Three-Stage Fights

I recently saw an article on making fight scenes more interesting.

Part of it was simply making the environment more interesting.Is the fight in a warehouse? Don't just have an empty concrete floor; add a forklight, tall racks with heavy stuff, fire extinguishers, oil drums, a vat of cleaning fluid, and so forth. Stuff which can move, conceal, channel or slow movement, explode; or stuff which needs to be protected.

Part of it was the "Three Phase Fight"--phase two and three can switch:

• fighting against mooks
• reinforcements for the mooks--either more mooks, or better mooks, or a boss
• the twist--the curtains catch on fire, the balcony collapses, lava starts pouring out, the ship starts pulling away from the dock, something happens to change things.