Dan Styles - Freestyle Action Design

Stunt & Fight Coordinator
Action Designer
Sword Master

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Dan is an experienced stunt coordinator, fight arranger, sword master and action designer. He has worked in these roles across film, television, theatre, mocap and live events on over 300 productions, as well as performing in many more. Dan specialises in fight choreography and coordination and has experience in wire work, burns and vehicles stunts, as well as the regular bumps, trips and falls of stunt work. Dan’s work as the stunt/fight coordinator on 'avengement', starring Scott Adkins, was highly praised and was nominated for a Taurus World Stunt Award for Best Fight.

The origins of Dan’s creative career come from a variety of sources in Dan’s early life. Dan has been playing at action for as long as he can remember. With early influences such as the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’, ‘Thunder Cats’ and ‘The A-Team’ Dan would recreate fight scenes and shootouts in the school playground. Little did he know he’d still be doing it in adulthood. He also had an interest in history, military history and combat and as a teenager he trained in fencing, reenactment fighting and was a member of the air cadets where he would learn to shoot guns, do military drill and maneuvers, and fly planes.

His formal understanding of choreography began when he was introduced to stage combat in high school. He choreographed his first fight scene at the age of 15 for a GCSE drama project. He then went on to study media at college where he was able to write, direct, edit and perform in many productions from commercials to music videos to short films – most of which would involve action if he could get away with it. He would also hire cameras for the weekend and shoot fight scenes and short films, with fellow students, in his own time. Initially choosing to pursue a career in acting, Dan started performing in theatre at 16. His interest in combat arts led him to learn more stage combat, boxing and Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) and firearms handling. Due to his early training, he excelled in these and was fortunate to be able to use them in a lot of his work as an actor in film, theatre and live events, many of which he would also choreograph. While working as an actor Dan continued to write and produce his own short films. He also spent many years as a director’s assistant and often got the opportunity to work with actors and direct scenes.

Dan can provide detailed script breakdown, budget and risk assessments for any production. As well as stunt pre-vis and action design from script level where required. Having worked with new technology and challenging locations or circumstances, Dan is accustomed to problem solving, creative troubleshooting and working with the rest of the creative team to come up with cost/time effective ideas to achieve the desired effects.

• Equity member
• £10 million public liability insurance
• ITV approved contractor
• Trained in health and safety and risk assessing
• First aid trained
• CRB checked