Here's Why It's So Hard to Have Amazing Action Sequences in Movies

While there’s a ton of explosive action in movies out there today, it’s rare to find genuinely good action in our big-ticket films. Why? Is it because action scenes suck? Not really. As this video from Niko Pueringer and Sam Gorski of Corridor Digital shows, it’s mainly because it’s really hard to get right.

Fantastic, empty spectacle is great in appropriate doses, but truly brilliant action sequences are not only clearly shot, but have an emotional context to them that’s more than “character x fights character y, because we need some action here”.

We’ve espoused before about the need for action scenes to be suspenseful scenes that just happen to have action as a resolution, and we’ve shouted from the rooftops when brilliant shows like Daredevil give us visceral action with emotional weight. But the above video pretty much nails not just why it’s important, but why it’s so challenging to do—fantastic action takes a lot of time, a lot of patience, and a lot (a lot) of money to get right.

[Via Laughing Squid]