Arrow: James Bamford on how stunt work prepared him for directing

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Arrow season 6 trailer, screenshot courtesy of The CW/YouTube

During Arrow‘s fourth season, you started to direct. How did you make the transition? How did your background in stunts prepare you for directing?

As I mentioned, I’ve been studying since I began working in the film industry in 1991. Studying the stunt performers, stunt coordinators, actors, and studying the directors. I can’t count how many directors I’ve worked beside over those years, but I’ve tried to take some piece of advice or learn something from each one. The amount of experience and talent I’ve been exposed to from others is staggering….

I’ve directed many splinter and 2nd units over the years, and Arrow seemed like the right vehicle to jump into directing a full episode. I know the characters and the content as well as I know myself. It was a natural progression. Many, many stunt coordinators make the leap to second unit director — not many to main unit director, though. Fortunately, films like John Wick and Atomic Blonde were directed by stunt coordinators-turned-directors and have opened the door for more people such as myself to make the progression.

In this case, [producers] Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg gave me their faith and allowed me the opportunity to show them what I had to offer. They loved my first attempt, as did the studio, so they asked me to do another, then another, etc. and here we are. I trained my assistant, Curtis Braconnier, who is a very talented young man, to take over my position as stunt/fight coordinator so the show would be looked after by him as it had by me in the past. Together, with him and Eli Zagoudakis, the stunt team is flourishing.

The first episode you directed, “Brotherhood,” included a sequence with a long take following Willa Holland’s Thea down a hallway and into an elevator as she fights a couple of villains. I think it’s one of Arrow‘s best action scenes to date. What went into designing and filming it?

This was a sequence that I had in mind for years on end. It was inspired by a much longer sequence from an action feature film by John Woo, Hard Boiled, which goes on for over three minutes. Although on a TV series, we don’t have the screen time for a three-minute shot, we attempted to cram as much action into a solid 57-second one as possible. Even then, the shot was cut short in the final cut by approximately seven seconds from the original, trimmed so as to skip the last section and jump cut to what is the end of the fight. I hope that the audience can one day see the whole shot in its full glory.

The writers asked me if there was anything I had wanted to do on the show that hadn’t been done before. I told them about this shot, and they wrote it into the script. It was originally scripted as Arrow and Diggle fighting their way down a hallway, in [and] out of an elevator, etc. As the story developed, the action evolved to Speedy being the carrier of the action. Having been a stunt coordinator/fight choreographer myself, I planned this shot very differently than many directors would have. I first envisioned that visual of the shot and where/how I wanted the fight to travel.

We got to work on designing and building the set, including a working elevator, to my specs. For this shot to work, we needed the whole set, including the elevator doors, to be controlled by us, as timing was critical. Side-note: the doors failed to function correctly on the first 12-14 takes of the fight, so the fighters were completely exhausted in the final take you see on the aired episode. I believe there was some vomiting occurring between the last few takes. One solid minute of sheer fighting is a very long time for anybody.

Step two of the process is the actual choreography of the physical movements of the characters within the environment. Once I had decided on the set, I got together with fight choreographer Curtis Braconnier and talked through the specifics of my wants. Unlike many directors, I asked for very specific techniques, pace, and style at very specific times within the combat. Curtis has a great understanding of how I do things and my visual style [and] martial arts preferences. He went away and got to work with the stunt performers on the fight right away. As the weeks progressed, we would check back in with each other to ensure the plans were going down the path that I had specified and renamed on track. Curtis and his vast creativity [were] able to bring my dream to life before my eyes.

We had the advantage of having a script much longer in advance then normal for a TV series schedule, so our planning process was stretched out over a longer period then we would usually have. The fight had a chance to morph many times… into the wonderful ballet of combat you see now.

Overall, the shooting of the fight didn’t take long, although to get it just right we shot over 14 takes. In a one-r you don’t get to edit away mistakes. The whole shot has to be perfect. So, the performers get quite wiped out by the end. I’m very proud of what we accomplished on a relatively tight schedule, on a television budget, with very talented people involved all around.

In addition to Arrow, you directed one episode of Supergirl, last season’s “Survivors.” How did working on Supergirl differ from working on Arrow?

The circumstances in which I was brought [on] were not what you’d expect. There was another director involved in the onset of production of that episode. This director had some prior engagements to deal with, and Supergirl required a new director to step in to help complete the episode.

When I was approached by Andrew Kreisberg to shoot the episode, I asked how long there was left in the prep process. As most everyone knows in this business, prep is everything, especially on a show with the scale of Supergirl. I was told that prep was over, and could I start tomorrow morning, as they were already three days into shooting in the 10-day schedule. It was an honor to be asked, so I accepted the task, and there I was on the set the next day. I spent many hours with the previous director going over his plans and discussing what I might do differently and what I would do to try and maintain his original vision as well. I was brought to set, met the cast, immediately loved them, and was off to the races.

Unlike a regular episode, I had to leave immediately on completion, head over to Legends of Tomorrow and shoot a large sequence for the opening two episodes of last season, then proceed back to Arrow, where I commenced my prep for the 100th episode — the crossover of season 5. Although my Supergirl experience was brief, the cast left a feeling with me I carry this day. Every time I’m brought on to the set for second unit shots to direct, or they come over to Arrow, it’s like we’ve known each other for a lifetime.

So, I watched the season 6 premiere, “Fallout,” and wanted to ask you a couple questions about directing the episode. First, the lighting of the episode was striking. Because of how Oliver operates, a lot of Arrow takes place at night or in dark interiors. How do you ensure each scene is lit so it’s realistic but viewers can still tell what’s going on?

I work very hard with our cinematographers to create a look that is unique… Use of primary colors and use of shadow [and] contrast to show the viewer only what we want them to see, while allowing for depth… Arrow’s lighting is deep in its soul as one of the characters of the show.

Similarly, the cinematography has a fluidity that contrasts from the use of close-ups and rapid editing that’s so common in action filmmaking nowadays. Is it an active decision to deviate from the norm? How do you figure out a style that works for you?

If I have a personal “style”, it’s “flow”. I want the episode to flow from scene to scene seamlessly, and within a scene the editing shouldn’t be noticeable or shocking to the eye, unless it’s called for by the nature of the content. I want the visuals to breath and cut down on the claustrophobic feel that television sometimes has. The use of wide shots and quite often longer takes… is my way of forcing the audience into our environment. Cutting to close ups immediately takes the ride [in] a different direction and, in my opinion, is a very antiquated… style.

Although all the action scenes were excellent, the opening fight really stood out to me. What did you hope to achieve with that sequence in terms of storytelling? How did you approach designing and filming it?

As some know, our broadcast time for an episode is somewhere [around] 42 minutes. I try to design the action to not only service the characters and story, but fit… within the episode… If my memory serves, my director’s cut of the episode was about [six-and-a-half] minutes over broadcast time. Some directors find themselves in a position of being 10-15 minutes over the time allotted. Imagine having to go through the episode and drop several minutes of beautifully shot, painstaking designed minutes of action or dialogue. That is one of the hardest jobs for the editor and producers, cutting the episode to fit in the time slot and still keep the director’s vision, design, intent. I can tell you that the opening fight portion in the first episode of season 6 was actually cut in half from the originally shot/edited action for time purposes…

The main challenge while designing this sequence was finding an appropriate location. When I saw the old, abandoned ferry, I fell in love. What better place for an evil mastermind to launch his missile on Star City from? When I first read the script, another word in my visual Rolodex popped up: drone. The opening and closing shots in this scene had to be shot over water and with a drone operated camera. Fortunately, Vancouver is home to some of the most talented drone pilots in the world.

The visuals for Green Arrow’s entrance out of the water also came very clear to me on my first script-reading, although the script originally had him arriving by parachute. For some reason, I kept seeing a launch from the depths of the ocean up onto the deck. That and an opening hand-to-hand fight… were the first visuals I got to work designing, discussing with the creative team. The stunt department did a fabulous job of bringing these ideas to life for us with countless discussions, surveys, and rehearsal time. I’m very proud of the end result and happy you enjoyed it all.

On a less technical level, what is your favorite moment from the episode? It can be something you enjoyed filming or something you think turned out really well in the finished product.

I really love Green Arrow’s entrance in the opening scene, along with the bridge sequence battling Black Siren and saving Wild Dog. A lot of time and lack of sleep went into those chunks of action. In addition, the character moments throughout the episode were a lot of fun to play with, as we follow each individual’s path picking up from where we left them in season 5. Discovering new strengths and weaknesses on all accounts sets up the rest of the season in a big way.

Lastly, on a different note, I’m sure you know about the recent deadly shooting in Las Vegas. In light of what’s going on in the real world, do you have concerns about the effects of onscreen violence? What steps can filmmakers take to avoid glorifying violence?

At its core, [Arrow is] a crime-fighting drama with a flair for the romantic and comic book visuals. With the lack of meta-humans to battle, our heroes [and] villains quite often carry firearms, with the exception of the League of Assassins who were more traditionally dated with swords, arrows, knives. Our lead character carries a projectile weapon as his tool of choice. We have other characters who are also armed within our mythology. To suddenly strip the characters of all these tools would not make sense…

Our heroes [must] overcome some form of jeopardy to appear heroic. The levels of jeopardy must rise each season with new stakes at hand, or our characters remain where they were the previous season. We’ve established a visual level of action on our show that the audience has come to expect and enjoy. We have fans who watch the show purely for the action, for the relationships, for the romance, for the abs… In the end, it’s a television show, and it’s meant to be enjoyed.

I’ve been watching television and films since I was born. I’ve always appreciated a well-crafted action sequence, no matter what the genre. If firearms make sense within the context of telling the story, then they belong in the story. There are different levels of graphic visuals allotted for different time slots or theatrical ratings. Parents should be monitoring what is acceptable for their children to view at all times. Children, teenagers, and adults should be taught the ability to discern between a television show and real life, between dramatic visuals, and their environment around them.

Should a TV show/film be aware and sensitive to what is displayed on the screen? Of course. Being socially responsible is important. Being actively creative and having the ability to tell a story in the manner the creator of the story intended is also important. Being aware of the issues within the community is very important to [telling] stories from a place of educated outlook. If the storyteller determines the story requires any given element to further tell the story, that’s the storyteller’s prerogative. Without creative freedom, every show would be an assembly line-produced batch of generic, wishy-washy content without heart.

I’m not a political activist in any way, shape, or form. I do have my own personal opinions on the world, however, outside of my job. I am a father, a husband, a friend, and a human being… What has occurred in Las Vegas and many cities… is horrible and needs to be addressed politically within communities.

I’ve never owned a gun nor felt the need to, although I have many mature, responsible friends who do. If I did feel the need to purchase and keep a firearm, I would expect an extensive screening process… If certain criteria aren’t met, then, no firearms should be distributed, period. Although every human on this planet has rights, they don’t have the right to shoot and murder innocent people.

Arrow airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. EST on The CW.

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