So cool!

eddy | January 08, 18:14 CET

LOVED this!! great find!

Randy_Giles | January 08, 18:14 CET

Wow. These are awesome.

Sunfire | January 08, 18:31 CET

These are fantastic! Loved seeing some of the actors too.

Raeven7 | January 08, 19:01 CET

What a nice surprise. There's such a small amount of behind-the-scenes material from Buffy. I love when things like this surface.

wasabiseventeen | January 08, 19:37 CET

Fantastic stuff - great find! Loved watching these. They did such fantastic work, especially on those big climactic scenes, like the Buffy/Faith fight in Graduation Day Pt. 1.

Knuckleball | January 08, 20:03 CET

Wow, these are incredible. I'm so pleased that they've been preserved all this time.

allthingsaverage | January 08, 21:24 CET

It's like watching alternate Earth episodes of Buffy.

Simon | January 08, 22:45 CET

Fantastic link.

gossi | January 08, 23:39 CET

Fantastic vids. And be sure to follow the links to see behind the scenes photos on the site of Sophia Crawford, Buffy's stunt double: http://www.sophiacrawford.com

will.bueche | January 09, 00:19 CET

Aw, the bear!

Caroline | January 09, 01:33 CET

The work of Jeff Pruitt and Sophia Crawford on Buffy is hands down the best I've seen on TV, and rivals many movies. The ferocity and intensity of the fight scenes were an integral part of Buffy from Season 2, and it was never the same after they left (were fired). Fool for Love aside there was nothing from S5 onwards that came close.

[ edited by bivith on 2013-01-09 10:42 ]

bivith | January 09, 01:41 CET

Ahhh, these are brilliant!!! Feels so nice to get new behind-the-scenes footage after all these years!

@bivith why were they fired? :(

Illy | January 09, 02:14 CET

If I recall correctly, Pruitt had some big issues with the way a dangerous stunt was done and how another stunt was shot and was very vocal about it. He then later posted a lengthy "parable" about his experience with Buffy to the Bronze Beta message board (not sure if this was before or after he was fired), which led to some public back-and-forth jabbing between him and Joss. It was ugly, from what I remember.

Others may have a better memory of the specifics.

Knuckleball | January 09, 03:32 CET

I see, thanks! It's a shame :/

Illy | January 09, 03:48 CET

Is it ok to post this for history's sake?

http://web.archive.org/web/20000619003429/http://www.mcs.net/~jcomroe/Knight.html

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer/jIAqP0884z0

If not, feel free to delete it mods.

eddy | January 09, 04:04 CET

Thanks for the links!

Illy | January 09, 04:32 CET

Wow! These are great. I love the Primeval scene where they just keep rolling down the dune, forever, it seems like!

Dana5140 | January 09, 04:41 CET

Ha wow, eddy. That "parable" is a trip. I wonder who the "General" was that he thinks manipulated and teamed up with the "fatherless spoiled Princess" (ouch).

It's sad because it sounds like he genuinely loved working with Joss and felt happy, but somewhere a screw was loose. Plus, he wants pity points for missing his mom's funeral to work. Kind of really strange. The videos are amazing though. Never knew they change the stunt coordinator after season 4, I retroactively do notice the difference!

narky | January 09, 11:24 CET

Season 5's The Gift was a fantastic episode. It was only missing great action. The fight up the tower felt slow and very "wait right there for me to swing and hit you." Watching Jeff's videos of Sophia were incredible because you got to see the action unedited. You can tell that her fighting style and speed were very influenced by her Hong Kong training.

Sucks that things didnt turn out for the better.

ChosenOne5376 | January 09, 11:59 CET

I guess that explains why Pruitt's footage didn't wind up in the DVD extras. Hopefully now bygones and bygones and his footage will wind up on the eventual BluRays.

will.bueche | January 09, 12:26 CET

I like to believe in my fanwanked theory that Buffy's fights are different post-season 4 since she started training with Giles again. I even think theres some dialogue at the beginning of season 5 that bscks this up.

Btw, Jeff is still uploading vids it seems. I subscribed.

[ edited by eddy on 2013-01-09 21:49 ]

eddy | January 09, 12:41 CET

I think there's some commentary early in Season 5 about Buffy's fighting style changing because she's embracing the Slayer role and learning to fight more instinctively using whatever is at hand. I've always liked the fights after that point more because they do feel different than earlier versions.

Sunfire | January 09, 13:26 CET

I just rewatched the dvd extra from the chosen collection, "Breaking Barriers", and you do see some of these clips in it.

Nico-Angel | January 09, 15:25 CET

Some of it is obviously behind-the-scenes (showing moves set up to look good at other angles) but sometimes it looks like a found footage horror movie where Buffy suddenly shows up.

Which would be awesome.

Craig Oxbrow | January 09, 17:03 CET

It's a real treat seeing new stuff like this after all these years. But the way Pruitt conducted himself on the Bronze boards was just... cringeworthy.

vampmogs | January 09, 19:00 CET

Wow, this is fantastic. Just watched the one for "Anne".

vegetaman | January 09, 20:35 CET

I remember very clearly watching Buffy vs Dracula, the first ep with the new stunt people, and thinking it was far better. Buffy jumping up at a vamp and flipping him over with her legs around the vamps neck and so on.

I also remember reading that parable and thinking it sounded a bit unlikely. In it, and in an interview, he claimed he told someone a stunt was set up wrong and was dangerous and asked for it to be changed but later when it was shot it hadn't been changed and Sophia was nearly hurt. He's the stunt guy, isn't it his job to check something like that had been changed? Do stunt coordinators ask someone else to change a potentially life threatening setup and then just forget about it and assume it would be done correctly?

He also claimed SMG ruled the set with an iron fist and would get people fired at the drop of a hat yet before he left he told a story of a new director who started explaining to SMG how they were going to shoot a dusting effect, something she'd done hundreds of times, and she just good naturedly went along with it, the two stories being somewhat contradictory.

I guess only the few people that were there at the time know the true story but things he said just didn't sound right to me.

zz9 | January 09, 22:50 CET

I don't know who was in the right or behaved badly, but I always thought how the fights were worse off after Pruitt and Crawford left. Honestly, I think I missed Crawford more than the stunt coordinator.

Buffy's fights after season four more acrobatic, but Crawford was so good at fighting with ferocity and specificity. Looking over her resume, the fact that she was trained in Hong Kong makes sense. She seemed to throw her whole body into every action and in my mind, that will always be how Buffy Summers fights. The Faith/Buffy fight in "Graduation Day, part 2" is still the most epic brawl of them all.

[ edited by dottikin on 2013-01-10 14:06 ]

dottikin | January 10, 04:19 CET