The Movies

[Christopher Anderson]

I haven't seen the second John Wick, but the first movie did an excellent job with both the fight choreography and the videography. Absolutely beautiful action, flowed perfectly across the screen.

The second chapter is very good, not as great as the first one, but a good film to watch. The action scenes are very similar to the first as they don't do very much cutting and shaking with the camera. They just panned back and let the action scenes take place.

[Steve Hill]

I haven't seen the second John Wick, but the first movie did an excellent job with both the fight choreography and the videography. Absolutely beautiful action, flowed perfectly across the screen.

I think a lot of the fight scenes in The Matrix trilogy did a good job (and yes, there are exceptions, even within this clip) of using both techniques of long following shots intermixed with quick cuts to convey dynamic action. The chalet scene is a good example:

[Mark Rippetoe]

Let's talk about Shaky Cam - YouTube Good video explaining the modern proliferation of shaky cam

An excellent video. Watch it, folks. And maybe we should have a SCFE (shaky cam/fast edit) rating on our film recommendations here.

[hollismb]

I think a lot of the fight scenes in The Matrix trilogy did a good job (and yes, there are exceptions, even within this clip) of using both techniques of long following shots intermixed with quick cuts to convey dynamic action. The chalet scene is a good example:

Let's talk about these from Winter Soldier and Civil War. Handheld, fast cuts, and longer/wider/tracking shots all mixed together, but you can always see exactly what's going on with the action if you're fast enough to pay attention; in my opinion, the Russo brothers do an excellent job of showing you what a super-hero fight looks like.

[Christopher Anderson]

I think a lot of the fight scenes in The Matrix trilogy did a good job (and yes, there are exceptions, even within this clip) of using both techniques of long following shots intermixed with quick cuts to convey dynamic action. The chalet scene is a good example:

I believe that the director for both John Wick films was the stunt coordinator for much of the Matrix films.

[Tim K]

Let's talk about Shaky Cam - YouTube Good video explaining the modern proliferation of shaky cam

Thanks for posting, that was great. I knew money was a factor in terms of hiring a talented director and crew but I hadn't considered it from the angles of how much longer the filming takes and how it allows for bigger names even when they don't have the ability to move convincingly.

Luckily John Wick 2 has been a success critically and at the box office so hopefully the trend toward comprehensible action continues.

[gc1885]

The movie "Heat" with Pacino and DeNiro had some good, well shot/cut action. I thought the movie was overall great, as well.

[Mark Rippetoe]

That movie came highly recommended, but I don't remember being that impressed with it.

[Bill Hannon]

The shootout/get-away scene after the bank robbery in Heat was amazing. I remember watching that movie in the theater 20+ years ago.

[Joe Jaloszynski]

As bad as BvS was, Batman fighting a group of thugs was pretty darn spectacular