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Afternoon Smackdown: Pre-Vis’ing a Fight Scene
Action cinematographer Lawrence Ribeiro forwards this short video of an afternoon’s work — literally. Below, he explains how, with a camera and two top stuntmen, he can mock-up a dynamic fight scene.
From Ribeiro:
Here’s a chase and fight sequence we shot, in five hours, using two top stunt professionals and one camera. In 2nd unit, we’d consider this type of shooting a level above pre-visualization (previs). Previs is a critical tool for designing action sequences. Sometimes all a script will say is, “…and they fight.” So videos like this allow us to experiment with choreography, and save time and money, before we get on set. In this case, this video was an exercise in creating atmosphere, mood, and tempo. And we wanted to create something fun on the fly!
Related: check out Ribeiro’s “Muscle Memory without Emotion: The Rise of the Action D.P.” here at Filmmaker.
