Jim Henderson wrote:
> I can't disagree with any of those - though I have to admit the 
> lightsaber fight between Luke and Vader in Jedi was beautiful to watch 
> with the contrast between the dark backgrounds and the bright sabers.  
> And the wide shots of that fight were very good.  Too much today fight 
> scenes are a series of close-up cutaways, and while the "action" is 
> faster, it doesn't feel as authentic.  I wish fight scenes were more 
> often shot from a distance sufficient to see the combatants and the 
> camera was more or less stationary.  With good fighters, many fight 
> scenes would be absolutely beautiful if they just let us watch it in one 
> shot.

You've got a problem there - most actors can't do an entire fight in one 
shot.

That was one of the unmentioned strengths of the second Matrix movie, 
that the shots for the fight scenes were much longer than in the original.

Also, the recent version of "Pride and Prejudice" (the one with Keira 
Knightley) had some rather long shots in it, with the camera moving 
through various rooms and people / events / conversations coming into 
and out of focus in it.  In one scene in particular, I was like "That's 
cool, moving the camera that way... Huh, they haven't cut yet... Wow, 
this is still the same take!"  It's the kind of thing you can imagine 
getting all the way to the end, and someone making a dumb mistake and 
ruining the whole shot, but nobody did.  I was very impressed by that :)

-- 
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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