How to instantly ruin a good action sequence!
- Thread starter sojourner
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I guess we should be thankful for small mercies. People who fall to their deaths from tall buildings in movies usually leave composed corpses that look as if they just fell asleep.
The reality is probably a lot, messier.
The reality is probably a lot, messier.
THANK YOU. I understand it's value as a dramatic mechanism, but egad it's been overdone. It's even worse when it's shaky can AND zoomed in so much you can't tell what's *cough*Michael Bay*cough* happening in the scene.
In the case of a fuel tanker crash, it's more plausible. Unlike in a car, the fuel tank is not as well-shielded. A crash could've generated sparks and vaporized/atomized enough of the fuel to trigger a fireball.
And of course, the big orange fireball explosions that are used for everything in Hollywood are specifically liquid-fuel explosions. They're used because they're flashy and relatively safe -- it's basically just a big poof of flame with minimal overpressure shock and shrapnel. The fact that the flame lasts so long demonstrates how low-energy that type of explosion is; as seen in the many real explosions on Mythbusters, a high-energy explosion either consumes or dissipates the flammable reactants in a split-second. With the really big bangs, you need the frame-by-frame replay to see any flash of light at all. And whereas Hollywood explosions are depicted as perfectly harmless to anyone who isn't directly engulfed in them -- especially to action heroes walking casually away from them in slow motion -- in real life those action heroes would probably be killed by the shock wave and perforated by shrapnel.
here here! i cant stand the bourne movies for all the lousy, quick cut, shaky cam fight scenes. the bourne fight scenes were more interesting to watch in the "making of" featurettes because it was one continuous shot (and you can see the camera man shaking the camera)
on the flip side the "Slow Motion" stuff that Zack Snyder loves to do (300, The Watchmen) can get a tad overdone in fight scenes.
It certainly wasn't a new one, and this was around 2000...certainly before 2002 when I moved out of that area. Also could simply have been a real greasy engine compartment.
I loved the scene in "The Simpsons" where Snake crashes into the side of a tanker truck which explodes in a ball of flame.
Oh, the sign on the side of the tanker reads "MILK."
I argued that with people back when fuel tanks were made of steel -- all to no avail. Just about every car produced since 2000 has a plastic fuel cell. 'splain to me how shooting a vehicle would make it explode now
When trying to recreate the part in Casino Royale when Bond shoots a propane gas tank and it explodes, they even used incendiary ammunition and it still didn't blow up.
I argued that with people back when fuel tanks were made of steel -- all to no avail. Just about every car produced since 2000 has a plastic fuel cell. 'splain to me how shooting a vehicle would make it explode now
When trying to recreate the part in Casino Royale when Bond shoots a propane gas tank and it explodes, they even used incendiary ammunition and it still didn't blow up.
I've also known former Special Forces people who told me that C4 does not *BOOM*, and is primarily used covertly in disabling car engines (cracks the block) and the like. It more or less *POOFS* into a cloud of white smoke.
I know why it's necessary but I always hate the shot of the gun on the floor after it's been knocked away.
I had a '99 catch fire (in ~2005-2006) as I was going down the freeway. Some guy next to me said my car was on fire and I pulled over at which point the seemingly small fire by my wheelwell kept growing and turned into a hellacious blaze (at least 10 feet high). Never did figure out what caused that.
Didn't explode though...
I had a '99 catch fire (in ~2005-2006) as I was going down the freeway. Some guy next to me said my car was on fire and I pulled over at which point the seemingly small fire by my wheelwell kept growing and turned into a hellacious blaze (at least 10 feet high). Never did figure out what caused that.
Didn't explode though...
These sort of conceits are still effective though; the audience interprets them appropriately, having been trained to respond "correctly" to them through years of watching them in other shows. If executed well, they still generate the right buzz. With good execution, very few people have their belief unsuspended enough to notice the bad science. And they do look spectacular.
In short, they're fun!
In short, they're fun!
Michael Mann has made several (mostly) realistic action movies, and they're certainly not boring. If I were to get an opportunity to make an action film that is probably the direction I'd be aiming.I hope nobody here ever makes movies because they'd be the most boring movies EVER made!
I used to think that about movie explosions. But I got tired of them, because they all look the same. It got boring after a while.
I would like to see film and television pyrotechnicians stop repeating themselves and invent some new techniques. I'd like to see them find ways to simulate more varied and realistic explosions, which are more smoke, dust, debris, and shrapnel than flame. I think shows like Mythbusters have featured enough real explosions that it's time fiction started catching up. And I think in this age of reality TV, and of verite-style films like District 9, a more down-to-earth approach to pyrotechnics would be accepted even if it isn't as flashy.
In the last Indiana Jones movie, two vehicles were racing side by side about three feet apart. One vehicle (full of communists) opens fire with a half dozen AK-47's on the occupants of Indiana's vehicle, after twenty seconds no one was hit!
A story from my days of throwing luggage at a local airport, They were transferring fuel between two United fuel trucks (Jet A), when one truck was almost empty the vapor in the ten thousand gallon tank "flashed" the remaining fuel didn't burn because the explosion consumed all the oxygen in the tank.
A story from my days of throwing luggage at a local airport, They were transferring fuel between two United fuel trucks (Jet A), when one truck was almost empty the vapor in the ten thousand gallon tank "flashed" the remaining fuel didn't burn because the explosion consumed all the oxygen in the tank.
Something that kills an action sequence for me isn't so much shaky-cam (I never had any problems with Paul Greengrass's Bourne movies, because that was shaky-cam done right) but when the shutter speed is altered to give that choppy, jerky strobo-cam effect popularised by Saving Private Ryan and abused ever since even by good directors (Ridley Scott, I'm looking at you).
The reason Spielberg did it was to match the look of WW2 documentary footage, which had that same stuttering, staccato effect. Everyone else? No excuse. It doesn't automatically make action scenes look "gritty", it just makes them flickery and stroboscopic and gives me a headache.
The trifecta of action awfulness is strobo-cam, shaky-cam and everything shot in extreme closeup, which so far has been a pretty reliable indicator when encountered that I'll think the film as a whole is shit. (30 Days Of Night was the first time I made the connection, but it's far from the only example...)
The reason Spielberg did it was to match the look of WW2 documentary footage, which had that same stuttering, staccato effect. Everyone else? No excuse. It doesn't automatically make action scenes look "gritty", it just makes them flickery and stroboscopic and gives me a headache.
The trifecta of action awfulness is strobo-cam, shaky-cam and everything shot in extreme closeup, which so far has been a pretty reliable indicator when encountered that I'll think the film as a whole is shit. (30 Days Of Night was the first time I made the connection, but it's far from the only example...)
Maybe the guys that work on Burn Notice also worked on CHiPs. They used to roll station wagons on their side in practically every episode.
Other things that ruin a good action sequences; although, if these elements turn up...then the action sequence technically isn't...good. (Hmmm...)
Anyway:
A random [fruit stand/hot dog stand/woman with a baby carriage/old woman taking her time/traffic] comes in the way of a chase between the protagonist and antagonist, or chaser and 'chasee' (made up word, I know)....
Anyway:
A random [fruit stand/hot dog stand/woman with a baby carriage/old woman taking her time/traffic] comes in the way of a chase between the protagonist and antagonist, or chaser and 'chasee' (made up word, I know)....
Or the glaziers walking an 8' long piece of glass/mirror across a roadway, or the delivery truck that happens to pick *that exact moment* to pull out of a side alley and block the pursuit...
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