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I saw Armageddon on videotape, as a matter of
fact. The "fast-cutting" is a pet peeve of mine.
Michael Bey is really bad with this, and he almost turned
"The Rock" into a piece of shit by doing it.
My problem with this type of editing is that
action requires suspense and suspense requires that you
anticipate that the hero may be in danger. For example, you can't
be worried that Nicholas Cage might be shot unless you see a man
aiming a gun at Cage. (The shoot-out in the caves beneath
Alcatraz was the worst example of this; I literally could not
follow the action, except that I was vaguely aware that various
people were armed with machine-guns and wanted to show this fact
off.) You can't worry that the space shuttle in Armageddon will
be destroyed by an asteroid unless you have a shot of an
approaching asteroid -- and the image must be on screen long
enough for you to process the information and say, "Shit,
that asteroid might hit the space shuttle."
There were parts of Armageddon when I and my
girlfriend looked at eachother and said, "What the hell is
going on?" I mean, we knew *something* was going on because
people were yelling and the music was loud and there was a lot of
cutting and motion going on, but we really had no idea what
*specifically* was happening.
Michael Bey is a goofball.
Ace's rules for compelling action
sequences:
1) DO occasionally have a master shot which
shows the combatants positions in relation to one another.
2) DO NOT just show Tight-Shot of Gunfigher A
shooting, Tight-Shot of Gunfighter B shooting, lather, repeat.
3) DO NOT bother showing shots which are on
screen for less than one second, or, if you do, do so sparingly.
The brain hardly has time to even process this image, let alone
make inferences about it (like, "Damn, that guy's about to
kill the hero!").
There are dozens of great action flicks which
adhere to these relatively simple rules -- almost all GOOD action
flicks do. Die Hard, Star Wars flicks, John Woo movies, the GREAT
shoot-out at the end of LA Confidential, Aliens, etc. -- all are
shot and edited so that you know where the bad guys are and where
the good guys are.
Response to Review:
14040
. phiLISTine - Nov. 24, 1998 - 6:41
PM PT
Boba -
I have to admit, that's a sensible post. The
worst is the fistfights where it's impossible to tell who is
where and what is happening. One of the big reasons I generally
prefer asian action flickers.
14041
. BobaFett - Nov. 24, 1998 - 7:52 PM
PT
The first time I ever noticed the fast-cut
problem was in the final fight between Gibson an Busey in Lethal
Weapon (I). The fight was supposed to involve five martial arts
styles, but you could't tell what the fuck was going on.
This was odd, too, because it was the only time
Donner (the director) decided to use this kind of editing style;
the rest of the film followed the Fett rules.
Maybe the fight just sucked and quick-cutting
was the only way to hide the defect. This is, I'm guessing, the
reason most directors resort to this technique.
14042
. cartman69 - Nov. 24, 1998 - 9:59 PM
PT
Boba:
Good points on editing action films. It pretty
much negates the film in the first place, if you can't follow the
action.
14100
. LadyChaos - Nov. 25, 1998 - 12:23
PM PT
I just had a revelation wrt "Lost in the
Screen-Space."
The Jupiter II looked exactly like my Sony
Discman. Subtle product placement?
Bobek,
Your posts starting with Message #14038 are
generally correct with respect to orienting the audience in an
action sequence, though I don't think there should be any
absolute rule against quick cuts; a well-directed action scene
can have numerous shots of less than one second as long as those
shots are placed in relation to some other shots which explain
them. For example:
TWO SHOT - Joe rears his fist back to punch
Bob. (This shot could be maybe 35 frames, at most, or about 1 and
1/3 seconds.)
SINGLE ON JOE swinging his fist toward Bob.
(This shot could easily be less than 20 frames, or less than one
second.)
ON BOB as Joe's fist smacks his jaw and snaps
his head back. (This shot could easily be 15 frames or less,
meaning no more than half a second.)
A good editor would probably eventually cut
these three shots down to an aggregate length of maybe slightly
over a second without losing any comprehensibility. In any case,
if the scene was directed so badly that the camera was never
placed properly, and the actors' actions were never properly
choreographed, there's very little that the editor can do to fix
it.
That's why in a film like The Rock (which I
think was a total waste of celluloid, btw) you see so much of
what I call "editorial churning." In a sense, all those
disorienting smash cuts are run endlessly together because if the
editor actually allowed the shots to play out, the director's
failings of craft would show through, the studio wouldn't be able
to add as many distracting sound fx, and the movie would be
unbearably boring.
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