Interview with ‘Fighting For A Living’ Director Tanja Ploner

Fighting For A Living is a short documentary screened at Fighting Spirit Film Festival 2022. The short documentary was directed by Austrian filmmaker Tanja Ploner from Innsbruck. She has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Media Technology with a focus on Film and TV. Ploner is currently studying Digital Media Production at the UAS St. Pölten.

Image Courtesy of Tanja Ploner

Fighting For A Living is not just about the dramatic jumps from rooftops, action-packed car chases, awesome fight choreography in a film. It’s about those who made it possible, the unsung heroes and heroines of the film business: the stunt performers. But even though hardly any action film can do without them, they receive little recognition, fame or honour for their daily work. What sounds like a cool adventure at first glance is actually the product of years of hard training, know-how, teamwork and trust in your own abilities. The documentary is about five filmmakers who want to know who these people are, who perform in front of the camera but never show their faces, what kind of jobs exist in the field of "stunts" and why people voluntarily set themselves on fire, drive cars into walls and throw themselves down stairs.

Describe yourself in three fictional characters.

Sometimes I can be a little bit like Bilbo in The Hobbit, not quite happy when someone is disrupting my life and telling me that I must go and fight a dragon. But most of the time, I still do it anyway in the end. But at other times, it feels more like I am Gandalf, telling people that they have waited enough now, that they must go out and do something and I try to guide them along. And sometimes I am just wondering about second breakfast.

What made you decide to go into film?

I have always loved to see how things were made. My family had to visit every backstage tour with me, and I remember watching all the available behind the scenes stuff of movies I have seen. I think it was after hours and hours of watching the bonus material of the Lord of the Rings that I knew: that is what I want to do as well. I found (and still do) it very fascinating how many people with different skills come together to work towards the same goal.

Can you talk us through your filmmaking journey and career?

After deciding at a young age that this is the path for me, I decided to go to school with a focus on media design and then to study media technology at the FH St. Pölten in Austria, where I choose the path of Audio/Video. And there I found other, film enthusiastic people and during my Bachelor’s Degree, as well as my Master's Degree in Digital Media Production, I was able to be a part of a lot of cool projects.

You specialise in production design and location scouting, what drew you to these two specialties?

I have always loved running around and exploring, so location scouting felt like a natural decision. Research is something I quite enjoy, but location scouting gives the opportunity to get away from the laptop, too. And since I have worked in creative, as well as organizational departments, I know that the perfect location must be perfect for both. As for production design, I think on the one hand it is the research part as well that I enjoy. On the other hand, it is just such a big part of how the movie will look at the end. You can be creative, but to be honest, what I like most is that sometimes on set, you just must be able to think quick and improvise. Use whatever you got and just fix the problem before the “Action”.

What is your favourite location that you’ve ever found?

Image Courtesy of Tanja Ploner

It was 2020 and one could already see the second lockdown coming, I was searching for a location for our final year project, a short film called Wiedersehen. It is set during World War Two, so I had to find an old and destroyed building. I spent weeks travelling all around the country, ask in every forum I could think of and visited location after location. Then, one day, I decided to just scroll through Google Maps, and something caught my eye. It was almost hidden under trees, but it looked like it could be perfect. I went there the next day and, indeed, it was an old farm that was half broken down. And the funniest part: It was just twenty minutes away from our university.

How did you choose the topic for your documentary?

The whole team wanted to do something film related and as I said, I was always interested in seeing how things are done. Together with most of the team having a martial arts background, it just made sense.

You’re a rider and a martial artist, how did that influence Fighting For A Living?

I think all of us know how much training one must put into even the smallest movements. We were also aware how being safe is always a priority. Maybe that allowed me to move on from the most obvious topic such as safety towards more of the training and mental strength part of the job.

How did you find the stunt performers for Fighting For A Living?

Austria is not a big country and we do not have an extensive film industry, nevertheless, we were able to find some stunt performer from Austria. We just searched online and then wrote them an email asking if they wanted to do an interview and they all did. They also all knew each other (of course) and I have the feeling that we actually got almost all the stunt performer/stunt companies of Austria represented.

How was your experience with the production of Fighting For A Living?

It was a great experience meeting other people from the film industry from Austria who are also working internationally. It also gave us the opportunity for a little bit of networking. Additionally, we had a bit of funding from the university, so we were able to drive to the locations which always felt a little like a road trip with friends.

What was the most difficult part of making Fighting For A Living?

We wanted to go to actual film sets together with the stunt performers, which we were all excited about. We already had planned to go to a movie set as well as a stage rehearsal for a play, but due to Covid, we got a last-minute negative reply. So, we had to rely mostly on the material of our interview stunt performers and snippets from movies. As we were shooting two documentaries with the same team at the same time (the second one being about service dogs) all while studying, it was difficult at times to coordinate the shooting time with our interview partners and the team.

Can you tell us about the locations for the interviews?

Image Courtesy of Tanja Ploner

As we were not able to be on location, I at least wanted to have cool locations for the interviews. We drove to Tom Hanslmaier as he knew a place where he could safely show us some things on his motorbike and we took one of the cameramen, Arnold Baur, on a little ride to get some POV Shots. Esther Schneider and Josef Schützenhofer from Shad Stunts were kind enough to come to the TV-Studio at our university where we prepared a little “Movie Set” for them to sit in. With Martin Enzi we rented a cinema to shoot the interview in. We could visit Cornelia Dworak in her training studio. With all of this, I tried to have the different areas of stunt represented: All the training that goes into it before, then on location and on sets all the way to the cinema in the end.

What did you learn about the stunt industry that you didn’t know before you started the documentary?

The biggest learning for me was that stunts do not have to be “big things”. Sometimes stunts are as small as twirling a coin between fingers. And how much mental training it requires. And that you must be confident enough to say “no”, even when everyone is looking at and waiting for you, if you have the feeling that it is not safe.

Can you tell us about the editing of the documentary?

All of interviews were more than an hour long, so the first step in the editing process for me was to select the parts I wanted to show. I put them together in the order that I wanted them to be in. Afterwards, our editor Maximilian Hebrank made a first version of the film, using mainly the interviews and adding a few of the behind-the-scenes clips of various film shoots, that our interview partners had graciously given to us. Then it went on to our second editor, Helene Sorger, who then searched for additional B-Roll footage that we could use and who finalised the editing, dialog editing and color correction. The whole editing process was heavily dominated by finding good B-Roll material. Because of Covid, we sadly could not attend any film shoots of our interview partners ourselves and were only able to shoot the interview scenes with them. So, to not end up with a "talking heads" scenario, we had to dig deep into the archives = the internet. This was a long process that dominated the whole post-production.

What was your favourite part about the final edit of Fighting For A Living?

We worked with a composer, Mario Dengler, and I think my favourite part about the final edit is how his music brought all the different elements of the documentary together. I still know that the ending got stuck in my head for quite some time.

Do you have any upcoming projects that you can tell us about?

I am currently producing two short films and a pilot episode with an all-female crew. All in all, over 60 women* are working on it. The first one, “Women’s Business” is at its festival round right now and it is a story about a diverse group of people who, at first glance, do not have much in common, but they are all confronted with the modern conflicts of being or being perceived as women, whose paths cross in the ladies' room of a club one evening, one way or another. The short movie touches upon topic such as gender identity, sexuality, civil courage, sexism, drug abuse and violence against women. As we got positive feedback, we developed a pilot episode “it’s my F*cking Story” out of the short film, focusing on the character of Sam. It is almost finished and is going to be pitched soon. The last short film “a few hundred million”, that deals with the topic of asthma, is in preproduction right now.

Image Courtesy of Tanja Ploner

Speed Round. Pick one film for each category.

What was the last film you watched?

To be honest, that is Rocketman, as this year, after buying the tickets in 2019, I am finally going to that Elton John concert.

What is your favourite film from 2022?

I quite enjoyed seeing Top Gun: Maverick in the cinema.

What is your favourite film by your favourite filmmaker?

One of my favourite movies by a really good filmmaker is War Horse by Steven Spielberg.

What is the next film you’re going to watch?

All Quiet on the Western Front is high up on my watchlist.

Which cinematic universe would you like to live in? (e.g. The Grand Budapest Hotel, XMen, MCU)

The MCU sounds good in theory, but I think there is just too much of a risk to live in there. Same goes for Game of Thrones. I would probably choose Jurassic Park, but before the dinosaurs started to get out. Just seeing them would be really nice, though.

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Image Courtesy of Tanja Ploner