Action Filming Quotes

I come from an era when we had to figure out how to bolt a camera to a motorcycle or an airplane or dig a hole and find a canyon deep enough to repel into it so that we can capture images that were real.

I don't look at rushes, or I don't go to the dailies. I don't even really look at playback... unless it's an action scene or a move that I need to do better, something like that.

For action to work, you need an awful lot of coverage. Because if you do a fight sequence, you really need to be able to creed the energy in the edit or augment the energy in the edit. So you need to really, really cover it.

You need a GoPro camera and some fun mounts to capture the chaos.

As much as you do get beat-up doing even small action sequences, it's incredibly fun.

But I loved doing the physical stuff for 'Dredd.' I have to give a shout-out to the stunt team that I worked with.

It's always fun to do the fight sequences and then to complete them, because some of them are quite complicated - with guns and so on - and there's always things that can go wrong. It's fun to shoot those things because we rehearse them very strenuously. It's fun to shoot them, and fun to know they're finished, that they're in the can so to speak.

No, we always had something to do because I did all the wave runners and jet skis and boats approaching the atolls and stuff like that, so you could do that without showing the actual atoll or the set that you're going towards, but detailing all those guys racing towards it.

I think Malta is great for a song. It's got very nice and narrow roads with beaches. So if you personally ask me, I would shoot action there. It can be very exciting since there's water all around and there can be boat chases. Even travel films like 'Before Sunset' can be shot there.

I'd never really shot action scenes before, but I realized early on that is very much like shooting choreography and dance.

When you're doing an action set piece, it's very similar to choreography in a way because it's shot that way. It's meticulous how it's rehearsed. I mean, you have no idea.

As a second unit director, you're entrusted to shoot the action sequences. On every movie, it's slightly different.

Climax shoot for 'Dabangg3' has been very hectic yet a great experience.

During 'Race 2,' I had to lean down completely because there was a lot of action scenes in it.

I've directed bits of action and so I know that it's long and it's very detailed. Editing action is a good deal more exciting than shooting action. Shooting action is very, very meticulous, it's increments, tiny little pieces.

Shooting stuff on horseback is more complicated and time consuming than anything else.

As you can probably tell, I like films and directors that bring a totally unique style to filming action.

What the studio didn't understand is that surfing is about a billion times more dangerous than skydiving. They would not allow the boys to skydive, but they allowed us to surf in pipeline in Hawaii. Nine-hundred foot waves. So we're out there in the middle where the greatest surfers in the world surf. They have these long lenses on from the beach, so they can't see anything. They are just shooting our faces in the Point Break.

In our case, with 'Raze,' we had a really, really tight schedule. We shot something like 17 fights in three and a half weeks which is insane.

The 'Agent X' set was never boring. During the first few days, I had to adjust to the loud noise on set, which included gun shots and explosions. After we finished filming the season, I realized I missed hearing all the noise and driving on empty freeways.

I like to give dimension to shots inside action scenes. It's demanding because you have to rehearse a lot of things happening at the same time and frame all those things in a shot. But I feel like when you accomplish that then you've got a cool action scene.

You learn tricks to make action look more dynamic - having the fight come toward you or shooting on a longer lens to compress the speed.

My hats off to anybody filming action, because you get beat up. If I'm going to get the crap kicked out of me, I would love 15,000 people on hand to tell me that I'm doing good or I'm doing bad. So, if I'm going to be in any physical duress, I'd really like it to be in a WWE ring, which is why I was so amped to be a part of 'Trainwreck.'

The way you present a stunt is tied in to the way you photograph it, so you're hanging out with the cinematographer.

When you are shooting action, there is a satisfying thing because your objectives are very clear.