Richard Norton's Blog

Shooting a new Interactive game in Salt Lake City, Utah

admin — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 23:02:27 +0000

Working in Salt Lake City on a fantastic new Interactive game called ‘Tex Murphy- Project Fedora’. So good to be working with my dear old mate, Director Adrian Carr. I worked on an earlier version maybe 10 years ago and now my character, ‘Big Jim Slade’ is back to cause more hitman mayhem.

BJJ workout with JJ Machado

admin — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 03:17:30 +0000

Great class today with my coach, Professor Jean Jacques Machado. Grappled with him for 12 minutes and in that space of time I totally understood why I am still a student under him. Talk about being totally dominated. Man, I felt like a white belt again. You know the exciting part about it is though after 25 years under the Macgado’s? It made me realise how much more I can learn on this journey of discovery in this wonderful Martial Art. How good is that? You know, the best way to keep your ego in check is to only train with the very best. If ever I start getting a little cocky and feeling like I am getting pretty good at BJJ, all I need do is wrestle with one of the Machado Brothers and I am immediately reminded of the fact that I am indeed still a student. I love that because it again excites me as to how much more there is to learn in this intricate art.

Mr. Richard Norton talks about “Being a Black Belt” and dealing with “Fear”

admin — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:45:18 +0000

Richard Norton talks about “Integrity” in the martial arts world

admin — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:39:49 +0000

NKA Seminars-Adelaide

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 04:53:02 +0000

Just returned from a weekend of seminars in Adelaide at the NKA association dojos. Great numbers with 102 students on the floor for the Saturday followed by a select group of Professor Steve Miranda’s top Instructors on the Sunday.There were some reps from a few different styles which was also great to see. We covered stand up grappling drills, extensive work on the Black Belt Complexes and some Reality Based training for the street. I can’t tell you how enjoyable it was for me. Why? The respect, passion and hunger for knowledge the attendees showed was heart warming. Steve and Gregg Braum, who arranged the weekend, went out of their way to welcome me into their Karate family and I relish times like this when I can come away knowing I have just made some new friends and that we are all on the same page when it comes to a love of all things Martial Arts. I truly believe that if we can bury the ugly world of politics within styles and just simply spend time together emptying our cups and tasting each other’s tea, we can only get stronger as a Martial Arts community.
Thanks again Steve and Gregg for a great weekend.

Perth ‘Black Belt Complexes’ Seminar-Zen Do Kai

admin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 19:04:42 +0000

Complexes Seminar-Zen Do Kai. Perth, Australia

admin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:20:02 +0000

Complexes Seminar fro perth Zen Do Kai

admin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:19:08 +0000

This is an intro speech before my seminar on ‘Black belt Complexes’.

2011 Dragon Award Winner

admin — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:35:48 +0000

‘Magic Crystal’ Sai fight

admin — Sun, 16 May 2010 01:17:20 +0000

This is a clip from a Hong Kong movie called, ‘Magic Crystal’ that I did with my friend Cynthia Rothrock in 1986. It was also Andy Lau’s first movie after TV stardom. It’s funny, but the most vivid memory I have of this shoot is the fact that they only had one costume for me during this whole shoot which was done in the hottest set possible in Taiwan. I remember that every-time the ‘suit’ got saturated with sweat during the 18 hour shoot days, they had a young lady with an ironing board that would attempt to iron the clothes dry, and then off we would go again. I know, it’s a nice image, right? The Sai part of the fight was introduced at my suggestion after the Chinese coordinators surprise that I could effectively use this Okinawan weapon. Another funny memory, which I’m sure Cindy won’t want me to mention, is that due to the excessive contact the Hong Kong fight guys like, Cynthia was asked to wear a stunt pad under her shirt to protect her from my strikes with the metal Sai. Anyway, before shooting, Cindy comes up and asks me if I can be sure to aim for the pad and not her flesh. Anyway, I said, “So where is the pad”? She then proceeds to show me a ‘postage sized’ bit of foam about 1 inch by 1 inch under her shirt as she didn’t want the larger protective pad under her costume as it would make her “look fat”. I just said, after a good laugh, “Well, maybe I will, and maybe I won’t”. Too funny as Cynthia always looked great and could certainly never ever look overweight. As usual with the Hong Kong style of choreography, all the moves are decided as the fight progresses. The hard part of this kind of fight is the interaction of more than one fight opponent who attack almost continuously at the same time. I must say that the Hong Kong fight choreographers are masters of this type of action.
Another point of interest is that there is no ‘master’ of the fight worked out in Chinese movies before you begin, which is the way it is done in Western action films. Also, all the sequences are basically rehearsed ‘on camera’, which of course leads to sometimes 30 or 40 takes of a particular sequence of moves until we get them right. It’s incredibly exhausting. One good part about this style of shooting is that the fight Director is never locked in to a ‘master’ of the fight, which means he can take the fight in any direction or length depending on how it looks as the sequence goes on.
This of course is also the way all of Jackie Chan’s fight scenes are shot. It allows the progression of the action to be very spontaneous. I do really like the way this fight turned out though. Of course the choreograhy is of a particular style suited to affectionardos of this style of action film. Andy Lau went on to become a major movie star in Asia and Europe after this movie. Oh, you have to love the ‘space ship’ we are fighting around and the ridiculous little ‘alien’ sitting in the ‘spacecraft. Too funny! By the way, to make matters even funnier, My character was a Russian KGB boss named ‘Boris’. Hence the lovely suit. I was supposed to be a master of every Kung Fu style. Hey, it wasn’t my idea as my background is in the Japanese systems, so my apologies to you Chinese stylists for my technique. As usual, we just try to do the best we can as the character we are hired to play.One more point about this kind of action movie is that the Hong Kong film makers were well aware that the audiences for these movies were almost solely interested in the fight scenes and not elaborately shot ‘talking’ or drama scenes. Hence, all the time and attention to the shooting of the action scenes.
The young kid in the movie was adorable, but I must say I felt so sorry for him at times as he was also on set for ridiculously long hours and was always having to be nudged during scenes to keep the poor little fella awake . As always it was great to be working with my dear friend Cynthia. This was one of our earlier collaborations and we went on to make around nine movies together. A cute footnote is that after a certain amount of roles together, an English Martial Arts magazine called us ‘The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of martial Arts movies. Pretty cool I thought.
Anyway, please enjoy for the simple fun of it.