How to be a Fight Choreographer with Brahim Chab - Monkey Man, Dev Patel

#monkeyman #martialarts #stuntman 

This week I’m talking to Fight Choreographer Brahim Chab.

Brahim has worked as both a stunt performer and fight choreographer alongside Jason Statham, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen and most recently opposite Dev Patel in the Monkey Man were he starred and choreographed the fight sequences in the movie. 

I talked to Brahim about his route into fight choreography, tips for new people starting out, how he breaks down a sequence and what it was like working on Monkey Man.

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Transcript

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[Music] hi Jim here and you're listening to the honest filmmaker podcast career advice from people in the business this week I'm speaking to fight choreographer Brahim chap Brahim has worked as both a stump performer and fight choreographer alongside Jason Statham Jackie Chan and most recently opposite Dev Patel in Monkey Man where he starred and choreograph the fight sequences in the movie I talked to Brahim about how he got started as a stump performer how he evolved into a fight choreographer uh he gave me some tips for new people starting out and of course we talked about monkey man and his experience on that movie enjoy so uh I've got an IMDb that you started off as a stunt performer how did you get into that originally well originally you know I started uh doing stunts uh because I saw like a a Jackie Chen movie called First Strike directed by Stanley Tong when I was 14 years old and uh then uh I started doing martial arts I started with iido karate and uh followed that by tricking then uh you know I didn't really want to study much after I graduated high school I went to uh law school to become a lawyer and uh after six months there I was like man I I can't take this this thing anymore you know I I should basically U do what I always wanted to do which is do movies so from there I kind of like took a a leap of faith and that was it that was it straight in and um which country were you in when you first started doing your stunt stuff uh I first started when uh you know in Paris where I'm originally from um you know I started doing very very uh small stuff like kind of like uh TV shows and um like you know um like live shows and stuff like this yeah then uh after a while maybe like one or two years of that I was trying to get into the stun business in France but at the time it was very locked like it was very very hard to get any opportunities because you know France is not really known for martial art movies and all that so A friend of mine took us uh to Thailand to join a casting forb to MH so we came there like with maybe like six seven friend of mine and we did the casting didn't get anything but that was like a taste of kind of like U you know doing casting we met Tony J and all that and I kind of like saw an opportunity uh in Thailand at the time because at the time Thailand was kind of like um the new Hong Kong for action movies at the time you know they like a lot of Western Productions were coming to Thailand time to shoot so it was a a great spot to gain experience and kind of like for someone with who wants to start to get great opportunities so I did most of the my uh my early years most of my work was actually in Thailand that's where really I got into the stun business working in Thailand at first sure and then how long was it before you were then choreographing scenes I would say I I moved to T in 2007 and I was already being a stun coordinator and a fight coordinator in t by 2012 so it only took me like five years because I was very lucky to meet a gentleman called team man and basically what he did he he was already an established T performer in Sweden and he was coming to Thailand to shoot sometime do movies in Thailand so so I was very lucky that he allowed me to assist him on uh certain of on certain movies that he was doing so by thanks to that I could learn how he would choreograph fights how he would shoot them how he would edit them so I would learn from him any way I can how we would he would plan the shots how he would uh you know plan safety how he would conduct himself on set so everything I learned from him basically uh by 2010 and 2011 I was already working as his assistant and then by 2012 I already started to do my own projects which were small movies first like very low budget movies yeah so what I'm taking away from that is if you're new to this industry obviously you've got to have your skills to start off with but finding that Mentor figure who's going to help guide really important it sounds like that's very important like whoever you choose associate in this business is key to your F future success um I would say you know if I didn't meet Tim uh Tim man at the time I don't think my career would be the way it is right now because you really really gave me like um a lot of knowledge a lot of opportunities and also he showed me how to conduct my on set which is something that is very important how you conduct yourself on set on and off camera uh and also how to use social media because uh a lot of times uh people can really sabotage themselves using social media the wrong way you know it's it's a very small industry the the action film industry so whoever like I said you're can to associate with it's key to your success I was very fortunate as well to have a very very uh good friend and mentor on my side called Mike leader uh he really really did help me uh get opportunities and again without I would say Mike and Tim I wouldn't be where I am today so you know it's a very very I'm very blessed to have been able to work with people like that yeah yeah yeah yeah and um so I've heard the story many times now it's popped up on social media about Dev Patel not being able to find you know get his stunt crew over and they got you in last minute what was that like from your side how how did it happen for you well how it happened it was like like super quick and bear in mind that all that was during covid lockdown and I'm not talking about the covid lockdowns from 2021 I'm talking like 2020 fresh covid lockdowns everyone is petrified and scared of covid and um then uh I basically uh de got in touch with with a producer uh in Indonesia uh a line producer and the line producer got in touch with Mike leader then Mike leader uh suggested uh me and uh I would say maybe two other people so he told me to send my stuff over YouTube that's where the thing like they found me on YouTube comes from so I send my stuff over on YouTube and I think there there's this previous that I've done a couple of years ago from 2016 where I'm finding like I'm fighting like a bunch of guys in a gym and that previous is the one that really got the attention of De he he always mentioned it to me always said like I I I want the movie to be just like this previous so then I the meeting with de first uh with his producer partner then I had a meeting as well with Thunder Road producers Brawn producers and from from there I was like okay well this is what I need I need a camera operator for my previous and I need two stun performers okay great now we need to get to Indonesia right so Indonesia was not giving any visas because the country was completely closed so here I am going to the Indonesian embassy in Bangkok knocking on their door without any appointment I'm like I need a visa they're like no you cannot get a Visa so here we are talking with uh somebody at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Indonesia okay give us the give them the phone okay here they want to talk to you then from there the door opened they were like give us your passports we give them our passport they're like okay come back at 2 p.m and you get your passport back from there it was like kind of like a roller coaster like a trip that is supposed to take two days to a trip that is supposed to take two hours took us two days to complete quarantine lockdowns getting to the island um not being able to go out for five months only Studio Hotel Studio Hotel it was like like Devo said in all these interviews he's doing it was like a real real real for the force it was like absolute Madness catastrophes one after one a gaffer died it was like complete God Madness yeah yeah that's crazy and looking so I obviously the film we're recording this now the film hasn't come out in the UK yet so I haven't had an opportunity to see it it looks amazing with with that film what was kind of the most challenging fight sequence to choreograph I would say the most challenging one was the restaurant section the restaurant section was like like a very very very hard sequence to choreograph because we have in the bathroom in the bathroom sequence we only have uh three people fighting so it's very very limited we don't have extras and all that you know but in the in the restaurant we have a bunch of extras we have to coord at how they're going to run we had like special effects going on uh we had like the stun guys we had Dev doing all the fighting and we were very limited with the time because a sequence that were we were supposed to have like I think five days to shoot we ended up having only three days to shoot and then we had only one day to shoot um some of the supporting characters it was a big big big challenge also because we had only a handful of stun guys the whole project so bear in mind we have like God knows how many fight scenes in this movie but then we can only use a certain amount of stun guys because we are not allowed to bring other stun guys so I had to always remember who did I use coordinate with the makeup artist the the hairdressers and complete change the looks of these guys I mean some of these guys truly hate me because I had to cut their hair I had to make a guy look bold the next day I put a wig on his head this guy grow a beard for five years well good luck good news you're gonna cut it now so it was like absolute Madness to coordinate All This and like that was the most challenging one I would say was the restaurant one yes right and it looks to me like during the film uh in a lot or in some of the fight sequences he's wearing a mask ask so is is that him the whole time how much percentage is he doing that stuff well you know like a lot of it is Dev like I would say like 95% of the fighting stuff is Dev but let's say like uh some of the stuff on the ring for example we had a stun double for him from my team because like in the ring you know we get a lot of contacts he having like a tank top so you know like a lot of the h can damage him and also like if you watch the movie The Ring fights are brutal there is a lot of like the style for the ring fights we wanted to give like a lot of like wrestling claustrophobic sense also he's getting tossed out of the ring so yeah we had a stun double for that kind of of stuff let's say also for the Tuk to that was a stun double there but let's say the fighting like as far as I'm concerned I was there there all the stuff for the fighting uh it's Dev himself we don't use uh face replacement uh we don't use any uh cheap shots from behind hiding him a lot of the shots as you see in the movie they are not like Quick Cuts you can see a a wide angle of him doing the stuff and credit to him and he came to train every day he's the director of the movie he's the producer he's the main actor and now he's a stun man as well doing all these fight SC so he came every day uh every morning before he would go and do the other his other duties like his directing duties and all that so he would come train a bit with us today we would be like okay let's rehearse the restaurant fight scene okay would go step by step okay tomorrow has do the uh the ba the the bathroom okay today let's do the brothel like we would have like every day would come and rehearse but hat down to him man he delivered everything like like honestly like I was surprised when he did all of that by himself yeah yeah I'm sure you were because because looking at his career before this movie there he does serious drama there's no way I thought he had an action film in him but stuff you see in the trailers just looks amazing yeah like the stuff he he pulled I mean let's be honest me I I always loved his movies when I got called to do the project uh I was very very intrigued because I was like this is an actual Oscar winner actor he's a great actor but I was like okay how he's gonna do with the fight scenes because for me when I when I heard his name I was thinking okay slam Dog Millionaire beautiful movie great acting Perfect story but then when I saw him move when he came to rehearsal I was like okay we have we have a chance at this because Dev can move and he understands how to set the hits for the camera he knows how to react I was like I was not even worried at all from the first training when we met I was like my mind was at ease I was like we we've got something going on here yeah and talking about acting notice you obviously you've got your stunt reel you've also got an acting reel so is the acting something you've always done or does that become more important now because it means you can get bigger roles and kind of the the acting side it really came by accident like I I started doing stunts and U I always would get like Parts when I join movies because uh maybe I have the right look maybe I have like um a certain like presence for bad guy roles or something like this so I would always get like physical roles and uh like uh for example I did like a movie called Vanguard where I play the main bad guy against Jacky CH I did the boy disputed where I play the bad guy against scad kids I've done ghanaat as well where I play the bad guy against tiger TR and I just during covid I did the Customs front line where I play the main bad guy against Nicolas and I did another one a few months ago opposite maros Marcos aor uh where I play the bad guy as well so it's something that I kind of like it's a small garden that I have on the side of the fight coordinating career that I have uh because I'm just thinking why not why just limit myself um doing one thing where I can do multiple things so if I Jo a project and I see the right acting uh part suitable for me I join it you know but yeah that's something that uh basically uh that basically is uh on the side it's like a small garden that I'm cultivating yeah and talking to those people so you've got I've seen clips of you with Jackie Chen Jason Stam Donnie Yen all these big names do you ever get star struck with those people uh not anymore man when I started first year I would I would be like completely like like a fanb booy then I mean with the age and like being used to being on set and all that it became something like kind of like a like natural to me to see these guys and uh I I I think you know that's also uh that's also a sign that says like okay you're kind of like becoming more mature I would say yeah yeah fair enough fair enough um so looking at uh if you were to give yourself some advice the beginning of your career knowing what you know now what would you say to yourself uh I would say to myself like to not stress too much and to just like not really think so much about when it's goingon to happen just enjoy the journey more don't get frustrated when uh things don't go your way uh don't get pissed off at people when they do something wrong to you or you know they basically like goip about you or something like this it's nothing to be very serious about and your time will come it will just come you know you just need basically in this industry you just need to basically put in the work and at some point someone is GNA see your work and he's gonna acknowledge it and I believe you know sometime you know like when you start you tend to really like try to push a bit too much and kind of like almost become uh a bit of a liability for for your for yourself and other people because like you kind of like try to push his agenda on social media that you're the best and you're really really the next big thing in town and that can sometime play against you with people so I would say like I will tell myself to just be more uh calm and to just appreciate uh the journey and also I would uh also take more time into uh looking at the big name actors that I worked with and kind of like look how they behave on set and how they deliver the acting and all that that would be something that would be I would have put more time into that in the past yeah yeah yeah absolutely and uh I'm not particularly sporty I'll admit that uh have you ever been in a real fight and it does it bear any semblance to fighting on screen or is it a completely different animal no it's not man like I've been in I've been in a couple of real fights and it's not at all like like anything like movies a real fight is quick and ugly and it's um it's something like you know like first of all you have so much adrenaline and your heart is pounding that I would say maybe 60% of your abilities they completely disappear so you rely on like Primal instinct which is maybe grabbing someone and like or like punching like there's none of this I'm gonna do a sidekick trip triple back flip land on the guy and then yeah like look at the camera that's not gonna happen and like you just it's it's mostly like you you have so much blood going in like like you get so tense and you know it's like I being in a real fight it's like it's completely different man and no like the totally different yeah yeah no that's fine I'm not gonna try either but I thought I'd ask oh don't try no I'm I'm not trying either myself that's it that was when I was young yeah um the other thing I was going to say was you've got a young family um and your partner's also into fighting and action and acting so what's that like having a a young family and doing this kind of work uh well you know uh basically the the great thing about this is my wife understands my line of work uh it can be a bit challenging because uh my my son is only six months and a half and um it's it can be hard for my wife at first because I have to leave sometime luckily I since my kid is born I had work but it's been only like stuff that are not too long but right now with the movie coming out I've been getting so many offers from different uh Productions since monkey men trailers released so I would say the the the the big challenge is uh mostly you know going away for a long time and not seeing your your family but um my wife understand this that's uh the the good luck that I have because she's a stun performer herself and uh we actually met on a movie so she understands we met in Hungary on on the mov there and uh yeah she understands basically the the whole thing of like I have to leave to make a living so that's helpful for me yeah yeah that sounds good um and also is is there a anyone you'd really like to work with or have you got a dream role in mind you'd like to do uh if I have a dream Ro role in mind that would be something that is not involving a single kick or punch oh really straight drama if I can pull that off be in a movie where I'm never gonna throw a punch or a kick that will be like one of the biggest accomplishment in my life because then that means that I carried myself through the movie thanks to my acting abilities not just my fighting abilities uh working in terms of working with someone uh I've met Tony J but I've never worked with him uh so that would be someone I would like to work with and also uh someone like I would say uh um in the Chinese market I would say wujing I really like wujing as well it did World Warrior one and two someone like that I'll be very pleased to work with uh but yeah ton would be someone that I would appreciate because first of all he is a TI uh actor I can speak Tha fluently so I think it would be great working with him we would understand each others and uh yeah I I believe I could do something great for him because um I have a lot of connections in Thailand so like we will do something great and unique if I worked with Tony J I hope one day it can happen yeah me too I hope that happens um so the other thing I was going to ask you was have you got a favorite action film uh it depends in terms of art or straight up action well you can give me both let's have both so martial arts for martial arts I would say drunen master 2 right okay and uh for Action I like heat heat oh okay alpacino and Robert daero that whole sequence uh after the bank robbery when they have that shot out that's like that's like my favorite scene of all time there's really no music just you hear the the machine guns going it's perfectly done that's probably the best uh gun sequence I ever saw in my life I mean e and if you tell me like Sci-Fi Action I would say predator predator good choice good choice and what I haven't seen Drunken Master 3 what is special about two sorry what is special about that movie what's special about that movie is like the whole ending sequence the whole fight scene between between you never saw it I haven't I will now I promise you I'll check it out you you've got to watch it because like the whole sequence at the end you've got this guy called keno and he's doing like this whole thing with his legs he's fighting with Jackie one Jackie is doing the drunken boxing and Keno is doing like all these Tao kicking and the way it's choreographed and the whole sequence took like three months to shoot just for the ending scene so that movie is like kind of like right here for martial art movie so I would say that one is like my favorite because like like you you've got to watch it to understand yeah um and the last thing I was going to ask you about is injuries have you had them and I'm assuming it's common in your line of work to get injured yes I had a couple of injuries yes but U I'm lucky nothing serious I had like uh I don't know maybe it's serious for you but for me I think it's a kindergarten stuff yeah um I had like um uh dislocated shoulder right okay two times I I broke my ACL on my left knee yeah uh I twisted both of my ankles multiple times um I uh I have back problems on my lower back like uh like over the years it's coming and it's going if I don't do squats it's uh it's it's coming back uh my left hamstring has uh calcium like there's calcium deposit in my left hamstring yeah um I also have the same problem on my right hamstring um I'm having also my miniscus is completely I think it's uh already gone I don't think it's there anymore so yeah I had like and then I I had like couple of stuff like you know like uh like like dislocated maybe like uh fingers a little bit or like you know cuts on the hands and stuff like that um I had also some crashes sometime on some on some film sometime where I maybe I hit my head a couple of times uh but that's nothing as serious as let's say like losing a limb or um like like getting paralyzed or something like this so I'm I'm very blessed that you know I touch wood I had some close Cordes but I touch wood that nothing like this happened to me yeah and is there an age is there an age when you're like when I get to that age I'm just choreographing I'm not doing any more fighting or you just going to see how it goes right now I feel my body is holding up very well I'm only 39 years old MH um I in terms of fight scenes I can perform everything in fight scene and all that but I would say like doing stunts like what I used to do like for example like doing back flip Falls in a stair or like getting like toast around by a wire and I think those days are completely gone for me like I haven't done that in ages to be honest uh but as far as doing fight SC that's something I can do for many many years so I I I would see how my body holds up but so far I feel great I feel in very good shap but I wouldn't push it until I'm you know I wouldn't do stunts until I'm 50 years old or something like this I don't think that's uh good on the body now yeah I hope you enjoyed this week's episode if you want more advice from industry professionals who are out there at the moment working or you just want to listen to some cool stories from film sets from around the world then please do[Music] subscribe