Choreography & Stunts

Brian Sheridan has been choreographing fights and tossing himself around the room since high school, doing his first real work his sophomore year during a production of "The Fantasticks" in which he choreographed the first half of the fight scene that ends act I. It was a fun challenge for Brian and it garnered quite a bit of praise for him since it involved a one-on-three rapier fight and Brian had had no professional training in either fencing or in stage-combat as of yet.

He followed this up his junior year when he choreographed several stunts for the school production of "You Can't Take it With You." The flips and falls all gathered great reactions from the crowd and noone who worked with Brian was injured in any way.

His first real training in stage combat came his freshman year of college when he was selected as one of only two freshmen to participate in a stage combat class taught by senior Amanda Walker. Brian was partnered up with Jesse Kiehl and Jason Ridle for the final and they wowed students with a three-person fight that lasted a full five minutes and incorporated broadsword, quarterstaff, and empty-handed fights that never lost the audience's attention.

Brian got his first film choreography work in his own films, the FAT MAN and little boy trilogy which earned him an award for best fight choreography in 1999 and a nomination for best fight choreography in 2000.

After college Brian helped train actress Tiffany Sinclair and choreographed her fight demo-video. Sinclair had had previous training and was great to work with and her eagerness allowed Brian to teach her further sword work for the demo which wowed producer David Gwinn and earned her a role in his film Apocalypse. Later, when the film was in post-production, Brian was called upon again to choreograph and perform in the newly-added opening rape scene, working with actress Tara Walker. Tara's previous dance and movement work made her a quick study and he was able to train her and teach her the scene in a very short time.

Brian then got his biggest challenge when he was chosen to coordinate and choreograph all of the fights and stunts for the hit independent film Praey. Also acting in the film made it easier for him to work with the cast and crew, and he successfully trained actor Prawin Adikhari for his work in the film, and continued his training of Tiffany Sinclair for her own role in the film. Praey premiered at the 2005 New York International Independent Film Festival and is currently under contract for distribution through SRC Distribution. It has also been invited to show at the Wreck Beach Film Festival in Canada during the month of August and is garnering high accolades online!

Most recently Brian handled the stunt and fight choreography for One-Shot Productions' upcoming film Take-Away Spirit, which will mark the first professional martial-arts choreography work Brian has done yet and finished shooting in May, 2007. Brian also starred in Exile for Mike Conway and Midnight Sun Entertainment, performing all of his own stunts, and working with several of the actors to insure the highest level of safety and excitement in many of the action sequences.

On March 17, 2008, an auspicious St. Patrick's Day, Brian achieved a lifelong dream of earning his first Black Belt. He now ranks as a Shodan-Ho in Okinawan Shudokan Karate-do, training under Shihan Dave Libbert at the Walla Walla Karate Center. This tops off the long list of Brian's martial-arts skills and training; also of note is Brian's experience and training in Tokai Federation Aikido, Hung-Gar Kung-Fu, and Shito-Ryu Karate-do (under Shihan Robert Martin).