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VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION – How to do rifle or submachine gun to pistol transition drills technique: two of two for film and TV. That’s what we’ll answer in today’s video. Hi, my name is Dillon Wilson with CBT Stun Alliance. Train hard, perform easy. We help actors, stunt performers, filmmakers and content creators on professional stunt training for use in film TV and live action performances.
Learn more about Dillon Wilson: https://cbtstunts.com/about-us/
Blog Posts mentioned in the video:
5 Dangers Of REAL Firearms Training vs MOVIE Gun Training | Disturbing Video & Death Statistics
See How To Buy A Movie Prop Rifle Cheap!
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Before we get underway, if you’d like to add movie rifle carbine and shotgun training to your current actor or stunt performance skill set, check out our highly popular online master course at www.MovieRifleTraining.com , or click on the link below this video. You can learn all the movie set gun safety basics, how to properly hold and fire a carbine or rifle, how to present and and uh and shoot a carbine and rifle on all types of tactical movements, all types of amazing reloads transitions, even how to do scene work with rifles and carbines and more. All taught by Pro armor for the film and TV industry. You can sign up now and start training now. Go to movie rifletraining.com for more information. OK, so we get a lot of questions about tactical movie gun training for film and television, so we’re going to share a few tips with you.
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Okay so why use a rifle to Pistol transition drill for film and TV? Well for two reasons, one high production value, it definitely boosts production value for any type of movie gun choreography and two is that it is great for character development. The audience definitely believes your character when you can actually execute these techniques properly. Watch this clip from the movie Bad Boys for life to see this in action.
Now, I’m actually an experienced Stunt coordinator in armor for film and TV turned full-time director. This is something I plan to do from the beginning of my career. Even attending and graduating films, collection director. Along my journey, I noticed that being a stunt coordinator and armor made me a better director, and being a director, made me a better stunt coordinator armor. Now, how this benefits you is that I can share with you insights and experience from both sides of the camera as well through all phases of production.
Okay so before we begin movie gun training, we always do a safety briefing. This is different than the one that we do on set since you’re at home and we’re not actually issuing any prop guns to you yet with us safety there’s always paramount.
This will serve as your safety briefing. Again, it’s different than the ones that we do on set since we’re not issuing you with any movie gaps yet, since we wish to instill safe practices into you, we modified it for your benefit. So pick up your movie prompt gun, keep your finger off the trigger make sure it’s on safe as well as unloaded. So finger here and frame unloaded, same with this one finger here, unload it and it’s unsafe. Now, as a reminder, never do any movie gun training with real Firearms, do not do dry fire, make sure you invest in a good movie prop. If you need to find one, watch our video on how to get a movie prop gun for cheap, the link is below this vide. We’re going to cover some prop gun safety rules that you can use at home. These are different from gun safety rules that you use on a live high range, you can learn more about the differences with our highly popular video real firearms training versus movie gun training. The link to it is below this video. So I wish for you to memorize the acronym DAIFU or DIFU. The DI stands for Direction. So we always want you, always want to point the movie gun in a safe Direction and never point it at another person, even if it’s a you know airsoft or something like that, doesn’t matter.
Carbine / Rifle to pistol transition drills for movies and tv Tip 1:
You always, you always train the same way. So there are two directions that are, you are clear to point the firearm in. One is straight down into the ground, so if you’re up standing around, you’re between scenes or something, you can take the pistol or the carbine and just let it hang by your side and point straight down to the ground, that’s a safe Direction. The second direction is whatever the armor determines to be downrange which is safe and for you, that’ll be a wall, so you choose a wall in your house or your apartment, make sure it is not a place that’s highly traffic where people can walk in front of you or something, it could even be aiming inside of a closet, right so whatever whatever place is good for you, for me it’s going to be a 180 degree Arc from this wall, all the way out to a camera to this wall. I won’t be pointing back that way because sometimes, I’ll have to show you like this and then sometimes, I’ll show you like this, so then this degree Arc is my is downrange for me, yet I won’t point it back that way and this is how you have to be, so you always are aware of where you’re pointing, your movie product.
The F is you always keep your finger off the trigger and you want to keep it on the frame of any movie prop gun that you’re carrying. Keep it, oh wait don’t put it here, some people put it here in a trigger guard or something like that, no. Keep it on the frame until the armorer tells you or shows you otherwise. The U stands for unloaded. So keep it unloaded. You can always check and make sure it’s unloaded. Once again, until the armor tells or shows you otherwise, okay, this concludes our safety briefing. Now you’ve done that, go ahead and insert one magazine into your movie prop gun and listen to the instructions given by the armor.
Submachinegun Movie Gun Training Academy, class & course TIP 2
So in this video, we’re going to share with you how to do a unique type of pistol transition where you’re going to transition from a machine pistol, where some refer to as a submachine gun without a sling to a pistol. Now in this scenario, the machine pistol or SMG is your primary weapon and the pistol will be your secondary weapon. The one we’re going to show you is actually quite simple, easy to learn and practice unique and actually very cinematic. So the first thing we’re going to do is, is stage everything properly. So since this is going to be without a sling, we’re going to take the sling off because this one, there’s no sling right, now the key thing to know is that whatever hand you wish to draw the pistol with, you need to be firing the machine pistol with the opposite hand.
So in other words, if I wish to fire the pistol with my right hand, draw the pistol and shoot it. When I do the transition, then I can’t shoot with my right hand with the machine pistol, I need to shoot with my left hand with machine pistol. That’s the key thing, so if the pistol is going to go here, I’m going to start firing here and so initially, I’m going to do that, I’m going to draw with the the uh the right hand, so what that means is that I’m going to stage the pistol now and I’m going to stage it at my hip. It can be in any position that you want, it could be the hip, the appendix, it could be in a holster, an external holster, it’s entirely up to you, whatever the character calls for. Just make sure you practice it, could even be a concealed carry draw. It’s an additional step in reeling the pistol, just whatever way you’re going to do it, just makes sure you practice until you’re smooth.
Submachinegun Movie Gun Training Academy, class & course TIP 3
So now, the pistol is staged here, you know at my at my right hip and so what we’re going to do is we’re going to fire now and what we’re going to do is we’re going to fire three times with the machine pistol and then we’re going to transition to the to the pistol itself. So I’ll do this slowly, bring it up here, my finger is straight until I’m ready to fire, once I’m here bang bang click at this point, my finger is going to leave the trigger and go to the frame. I’m going to rotate the machine pistol and look at the ejection Port. Alright and I’m going to look to see what’s going on there, we’re just going to say for whatever reason, it’s nothing that we can clear, so we’re going to transition, so that’s the first step bang bang click where here, we look, do that at this point is what we’re going to do, the left hand with the machine pistol is just going to be just like this, that’s it. See, that so it’s going to go from here to here to here. Once again, from here to here to here, that’s it, that’s all left hand does.
So if you practice that motion bang bang click now, so you saw what what happened with the left hand, so at this point, once we’re here and we go to check, we check and we see the time to do the transition, this the right hand, goes down instantly to secure the pistol while simultaneously, the left hand goes to that that third and final position. So right from here, we go right in and we have the pistol and now we draw the pistol and come right out and fire and this is a one-handed shooting, uh grip. If you don’t know how to do this watch our previous video we showed you how to do, how to shoot a pistol or revolver with one hand. It’s the same exact thing, so when you finish, you’re here firing Bang Bang and that’s what we do, now if you notice the machine pistol is still right here, it’s still right here, while we’re firing, when we get into the production tips later on, you’ll understand some of the benefits of this bang bang bang. So we’re going to go ahead and restage everything now and run through the game. Again it’s pretty simple, once you once you do it and you can you can also do this with a carbine or rifle, you know, we just say a machine pistol, it just needs to be a carbine, so if you have a carbine, a rifle, instead it’s totally fine. So let’s do it again, machine pistol the pistol transition bang bang click, bang bang bang. Once again and we’ll maybe do it by uh by steps, maybe make it a little bit simpler for you, ready so we’re gonna fire bang bang click, check it time to do the transition draw, bang bang. here we go. now I’ll do that one more time on the right side.
Submachinegun Movie Gun Training Academy, class & course TIP 4
Everything we do on one side, we always do on the other, so we make sure that all of our skills are ambidextrous one because it makes you more desirable, you know. It has a a performer actor two if you’re doing um if you’re on set sometimes, the DP, the way it works out, it doesn’t work that way in the right, hey you’re doing your left hand side especially for some performers. If if they ask you to do that and you can it looks really bad on you because this is your thing you’re supposed to be you know you’re supposed to be able to do this stuff, so the other thing is the third thing is if you’re stunt doubling the actor you’re stun doubling may be left-handed and you want to be just as good and smooth on your left as you are on your right and I’ve actually, it’s down coordinated and directed stunt performers, who were going to only really practice on one side and we had to do on the left side and you could tell it was a qualitative difference between the two. You don’t want that happening to you, so make sure you practice on both sides, so do one more time on this side and then we’ll do it on the left. So machine pistol, the pistol transition bang bang click, bang bang bang very simple.
Now we’re going to go ahead and stage it on the other side, so if you’re if you are performing most of the scene and you’re shooting, you know you’re going to be shooting because maybe you’re more comfortable shooting from the right shoulder, you know and you’re shooting like this, with the right hand, then notice stage the pistol on your left hip, that’s the only difference which means you got to know how to shoot with the pistol on your left hip and don’t have to do that, that one-handed draw, uh with your uh you know from the left hip. So we’re gonna do the same thing, give it to you from this angle, bang bang click. Now from here, you don’t do this right, there’s no ejection port, there this is the ejection port, ejection port is where the, the spent casings fly out of. So that’s what you’re looking, you’re seeing if there’s something something going uh wrong in there or it could be you know, that you’re just out of rounds yeah that’s what you do. Now this part, depending on the production, the armorer and stone coordinator director may tell you to get rid of this part, to loot to just take it from here and go bang bang click and just go right into the transition because they may not want all this bang bang click and then into that right, you train the proper way because if you do it quickly enough, it’s not going to be noticeable, if you’re doing it, you’re practicing all slow then they’re going to want you to get rid of it.
Heat Movie Gun Training Tip 5:
Yet the more that you stay to the combat way, the combat effective way, the more you’re going to stand out, so just remember when you’re here, bang bang click, you’re turning it here now so that you can look into that ejection Port area and then at this point, this hand goes down secure a new pistol, the right hand now uh secures the machine pistol here and you fire again with the one-handed grip, bang bang bang. Do that one more time, he knows it’s different when you have a sling, you know, a sling, you can you know, there’s another transition we showed, another video where you actually have the sling and the car, the rifle or carbine hangs from your neck, you just kind of take it down and now you can fire with two hands on the pistol because the sling is actually keeping the the rifle carbine or machine pistol close to your body.
Yet if you never train, you know without a sling, then you’re going to be lost on what to do. Alright, so last time, we’ll give it to you from this angle, from uh from this uh perspective. So we’re here, bang bang click, bang bang bang. Alight, that’s those are all the components on how to do machine pistol to uh machine pistol with no sling to Pistol transition. Now we show one here that there are five uh transitions in the master course, two of which are designed specifically for you to be able to walk with it and also to be able to run with it. To get those John Wood Proud Mary type moments, you know, in film and TV, broken down step by step to make it easy for you to understand. Lastly we’ll finish up by sharing some tips for character development film and TV production recommendations and more. Yeah before we do, check this out.
So well worth the investment if you’re serious about adding rifle carbine and shotgun movie gun training to your current acting or stunt performance skill set. And I understand that most other performers and actors don’t invest in movie gun training, a small percentage invest in real gun tactical training and learn the most basic of skills, also local movie gun training classes are very rare and virtually, never teach this type of stuff. They focus more on you, walking around, looking tactical and none of the other skills, so you’ll have a significant Advantage when auditioning and Performing. Now we’ll finish up by sharing some tips for character development, film and TV production recommendations and more.
Heat Movie Gun Training Tip 7:
Okay, a few helpful tips. Now, one of the great things about this, not from a combat perspective, it would suck in combat to actually have to carry, you know, a heavy behind machine pistol or submachine gun and not have the additional benefit of having a support hand firing from a pistol that sucks, yep, from a film and TV perspective. What it does is it doubles your production value at least from the prop perspective because usually, you know, for each character or act or something, there’s only one firearm, right yeah, with this one, there’s two firearms in the same shot and it’s not something that audiences are used to seeing, they’re not used to seeing two firearms in the same shot, they’re used to seeing if anything just the same person carrying the same type uh firearm and some of the the more the movies where people are more tactically trained, they may have transitions like you saw earlier in this in the earlier video clip, in this in this video. Yet that’s not the norm, so something like this, you know, instantly stands out and it becomes an iconic moment. It could be something to see, if they’ve been using the marketing, they might use a clip of you doing this in the movie trailer.
I’ve had stuff like that happen where directors like a piece of what I did, I wasn’t even the movie for that long and they did they like something that I did and that made the movie trailer, it premiered in one of the, I think like Regal Theaters. I was amazed. So you never know where something like this uh can actually turn up, also this type of movement or technique you’re gonna get better coverage. I’m not able to do this easily with this camera. you know, doing um medium shots medium close-ups and close-ups. So whenever you’re able to do this, just know they’re going to get closer coverage of you because of those reasons that they they have two uh movie prop guns in the shot at the same time, so if you’re here and then if you’re at the low ready or something, they’re going to get that Medium shot of you, you know.
Even if you’re here, you know, you’re you’re by a wall or something you know, buy a pillar, let’s say I have a pillar to my back and I’m I’m you know by a wall, I’m here. Now I’ve got you know a uh a firearm in each hand, I’m looking you see, there’s all types of cinematic opportunities. Now that take place because of this type of transition, if you had the type where you have it on the sling, it’s hanging down here, it’s not the same, you know. It’s a different cinematically, totally different. Yet when this is up here, you’re here, you’re here you’re here, you’re the low ready, it just looks completely a lot more badass and tactical you know, with that with that type of movement, so they’re going to get more coverage of you the whole point when you can do stuff like this.
Carbine / Rifle to pistol transition drills for movies and tv Tip 8:
The last tip is always practice, you know, with your camera phone. Always record yourself, we call this in our Master course making sure or ensuring that you’re always camera ready you need to see what the camera sees, the camera doesn’t lie. If it looks crappy on your camera phone, it’s a little crappy on the DP’s camera regardless of what type of camera they’re using. If it looks pretty darn cool on your camera phone, it’s gonna look pretty darn cool in the DP’s camera too. So whenever you’re practicing, the mirror is good too, there’s nothing like video because the video you can actually look you know, see a lot more when you can review it as opposed to when you’re watching in real time as you’re doing it. So what we’re going to finish up with is I’m going to do like a little turn and we wish for you to look and see the Cinematic angles and the things that actually look good.
So if you’re a content creator, you know what to shoot, if you’re an actor or stunt performer, you know what t,o how to put stuff together for your reel and also how to do things uh to generate what we call Golden cinematic moments. So I will just do it, just when the pistol is already out we’ve already done the transition, I’m just going to do a 360 degree turn. So I’m in the low ready right now, I’ll just do 360, and you’ll see there’s going to be certain moments that just looks cinematic even like here, maybe even leaning it out a bit more, right, so you know if you’re here and you’re searching, without this, if I’m just doing the low ready doesn’t look quite the same and if I’m here doing a low ready, it just looks totally a lot more badass. Now if I’m here at this position, and I’m at saying I’m at muzzle depressed. Thank you, alright or even something like this right, this is how you, you get a feel for what’s cinematic, you know.
When you’re working with different movie prop guns is just experimenting with this as an actor and stop performing, you want to know this because the DPS most DPS you work with, don’t know how to shoot action, not to do the directors, you’re not going to know this stuff the the a professionally trained armorer should know this stuff is one of the reasons why they hire armors, because uh because they know these type of things that if you already know it and you’re naturally doing it the armor, is going to recognize it in you and you’re going to become quickly become their favorite. Lastly, I just know that the tip that we’re sharing with you are the some of the exact conversations that professionally trained armors for the film and TV industry actually have with directors and producers.
This is how we help them determine the choreography for the for the action sequences, for the shots, how to determine the camera angles, what type of cameras you’re going to be using, what type of lenses they’re going to be using, what the lighting is going to be like, you know, what uh production design is going to do as far as how to lay out the room and the furniture in the room. All these things you know are part of those conversations uh that professional armors have with production.
Alright, so make sure you like this video and smash that subscribe button so you don’t miss out on future videos. Also, make sure to sign up for Pro Stunt tips email newsletter to receive movie gun training tips in your inbox. Lastly, if you’d like more information about our rifle carbine and shotgun movie gun training online master course, go to www.movierifletraining.com. Prepare to have your mind blown or click on the link below this video. Okay, my name is Dillon Wilson with CBT Stunt Alliance. Don’t miss our next video where we share with you another movie gun training tip. See you next video
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