the use of new digital cameras (the high-speed Phantoms) to create super-speed in major action sequences. “We have done a lot of research and development tests with chambers Phantom,” says McLachlan, who discovered this system of photography, then experimental, on YouTube.

Indeed, in a video that appeared on the famous site, a balloon filled with water is blown up, while the action is taken at 1000 frames per second. McLachlan and Wong were impressed by the results. “The most spectacular [thing] was that the water retained the shape of the balloon as it came out,” recalls Wong.

Less advanced from a technological point of view, but equally important to the action scenes, have been training and supervision by stunt company 87Eleven, as well as from the stunt coordinators Jonathan Eusebio, Julian Bucio Montemayor and Jared Eddo.

Their first task was to bring in the cast, and then work with them in an intensive program of action choreography and, finally, make the players feel at ease in working with major wire and acrobatic sequences. It was definitely a rigorous program, which, as revealed by Eusebio, “when the actors did not work, [they] trained.”

The young cast had to each follow specific training, because there weren’t any cast members with an identical style of combat. They also had special diets to maintain their strength and energy during production.

In the history of Dragonball, Goku is the greatest warrior on the planet. And so Justin Chatwin took very seriously the responsibility to capture the qualities of the character. Before the start of filming, he faced six weeks of nutrition guide, as well as training for the stunt and martial arts with 87Eleven and continuing this challenging regime during shooting. “The adrenaline is still flowing,” says the actor, who also appears to have eliminated sugar, wheat and pasta for the film. Chatwin spent every day at least five hours to train, studying karate, kung fu and a form known as Brazilian capoeira, encoding the movement of martial arts and dance.

For more extreme acrobatic movements, Jackson Spidell was the stunt double of the actor. The main move characteristic of Spidell was jumping in the air, making a half turn and, during the spin, hitting an opponent.