Editing a fight, close up's or full body shots??

Question is this:

I'm finishing the shot for the final kick of a fight scene. Technically, would this be more imposing with a 3/4 , 1/2, or full body shot. I go back to the 1st BATMAN film (1989) where batman high kicked the crap outta the dude with the blades in the alley scene. That was almost a full body shot in slow mo time. Which is what I was trying to emulate.

What have you guys used and is there a 'rule of thumb' on this. (I never did go to film school)

 

There really aren't any rules of thumb regarding fight scenes, aside from "MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T LOOK FAKE".

If it looks good, and is the type of effect you're going for, go for it.

 

I have a scene in ep 3 (download from )
http://mysite.freeserve.com/Superteam

I had a karate guy fighting, he had planned the scene and I wanted to show that with long shots or med close up's.
What I got was people saying the fight was not fast enough, so the bottom line is.
close up shots with quick cuts means a fast scene.
Long to med shot shows a slower scene but can show the skill better if prepared before filming.

 

Well, think of it this way.

The closer you are to the action, the faster the motion is on the screen. Watch the end of RvD for this, where part two starts.

A good way to put this into perspective is as follows.


'...they approached a sign, and the closer they got the more readible it was. It read:

Dictionopolis:
3 miles
9 kilometers
15,480 feet
190, 080 inches
9,000 meters

'Which way should we go,' asked Milo.
'Let's take miles, there's less of them,' retorted the Humbug.
'But inches are smaller, we'll travel over them much faster,' said the watchdog..."

From The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. That isn't verbatim, but close.

 

As a martial artist I like long shots. I find close ups are used extensively to make a lousy fighter look good. I think the best evenidence for this is Jackie Chan - he has easily the most consistently complicated choreography in his films, and uses long shots almost exclusively.

The idea is this: when your martial artist is good enough, you show exactly what he's doing. I like it when a fight builds to a climax with the action, not with the editting.

To me it sounds like you are filming just one kick. Where is the guy being kicked? If it's just in the gut, give the guy padding (if he needs it), and just kick the crap out of him. His performance will be better, and the kick will look real (because it was).

It's true RvD built up the fight at the end by switching to close ups, but I felt it was a cheat. The same thing happened in Duality. In AoTS2 the Ho brothers used a lot more mid-shots than long, and almost no closeups. People like the choreography in it because they can still tell what's going on.

My vote: do everything for real and kick the guy. It works particularly well when it's your brother on the receiving end

"Hey Sean... stand here like this... now... I'm going to kick you... and you're going to fly off your feet and hit the cold wet wet ground."

"Uh... ok"

*WHUMP* *SPLASH*

"Take 2!!"

*WHUMP* *SPLASH*

"Take 3!!!"

*WHUMP* *SPLASH*

"Take 4!!!!"
*WHUMP* *SPUH-LASH!!*

"Hm... How about that? The first one was the best take"

-Spiff

 

:::Golf clap:::

 

LOL ^^^

(at spiff)

 

Actually, this is for the cgi thing i'm doing. Check my other thread from a few days ago.

Here's the shot.

Boba fett's hauling ass outta the death star after he's discovered sneaking around. A foolish stormtrooper isn't watching where he 's walking, nd fett comes up and flying roundhouses him into next week.

I have a shot of the trooper just looking around, he turns suddenly,

cut to the 3/4 shot of fett kicking him, tropper spins and flies outa the shot.

cut to fett crouching as more troopers approach....

 

Double post... second idea's better.

-Spiff

 

Since you're in CGI land, what if you kicked the sormtrooper in the head, flipped him over, and imapled him on something with suitable rag-doll physics?

Then, do a panning zoom out to behind your Fett as he crouches to show the stormtroopers coming?

I'm not a CGI guy myself, but if I didn't haveo worry about my stunt-men I'd be pretty savage >

-Spiff

 

"From The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster."
Wow that brought back some memories.Loved that film,haven't seen it for years.

 

As a personal rule - I want to always keep both fighters far enough from the cam so that the audience can see exactly what both fighters are doing. I tend not to become to creative in this aspect, moving the cam and whatnot. Switching angles during momentum is about as far as I'll go - the fight has to speak for itself. The only time I would close up is during series breaks, faceoffs, things like that.

 

It shows in AQoF Scud - which in my opinion has some of the finest fighting around here. I for one appreciated the editing style used. Any chance of a remix?

-Spiff

 

Thanks for the comments. Here's what I decided to go with.

Go ahead and comment on the edits or angles.

Clickie

MOV, Sorensen 1 mb.

 

Nice shot Mike,

By the way, are you getting my latest email on the stunt double matter?

Juan

 

Last email I got is on 9-16 asking if I am getting your messages.

Is there anything else I should have.

BTW, I'll work on the tannus shot this weekend for you. 2 Hours work tops to make the moves you needed. Should be done for Monday.

 

Here's the shot.

Boba fett's hauling ass outta the death star after he's discovered sneaking around. A foolish stormtrooper isn't watching where he 's walking, nd fett comes up and flying roundhouses him into next week.

Argh. I'm at work so I can't look at your clip right now. (should even be on the net really .) but this shot isn't really a fight, it's just the kick. (which is actually more realistic than most any movie fight.)

The drama here is not the kick itself, but the surprise, impact and effect of the kick on the trooper. One other side note is that if Fett is running forward, a roundhouse kick is not typically the technique of choice. A straight technique like a front kick or side kick would be more likely.

My personal version of this sequence in camera.
Layout: T-intersection of two corridors.
Fett racing from south (base of T) , to north.
Trooper starts on left corridor, checking doors along the north (top) of the "T", moving West to East as he goes.
Camera positioning will always show Trooper moving through frame from left to right. Fett moves right to left. Never cross Fett's or the Trooper's line of travel.

- Shot of Fett "hauling ass" down a corridor.
- Shot of Trooper walking in empty corridor, checking doors, moving on.
- Shot of Fett building up speed.
- Trooper again OTS shot approaching door at top of the T intersection. (camera behind and on right side to show he's not looking down Fett's corridor)
- Shot of Fett, quick cut to Fett's POV racing toward trooper at door.
- Trooper POV, hand checks door.
- Trooper H&S from south of trooper. Sound of Fett's running getting closer then stop suddenly with a stomp as the trooper looks up and turns right to look South with helmet cocked to side in "Huh?" position.
- Trooper POV, Fett in the air, right leg extended in side kick - flies straight into camera to fill screen with black and BIG impact sound.
- Wide angle from West side of "T"...Trooper flies backward from force of kick. Head then body hit the door and bounce off to finally fall foward, landing unconsious on his face while Fett lands his left foot on the wall (left of door) to push off, and make a three point (two feet/one hand) pounce landing on the floor, facing east away from camera.
- OTS shot of Fett from behind, Fett's head at left of frame. (trooper on floor in background, blurred out of depth of field)Fett looks South (over his Right shoulder) then looks east and runs east away from camera. Rack focus to bring passed out trooper into focus leaving Fett runnnig out of focus into the distance aways from the camera.

Easy for me to say, not having the animate and render it all.

Have fun.

 

Hmm, good point about the motion of fett's running.

I'll have to edit a little to make it a sneak instead of a charge. Shouldn't be a problem. "Everything can be fixed in POST"

 

****I for one appreciated the editing style used. Any chance of a remix? ***

I cannot take credit for the editing of AQOF but I still follow the same rules, and yes there will be a special edition.

 

Hm. I quite like this shot - Here are a few ideas to up the dramatic tension from the perspective of the storm trooper...

Linger on the trooper a little longer at the beginning.
Cut to a close up of Fett's feet running on the ground.
Cut to the trooper quickly turning as the camera pulls out a but to show Fett running, then jumping and doing the same kick.

Technically, I would comment that the stormtrooper model looks to be the same one Zap used in his lighting demo, and seems to have a very short neck. I would also like to mention the need for more sophisticated motion blurring. The animation looks quite good.

On the OT AQoF stuff... When I said remix I really meant a special higher rez version. I thought the editting was great. To the note that one's coming: Sweet!

-Spiff

 

I really like that shot!
But after the kick it confuses me in what direction Fett is in realtion to the scene. It looks like he is looking the wrong way.In the scene before he was looking foward, then it cuts and he's looking behind him!
I'm it's minor thing, but it just doesn't flow right to me.
Good job though!
~Rory

 

Quite right. Fett is looking the wrong way after his kick. A quick Horizontal flip can fix that.

And I didn't use any object motion blur because a scene that took 4 hours to render would quickly jump to 90 hours to render. Since this is not-for-profit, I unfortunately can't spend the time.

Perhaps one day when I hit the lottery, I can buy myself a render farm and kick these out 1 every week.

 

just blur it in AE

 

I dont have AE. Any volunteers?