Dynamic camera work in action scenes

[dkmech]

Have you watched The Bourne Supremacy? Did you feel that the car chase and the fighting scenes were spoiled by far to frequent changes in camera angle? Do you yearn for sequences where you can actually see whats happening and admire the stuntwork and the choreography? I do.

Sometimes it just feels that the directors are obsessed with movie making techniques and tricks. Sometimes that hides inadequacies inaction, but sometimes its just there to be "more dynamic". If they had some nice continuous action shots instead of the silly jumpy camera it would be much more satisfying.

Other thing that comes to mind is 2 fast 2 furious:

"Hand changing gear - foot stomping accelerator - shot of the speedo- car turning- shot from rear bumper- shot from wheelarch - drivers face full of concentration - foot stomping accelerator (didn't we see that before? why did he left off in the first place, its not like he should be pedalling, is it, he's still on the same straight) - hand turning wheel - shot of wheel" - do we really need to see ALL of that in 2 seconds?

Think of Bullit, think of Duel, think of Ronin - they had nice action sequences with a reasonable variety of shots, but without having 25 different shots in one second.

Does anyone else agree?

[Zak33]

normally I'd agree....but for Bourne Supremacy.

Its the first time I really ENJOYED the fast camera action....the fight scenes were also to my taste with quick panning, and motion/action cuts.

HOWEVER....you MUST SIT AT THE BACK.......the very back, of the Cinema to grasp it.

Will be very good on a TV because your eyes will grasp it in one snap shot instead of covering so much area.

So...while I agree with you on almost everything you EVER post here (cos you're one of the good guys) I gotta say....

OIH....DKMECH....NOOOOOOOOOO

[dkmech]

Well, we weren't sitting at the back. And i think another issue which influences this is 25fps cinemas. The claim that human eye can only distinguish 25fps is bollox. Many a time (especially on rotating shots facing outwards) do i feel that another 25 fps would've been handy. So when we get flickering from half a second action shots and the 25fps i get annoyed. I am not saying that dynamic camerawork is bad - i am saying it is being taken too far. In fact. If you remembered matrix - what a change did it make to see things in slow motion Yes it requires a certain style of movie for slow mo but that doesn't mean you have to assume viewers have 1 second attention span and need to be constantly kept awake by camera changes. I can forgive the fight (with the last surviving agent) but the car chase was spoiled for me, even though i had some extra enjoyment from seeing Bourne race around in a Volga and all the other russian cars

By the way, my mates gave me The Bourne Ultimatum book for my birthday today