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[_Rob_]

Here's the behind the scenes of Black Widow:

Here's the final result of Black Widow:

See this is what I don't understand, I imagine with Liam Neeson it's because he's getting on a bit and couldn't make the jump himself. However with the scene above they clearly did it in one shot, and it looks way better, so why the hell would they make such a horrible artistic choice!??

 

[How About No]

Never thought I'd see Supernatural praised for its cinematography

Spoiler

I like Supernatural

 

[FortuneFaded]

This is worse than the Neeson gif.

Speaking of Taken 3. I watched it recently for the first time and it was much better than I had expected. It was definitely leagues above Taken 2.

 

[crustikid]

See this is what I don't understand, I imagine with Liam Neeson it's because he's getting on a bit and couldn't make the jump himself. However with the scene above they clearly did it in one shot, and it looks way better, so why the hell would they make such a horrible artistic choice!??

They have to cut in to show that ScarJo is actually fighting to keep up the suspension of disbelief because that's not actually her in the master.

(not agreeing with the choice, just pointing out why the filmmakers did what they did.)

Where are the creed gifs? All these marvel sequences are making me lose my faith.

 

[Fuzzery]

David Leitch, Chad Stahelski, Darrin Prescott, and Spiro Razatos were the second unit directors on Civil War. The car chase was really good but the rest of the action sequences, I don't think you could see their hands on them. The airport scene used a lot of CGI, and that helps with the less cutting but the ground hand-to-hand falters. Remember, these guys went on to do John Wick 2, Baby Driver, Fast and Furious 8, and Atomic Blonde so they might not have helped on all of the stuff. There might have been a stricter shooting schedule so these stunt people can't choreograph or cut as elaborately as in those other films. It's a shame because Civil War had the best of the best but they might have been wasted by the Russos with the use of shaky cam and quick cuts around the actors. Like, let's compare a simple sequence such as Black Widow beating up some bad guys.

Here's the behind the scenes of Black Widow:

Here's the final result of Black Widow:

Here is Black Panther just doing one move on Bucky:

Rossatron did an action analysis of Civil War, and it's worth watching as to why he found it disappointing. He mentions those stunt people and how they might have been at the mercy of the directors. Who knows who was at fault. They could cut to wider shots and framed it so the choreography is clearer to distinguish, as suggestions for improvement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP0sRFd52sQ

BTW I can't wait for Baby Driver which uses no CGI (and Atomic Blonde to an extent).

Wtf the uncut shot of black widow looked soooo much better

 

[StanleyPalmtree]

much like the use of CGI in live action films, you only dont like it because you never notice when its being done well.
cutting during action scenes can work great, well timed cuts can add an extra impact and energy of the fighting, but just like damn near everything in good film-making, when its done well its pretty much unnoticeable, and when done badly it sticks out painfully.

 

[tci]

Wtf the uncut shot of black widow looked soooo much better

It is, leagues better. They could have done the entire scene in like 2-3 cuts and it would have been great.

 

[sirap]

All those cuts in Civil War gave me a headache when I watched it in IMAX. I really hope they do a better job in the next Avengers.

 

[massoluk]

David Leitch, Chad Stahelski, Darrin Prescott, and Spiro Razatos were the second unit directors on Civil War. The car chase was really good but the rest of the action sequences, I don't think you could see their hands on them. The airport scene used a lot of CGI, and that helps with the less cutting but the ground hand-to-hand falters. Remember, these guys went on to do John Wick 2, Baby Driver, Fast and Furious 8, and Atomic Blonde so they might not have helped on all of the stuff. There might have been a stricter shooting schedule so these stunt people can't choreograph or cut as elaborately as in those other films. It's a shame because Civil War had the best of the best but they might have been wasted by the Russos with the use of shaky cam and quick cuts around the actors. Like, let's compare a simple sequence such as Black Widow beating up some bad guys.

Here's the behind the scenes of Black Widow:

Here's the final result of Black Widow:

Here is Black Panther just doing one move on Bucky:

Rossatron did an action analysis of Civil War, and it's worth watching as to why he found it disappointing. He mentions those stunt people and how they might have been at the mercy of the directors. Who knows who was at fault. They could cut to wider shots and framed it so the choreography is clearer to distinguish, as suggestions for improvement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP0sRFd52sQ

BTW I can't wait for Baby Driver which uses no CGI (and Atomic Blonde to an extent).

Was it to hide the stunt face? Original Black Widow shot is not bad 0_0

 

[Messofanego]

Psh, how about this

That's pretty cool, it's like the opposite of Bourne Ultimatum.

 

[- J - D -]

I imagine the cutting helps hide the fact that, due to the way the fight was choreographed, the bad guys pretty much just run up to Black Widow within arm's reach before they raise their guns.

 

[EGM1966]

Apples to Oranges comparison in context though OP.

The first has too many cuts but it is a chase sequence with urgency whivh the second example simply does not have thus if the second example was in context of the first it would also be a failure.

Basically the first is classic example of weak direction/editing (possibly to handle issues with the stunning yo get Neeson over that fence). It could be improved in a number of ways.

The second is better in context with less urgency and highlighting deliberately the athleticism of the character. It would suck as an action scene though.

You should find a better action example to compare to first (and not a martial arts example that also sacrifices urgency to emphasis ability either - you need a scene with both - although you will find urgency and athletic examples in martial arts films I'm sure).

 

[True Savior]

Here is Black Panther just doing one move on Bucky:

.

See this is what I don't understand, I imagine with Liam Neeson it's because he's getting on a bit and couldn't make the jump himself. However with the scene above they clearly did it in one shot, and it looks way better, so why the hell would they make such a horrible artistic choice!??

Cause it looks slow and staged. It makes more sense than the dogshit editing they did, but if you notice the cuts they choose, it prioritizes close ups with a frantic movement that simply isn't there. She's a shit physical performer, which makes it quite a limitation to compose action.

 

[MisterFalcon]

In a book on screenwriting David Mamet brings up the point that a director should not go out of their way to have an actor show off the skills because it takes you from 'the character does something' to 'the actor does something'.

Say that your lead character in a movie is a concert pianist who is one of the best in the world. You can shoot a scene where the pianist performs in several ways:
-Cut between the upper body of the actor and closeups of the hands of an actual pianist playing. This is how it's done most of the times
-Have the actor learn to play the basic piano, show this and have piano experts worldwide make Youtube videos how terrible it is. Like Iron Fist.
-Hire someone like Daniel Day-Lewis who will train for months to really appear to be as good as his character. This may seem good but will result in a lot of people going 'wow, isn't DDL amazing, look at that !' and that's not a good thing as you forget he's not DDL but the pianist here. In the movie we all know the pianist is great, there is no real need to show this so explicitly.

In the Takenverse we know Bryan Miller is a badass who can easily scale a fence. It would have been better to show a stuntman cut to Liam Neeson jumping off a small box but it's now required to have Liam to be clearly seen which leads to this kind of ridiculous hypercutting.

edit: since the Every Frame A Painting thing on Jackie Chan was brought up, this is a poor comparison as this is not really a movie but a showreel of JC's talents. In the famous Project A clocktower fall the fall is repeated two times and they are clearly different falls. Movie continuity is completely disregarded to highlight the actor's prowess. It makes for a great spectacle but as a movie it's terrible.

 

[Messofanego]

Rossatron - Directing Perfect Action

Rossatron brings up a good point that if a director doesn't shoot for coverage and hope for a hail mary in the editing room, it can make for great action sequences. Training up your actors for the sequences and getting the choreography right on the shot, so requiring quite a few retakes but reducing overediting around the stunt doubles. That requires planning, time, and priority.

 

[_Rob_]

Cause it looks slow and staged. It makes more sense than the dogshit editing they did, but if you notice the cuts they choose, it prioritizes close ups with a frantic movement that simply isn't there. She's a shit physical performer, which makes it quite a limitation to compose action.

Personally it looks far more believable than the cuts, not to mention easier to follow. There's also plenty of ways to shoot fight scenes with trained fighers and still hide the fact that they aren't the "star". Even if they did need a cut or two showing Scarlet's face they could still massively reduce the unnecessary ones and make everything feel much more impactful.

 

[Newlove]

One of the worst culprits I've seen personally for quick cuts is Quantum of Solace. Makes the film near unwatchable for me.

 

[Gordon Shumway]

People get nauseous from watching cuts? That's..weird..😕

 

[True Savior]

Personally it looks far more believable than the cuts, not to mention easier to follow. There's also plenty of ways to shoot fight scenes with trained fighers and still hide the fact that they aren't the "star". Even if they did need a cut or two showing Scarlet's face they could still massively reduce the unnecessary ones and make everything feel much more impactful.

Have you noticed how much gaf mocks Christian Bale in a bulky suit trying to do this? It looks weird cause you expect a skilled fighter and you notice right away he isn't. He's an actor with a enormous weight in his body following patterns. In that black widow gif, that's probably the stuntwoman too. They end up hiding Scarlett in the closeups of the editing. Even in a continuous shot It all looks very unnatural (worse if it's not even her).

What you are seeing there is how most us-action movies are made. Wide long shot so they cover the whole scene and then a lot of pickup shots with the actors.

I
edit: since the Every Frame A Painting thing on Jackie Chan was brought up, this is a poor comparison as this is not really a movie but a showreel of JC's talents. In the famous Project A clocktower fall the fall is repeated two times and they are clearly different falls. Movie continuity is completely disregarded to highlight the actor's prowess. It makes for a great spectacle but as a movie it's terrible.

What? Project A isn't a movie?

 

[CoolOff]

Well, you need 56 cuts in an Iron Fist fight scene.

Holy shit lol

 

[UrbanRats]

See this is what I don't understand, I imagine with Liam Neeson it's because he's getting on a bit and couldn't make the jump himself. However with the scene above they clearly did it in one shot, and it looks way better, so why the hell would they make such a horrible artistic choice!??

I assume the one in the top gif is not ScarJo, but a stuntwoman.
You want to splice in shots of the actor's face to keep that illusion alive, and working with actors who aren't also stuntmen (few exceptions) you really can't have that complicated choreographies and have to work with what you have.
Even the fight scene with Charlize Theron from Atomic Blonde in the last page shows how stiff a non-professional can look when trying to fight (despite looking pretty good still).

The shaky cam is annoying though.

Plus these Marvel movies are done in assembly line, so i assume they don't have all the time in the world to focus on fight choreography.

edit: Actually looking at the gif again, it may very well be her, as the action is quite slow, and she's not doing anything too fancy, aside from that round kick.
In which case, it's probably to try and curb how fake it'd look.
Point still stands though, if you work with actors who aren't stunt, you have to concede for their physical shortcomings.

 

[_Rob_]

Have you noticed how much gaf mocks Christian Bale in a bulky suit trying to do this? It looks weird cause you expect a skilled fighter and you notice right away he isn't. In that black widow gif, that's probably the stuntwoman too. They end up hiding Scarlett in the closeups of the editing. Even in a continuous shot It all looks very unnatural.

What you are seeing there is how most us-action movies are made. Wide long shot so they cover everything and then a lot of pickup shots with the actors.

Sure I understand the limitations, and I'm sure there's no perfect solution. However I do believe there is often a better way. Perhaps it's more difficult to achieve and is therefore tossed aside in favour of the easier frantic cut option? It's also and issue that it's the "done thing", because so many films rely on it, there's almost a free pass.

 

[Kinyou]

While the Taken 3 scene is obviously cut to death I'd say that it conveys a lot more intensity than the shot from Supernatural (which also isn't meant to be an intense scene)

Quick cuts aren't necessarily the enemy, like with so many things it depends mostly on execution. I remember this article posted on gaf that points out that Fury Road actually had a similar shot length to Taken 3, but because it uses center framing so heavily it doesn't bother you

https://vimeo.com/151838996

http://nofilmschool.com/2016/01/furious-film-editing-watch-five-films-average-2-seconds-shot

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

The new Resident Evil has so many cuts per second, I had to rethink everything about Filmmaking.

 

[lvl99 Pixel]

Wtf the uncut shot of black widow looked soooo much better

there are a few moments where they just shimmy into place for her to kick etc though (it looks really silly either way), so they probably just told them it would be fine to just fix it all in post

 

[DerZuhälter]

Here's the behind the scenes of Black Widow:

Here's the final result of Black Widow:

Well is it a stunt double or Scarlet doing those moves? If it is a stunt double than clearly some of the edits stem from inserting Scarlett Johanson" shots into the stunt double's fight scene.

Regardless of this special case, I do believe that fight editing in general in Hollywood is poor.

 

[Randy Lanzarote]

I'm so happy this was the first post.

 

[MisterFalcon]

What? Project A isn't a movie?

Of course it's a movie. But it's not like 'this is what every action movie should be' as it is totally tailored to someone as exceptionally talented as Jackie Chan. Who gave up his entire youth to become so good, something you can't accept anyone to do nowadays.

 

[iMax]

 

[Pouh]

Meanwhile, when you're Jackie Chan...

http://i.imgur.com/ZXGOIf1.gif

"Using my hands on little fences ? Psh."

 

[ChubbyHuggs]

Basically, everybody should watch Supernatural.

Only up to season 5.

 

[Chumley]

 

[GeordieMark]

 

[True Savior]

Sure I understand the limitations, and I'm sure there's no perfect solution. However I do believe there is often a better way. Perhaps it's more difficult to achieve and is therefore tossed aside in favour of the easier frantic cut option? It's also and issue that it's the "done thing", because so many films rely on it, there's almost a free pass.

The best solution is what they did to Keanu in the matrix. You are going to get in the best shape of your life and you are going to repeat this shit a gazillion of times. Enough so you can follow the patterns choreographed to a point you look like you know what you are doing. And, next to Collin Chou, you could still see major differences.

Jackie used to say that the only thing a person needed to look good in a movie of his was to have good physical attributes. Agility, endurance, speed, whatever. The rest he would teach them and compose the action accordingly. It's impossible to expect that actors are able to replicate or take that much time to prepare for actions scenes. Especially if we consider that most are being done by 2nd unit directors and stunt-teams who are very clueless about movie-direction.

Of course it's a movie. But it's not like 'this is what every action movie should be' as it is totally tailored to someone as exceptionally talented as Jackie Chan. Who gave up his entire youth to become so good, something you can't accept anyone to do nowadays.

That's the reason why Project A is, indeed, a phenomenal action movie and most action movies aren't even decent action-wise. The same could be said about any skill in the movie-business. It requires a lot of experience and skillsets. Either it's comedy, drama or action, etc.

 

[Frimaire]

Came here for this.

 

[Venfayth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAJ1oLyQSXM

 

[tci]

The new Resident Evil has so many cuts per second, I had to rethink everything about Filmmaking.

Yea, it completely ruined the movie for me. Before RE was kind of mindless entertainment. Final Chapter was just terrible.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Yea, it completely ruined the movie for me. Before RE was kind of mindless entertainment. Final Chapter was just terrible.

I mean, look at this shit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSz6gQUDy6M

This happens forever! Useless repetitive cuts to hide the shitty direction of the movie.

 

[always crazy bacon]

Meanwhile, when you're Jackie Chan...

Just the GIF I knew I'd be looking for. Perfect.

 

[Badpsychometry]

Basically, everybody should watch Supernatural.

.

 

[Milly Osworth]

So many cuts it looks like a youtuber jumping a fence.

 

[matrix-cat]

Just the GIF I knew I'd be looking for. Perfect.

"Using my hands on little fences ? Psh."

Honestly there's a whole thread to be made on Jackie Chan hopping fences like a maniac

 

[Faiz]

They have to cut in to show that ScarJo is actually fighting to keep up the suspension of disbelief because that's not actually her in the master.

And yet in most of those cuts you still don't see her face anyway.

 

[Jobbs]

Fast cutting is a way of immediately draining all interest in an action scene for me. Children of Men has some of the most intense action sequences ever shot and that's in part because they rarely cut.

Usually it [fast cuts] signals to me that they had choreography that looked terrible and tried to fix it in editing.

 

[TheChewyWaffles]

Well, you need 56 cuts in an Iron Fist fight scene.

You've ensured I will never watch that show. Thanks.

 

[Jobbs]

Well, you need 56 cuts in an Iron Fist fight scene.

Jesus Christ.

That footage must have been a horrible mess and they cobbled this piece of shit together in editing

 

[jett]

http://i.4cdn.org/tv/1489621861667.webm

Civil War is perfect example for this terrible situation.

That fight is so terribly directed and edited, it couldn't have made it any clearer that the Russo brothers didn't work in the other set pieces.

 

[Ottaro]

Well, you need 56 cuts in an Iron Fist fight scene.

Why is this place storing soo many empty boxes?

 

[Slaythe]

Well, you need 56 cuts in an Iron Fist fight scene.

I'm gonna throw up...

 

[OldRoutes]

Why is this place storing soo many empty boxes?

I'm pretty sure it's an evidence room or something similar...