Most films aren’t necessarily interested in depicting violence honestly. If they did, most fights would be over after the first punch, and then we wouldn’t have movies like The Raid: Redemption, The Raid 2, and well, every other action movie that isn’t part of The Raid franchise.
Other times, the authenticity of violence is part and parcel of a film’s raison d’etre, as is the case of Fight Club. As this new video from Film Radar shows, the tried-and-true sounds of socking wouldn’t play out in a movie that aims to depict the real damage fists can cause.
Fight Club | The Beauty of Sound Design from Film Radar on Vimeo.
By talking to Fight Club sound designers Ren Klyce and Richard Hymns, Film Radar gets a glimpse into the tools the duo used to create the wet, crunchy thwocks of the film’s fight scenes, and, well, they’re not pretty. Basically, a sham-wrapped celery is what’s typically used to create a punch sound, but the duo took it further by socking a raw chicken carcass filled with goddamned walnuts. And that wasn’t all: In a move that highlights just how serious these guys take their job, they apparently ended up punching themselves in the chest in order to get the sound just right. Tyler Durden had a real pull on people back then.
The result speaks for itself, as Fight Club has since become a cult classic for being one of the few films to show fights that produce as much revulsion as they do wonder.
You’re up, Bad Foley.