Stop directing at me!

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m sick of it! I’ve had enough! Directors who are convinced they’re directing the Matrix. Badly.

The other night on TV there was a documentary about a fairly new urban sport called Free Running that was recently made famous by a set of BBC station ID clips. I have to say that some of the stuff these guys were doing looked amazing, reminiscent of some of the more athletic wire-fu stunts. They’d run at a wall, leap, kick off from about four feet up, twist in mid air, grab a railing, flip themselves over and dash off, all with an immense athletic grace.

At least, this was the impression I got, I was never really sure because the goddamned director of the program hardly once let them finish a move without cutting away.

The usual flow of action would be more like:

Guy runs at wall. Cut to angle from above. Guy leaps. Cut to side shot. Guy kicks off from wall. Grainy black and white shot from above. Guy flies through the air in faux blurred slow motion. Cut to side view with digitally faked steadicam effect. Guy grabs bar. Freeze frame. Cut to an angle from below with faux motion blur, faked grainy black and white and slow motion. Guy vaults away. Shot of birds in flight.

I mean, c’mon; pick a style! Don’t try to emulate John Woo, the Cohen brothers and NYPD Blue all in the space of five seconds!

Seriously, after about ten minutes I was begging, begging for a shot that lasted more than two seconds. The athletic exploits of the French guys in the film were spectacular enough to be entertaining all by themselves, but the director insisted on getting between me and the action while jumping up and down, waving his arms and insisting I pay attention to him because he was so fucking cool!

OK, I realise we’ve had a few cinematography events in the past few years. From NYPD Blue to the Matrix things have been shaken up a little bit and of course people want to emulate these things, but moderation in all things. The photography should complement and enhance the action, not fight with it at every turn for attention.

This particular rant was triggered by catching a few minutes of a magic program about Dave Angel just now. Same problem. Angel’s magic is stylised and very showy, clearly enough to carry a show from a static viewpoint in a theatre, and yet the director just had to run the gamut of digital effects from faked steadicams to faked black and white to faked “distressed” film all while cutting, seemingly at random, between four or five different viewpoints.

I keep feeling that all this is just so damn lazy. It’s just copying others’ work at breakneck speed without any appreciation for the reason or art behind the original. It smacks of desperation. I keep envisioning the directors of these pieces as whiny little children jumping up and down while wheedling “It should have been me earning millions for directing the Matrix! Look, I’m just as good! Look at what I’m doing! Look at me! Look at me! Look at meeeeeee!”

Last breath cursing, from hell’s heart stabbing etc.

Bastards.

2

Yeah, I feel your pain. I felt the same way about Homicide and jump cuts. It was a wonderful device on Homicide and it fit the show absolutely perfectly - but then everyone and their mother on every drama started using jump cuts.

I always get the feeling that these directors who jump on the bandwagon of using these new techniques (or overusing them) will be the ones directing bad sitcoms starring Kelly Ripa in about five years.

Ava

3

Is there a possibility of a good sitcom starring Kelly Ripa?

4

Excellent OP.

I watched a documentary the other day that would have been interesting if just cut properly. But some idiot in the editing suite had obviously been infected by some kind of mutant Powerpoint virus. Every single shot transition did a multi-shuttered wipe from one side of the screen to the other. Or was lowered in from the top. Or spiralled in from the top corner. Or artistically divided and departed the screen in sections. Or emerged as a dot in the previous shot that gracefully and slowly zoomed out while the previous shot fades to grainy b/w. Or only occupied one side of the screen, leaving an arty black vacuum on the other for the viewer to project their own thoughts on. Or… Stop! Would you just go from one point to the next so we can actually see what’s going on and quit with the stupid effects???

5

What are jump cuts and homicide cuts. (I assume the latter is a cut originated by the show)

6

I think avabeth meant cutting in the style of Homicide and cuts that snap raidly between very different images (usually done in a sort of “I wonder what this button on the editing console does?” way).

7

An interesting article in Scientific American suggested TV is addicitive because the cuts and sudden changes activate the brain’s “orienting response” to new stimuli.

So maybe TV with fast cuts is like higher grade junk for the American couch 'tater.

8

It’s the new digital video editing software that’s started coming out in the last few years. It makes terribly tasteless transitions (hey! Nice alliteration!) incredibly easy.

A saying that’s supposed to be ubiquitous in graphic arts circles, but apparently misses some people: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

9

Yep, that’s it. I don’t know if they’re actually called jump cuts, but one of my filmmaker friends referred to them as jump cuts (I was on the writing end - we just called 'em ‘cut to’.)

Homicide was the old show on Friday nights (in the USA) about Homicide cops in Baltimore. The absolute best show ever to air on any television anywhere, hands down (okay, with respect to Farscape, maybe).

Ava

10

Jump cuts are not rapid cuts.

Jump cuts are breaks in continuity… you hardly ever see them in standard mainstream editing…

Think about an interview where they cut out pieces of the person’s speech and they ‘jump’ from one head postition to another.

It’s hard to explain without concrete examples. I’ll try and find some.

11

One of the worst recent examples that comes to mind was the remake of Rollerball. With so many pointless close-ups on the eye-candy cast and rapid cuts, they never pulled back and let you see the entire arena, so you never had a chance to figure out how the damn game was going. It was like watching hockey through cameras mounted on the player’s helmets.

12

I thought this phenomenon was brought about by the perceived wisdom that modern kids have a two second attention span. Even The Simpsons jokes about it. Then people make stuff to pander to it and, bingo self-fufilling philosophy.

I first noticed it with music videos - even when showing the band playing they won’t hold a position so you can see how something’s done. It’s becoming more pervasive and will only get worse.

13

I first noticed this watching Crime Story, starring Jackie Chan. I’m a serious Jackie Chan nut; his movements are so balletic and physically improbable, and make such innovative use of props and physical humor, that I just sit dumbfounded. It’s like watching Buster Keaton; pure, fluid poetry.

The director of Crime Story, though, apparently decided he wanted to make an Action Movie instead of a Jackie Chan Movie. (To be fair, Jackie himself has co-director credit.) Every fight scene, every stunt, had to be shown from four or five intercut angles, and everything was done in very dark lighting with moody shadows and such, and I couldn’t see what Jackie was doing!

I wanted to shake someone and shout, “Listen, you idiot! He’s Jackie-freaking-Chan! All you have to do is turn the lights on, start the camera, and say ‘Action’! You’re screwing it up because you don’t understand the material you’re in charge of!”

Numbnuts.

14

Oh thank God. I thought it was just another symptom of my getting old.

15

Ain’t it the truth? I can hardly watch TV anymore without getting dizzy.

16

I blame MTV.