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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 cas​e, 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.

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