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Katana work for film. Proper draw, strike, and resheath. We use bokken (wooden swords) first, then move to iaito (blunt steel). I'll teach you the difference between real kenjutsu and what looks good on camera. Kurosawa insisted on realism -- the audience can feel a fake swing. Tip: Speed comes from relaxation, not tension.

Toshiro Mifune

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Two red oak bokken -- standard katana length. These are the training weapons I used before every Kurosawa film. They teach you distance, timing, and respect for the blade. Tip: If you're gripping too tight, you're already losing.

Toshiro Mifune

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I teach directing the way I learned painting -- through composition. Where is the eye drawn? What is the relationship between foreground and background? We use storyboards, not shot lists. Every frame should be a painting that moves. Tip: Use multiple cameras. Actors perform differently when they don't know which camera is live.

Akira Kurosawa

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I'll teach you to terrify an audience without showing them anything. We study the shower scene in Psycho (70 cuts, no knife-on-skin contact), the crop duster in North by Northwest (silence is scarier than music), and the dinner party in Rope (one continuous take). Tip: Always give the audience more information than the characters have. That's where suspense lives.

Alfred Hitchcock

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Cards, prompts, and exercises for creating compelling plot devices. The MacGuffin is the thing the characters care about but the audience doesn't -- it's the excuse for the story, not the story itself. The Maltese Falcon is a MacGuffin. The uranium in Notorious is a MacGuffin. The real story is always about people.

Alfred Hitchcock

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I was a Look Magazine photographer before I was a filmmaker. Still photography teaches you composition in ways no film school can. One frame. One moment. No second chances. We shoot on the street with 35mm cameras. Tip: The subject is never the subject. The LIGHT on the subject is the subject.

Stanley Kubrick

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I played chess in Washington Square Park for money as a teenager. It taught me to think five moves ahead -- which is exactly what directing is. We play and I teach you to see patterns. Tip: In chess and filmmaking, the opening determines everything. Control the center early.

Stanley Kubrick

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I started on Broadway and moved to Hollywood. The transition destroys most actors -- they're either too big for camera or too small for stage. I teach you to calibrate. Same truth, different volume. Tip: On stage, your eyes reach the back row. On camera, your thoughts do.

Katharine Hepburn

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Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story are screwball comedies -- the man and woman are EQUALS in wit, speed, and stubbornness. I teach rapid-fire dialogue, physical comedy with dignity, and how to win an argument on screen while making the audience love both sides.

Katharine Hepburn

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I swam in the Long Island Sound every morning, year-round, into my nineties. Cold water wakes up everything -- your body, your mind, your courage. I'll teach you to breathe, to enter the water without flinching, and to find the joy in discomfort. Tip: The first thirty seconds are terrible. After that, you're alive.

Katharine Hepburn

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I teach you to hold a close-up. Most actors blink, shift, fidget. Stop. Be STILL. Let the camera come to your eyes and STAY there. We do exercises in sustained intensity -- thirty seconds of pure emotion without a word. Tip: If you can't hold a close-up for ten seconds, you're not ready for film.

Bette Davis

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Professional-grade heavy bag and speed bag mounted on a steel frame. The heavy bag teaches power. The speed bag teaches timing. Use both. I hit these every morning before sunrise and have since 1962.

Chuck Norris

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