Filming a Fight Scene

Staging a punch in video came up in my media class the other day.  I was trying to explain how a punch is faked in film and that most fight scenes are blocked out and practiced like a dance routine.  We pulled out the camera and filmed a few punches and they all discovered that it was a little harder than they imagined.  I remembered a YouTube video that demoed how a scene was blocked out in the movie Serenity.

I brought these two clips in the next day.
First the stunt group working it all out. (Main stunt woman is Bridget Riley)



Second, watch the actual scene from the movie with Summer Glau.

[Image: "Punch:Day2"; http://www.flickr.com/photos/chaparral/ / CC BY-NC 2.0