"All the time he's boxing, he's thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him." - Jack Dempsey
As the sun was coming up, we positioned our talent into place for the first phase of the boxing workout we had envisioned several weeks earlier. The morning air was cool and fresh as our boxer began his ritual; breaking down the silence with a speed driven whir of the rope as it met with the rhythmic taps of his feet on gravel. It was a great scene and a nice way to start capturing both the stills and video we set out for.
After this initial idea we moved on to another scene based on shadow boxing. The talent demonstrated various moves and then as we starting rolling video, put them all together to form a seamless moment of classic combinations. The scene was reminiscent of a Rocky Balboa type character training for an upcoming title bout. All we needed was the the old grizzled trainer pushing him to the next level with gravelly words of encouragement.
Towards the end of our time with the boxer, we realized how fit he really was. There seemed to be an endless supply of energy and enthusiasm for whatever ideas we could throw at him. In conversation we found out his real daily workout consists of 3 hours of training each day to maintain his current level of fitness--now that's dedication.
