Is it the story or the camera tricks behind an action movie thrills you or a horror movie horrifies you?
If you watch a fighting scene or a chasing scene in a movie, some times you may find out that the camera man struggles a lot to chase the fighting subjects or struggling to find a perfect place for the camera to be placed and shoot the scene or the camera shakes a lot making it difficult to understand what is really happening and make us imagine that some thing really great is happening. The action scene will be a composed of so many tiny shots of length of a fraction of a second from different angles. But the movie ‘Matrix’ has done a good job in this respect. The fighting scenes are composed perfectly. It is not just the fast sequence of narrow angled shots of minute lengths that add to the excitement of the shot, but the real action; even though there may be a lot of camera tricks behind the scene. The action should thrill you, not the difficulty in shooting such a scene.
Let us take the case of a breath taking horror movie. The usual trick is that a horrified man or women walking through a dark location alone, and the camera angle gets narrower, so that the only subject we can see on the screen is the man or women, and some things suddenly appears on the scene, like an ugly horrifying face or hand that attacks the subject. The camera technique makes us believe that even the subject also has a limited viewing angle. The usual thump rules are like, the scene will be always dark (so that strange horrifying things can be created suddenly from nowhere), the angle covered by the camera will be very narrow, and so that what ever comes into the frame will be something suddenly created from nowhere, the subject does the exact opposite thing that we would do if we were the subject, which gives the horrifying matters or strange creatures more chance to horrify the subject.
The fact is that it is very difficult to make a perfect horror scene without the help of the darkness, narrow angle etc. Same is the case with an action scene; it is very difficult to make a fighting scene or a bomb blast scene or a chasing scene at a wide angle camera shot where everything is clear and perfect.
My definition of a perfect action scene shot is that the one who watches the movie should never get a feeling that the camera man is involved in the scene struggling to shoot the scene. A horror movie should be able to horrify you without the cheap tricks of darkness and lack of visibility and narrow viewing angle.
If you watch a fighting scene or a chasing scene in a movie, some times you may find out that the camera man struggles a lot to chase the fighting subjects or struggling to find a perfect place for the camera to be placed and shoot the scene or the camera shakes a lot making it difficult to understand what is really happening and make us imagine that some thing really great is happening. The action scene will be a composed of so many tiny shots of length of a fraction of a second from different angles. But the movie ‘Matrix’ has done a good job in this respect. The fighting scenes are composed perfectly. It is not just the fast sequence of narrow angled shots of minute lengths that add to the excitement of the shot, but the real action; even though there may be a lot of camera tricks behind the scene. The action should thrill you, not the difficulty in shooting such a scene.
Let us take the case of a breath taking horror movie. The usual trick is that a horrified man or women walking through a dark location alone, and the camera angle gets narrower, so that the only subject we can see on the screen is the man or women, and some things suddenly appears on the scene, like an ugly horrifying face or hand that attacks the subject. The camera technique makes us believe that even the subject also has a limited viewing angle. The usual thump rules are like, the scene will be always dark (so that strange horrifying things can be created suddenly from nowhere), the angle covered by the camera will be very narrow, and so that what ever comes into the frame will be something suddenly created from nowhere, the subject does the exact opposite thing that we would do if we were the subject, which gives the horrifying matters or strange creatures more chance to horrify the subject.
The fact is that it is very difficult to make a perfect horror scene without the help of the darkness, narrow angle etc. Same is the case with an action scene; it is very difficult to make a fighting scene or a bomb blast scene or a chasing scene at a wide angle camera shot where everything is clear and perfect.
My definition of a perfect action scene shot is that the one who watches the movie should never get a feeling that the camera man is involved in the scene struggling to shoot the scene. A horror movie should be able to horrify you without the cheap tricks of darkness and lack of visibility and narrow viewing angle.
it seems u r taking up some training in one of those drama schools! r u ? :)
ReplyDeleteplanning to get into that field? nice post..
in my schooldays i used to watch the ZEE HORROR show it was amazing afterwards i used to scare my brother so much that he used to cry.. i had such fun, now my bro is all grown up and much stronger than me that he punches & twist my hand and says that he is taking revenge for those dreadful days.. anyways its fun to fight with my bro, i think i will never grow out of that.. oops i started somewhere and ended somewhere .. keep posting yaar!
My life is a movie being produced and director by God.
ReplyDeleteI love movies.
They are thrilling.
"SpiderMan 2" was exciting and thrilling.
"Saving Private Ryan", "The Man Who Cried" and so many other thrilling movies make my day anytime I watch them.
Very well written, but I feel the comparison between an action sequence and a horror sequence does not do justice to both of them.
ReplyDeleteBoth are done keeping different things in mind, like the faster the action sequence more thrilling it turns out to be. Whereas slower the horror sequence and longer you are able to keep the audiences glued to their seats with their nails in their mouth, the better it is.
But yes, I agree with you regarding the camera angles & movements. More fluid the camera movement, more enjoyable the movie is.