James Cameron's Action Scene Philosophy

In this snippet from the audio commentary track on the 'T2: Extreme DVD', James Cameron briefly discusses the importance of showing the audience what's happening in action scenes and allowing them spatial frames of reference.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Terminator 2
• The Terminator
• T2
• James Cameron
• Jim Cameron
• William Wisher

[BuffalooButterflies]

Oh yes, Cameron's editing is to the point and especially his action is set-ups that I've always admired and hearing him speak about it while viewing gives one some insight.

I've read you've got your hands full with both the Cameron and your own things so I was merely expressing an interest towards more indepth thoughts about the way he shoots/edits sequences. I couldn't find the blogg or perhaps I was looking at the wrong place.

[CameronFanSite]

Buffaloo,

I don't know of any places off the top of my head where Cameron describes his editing and action ideals in depth. However, it seems to me that it's all an extension of his other tendencies toward clarity, logic, and plausibility.

There were a couple posts about this at the blog. The blog's titled can't be written at a YouTube post, but it's the one advertised at the title cards of all my videos.

[CameronFanSite]

Buffaloo,

I personally think that the editing of Cameron's action sequences has been perfect. And they're a world above the incoherent and jumbled "action" scenes in contemporary action movies!

For the record, this video wasn't intended as one of the "mini-documentaries". It was just used to support an article I wrote at my James Cameron blog.

[jwill5587]

I also like how elsewhere in the commentary he pointed out that he never uses slow motion DURING an action scene but BEFORE the action scene to build suspense. Quite a contrast to filmmakers today.

[LukeLovesRose]

@legmog

He's talking about a sense of geography. If you make an action sequence that shows nothing of the background, that shows quick glimpses of characters, audiences will get lost in a hurry and they'll become aware that they're watching a film made by a paint mixer. Kind of like a Michael Bay film. lol

[legmog]

What does he mean 'axis'?

[BuffalooButterflies]

I like it but it becomes really short. Perhaps something to expand upon? I've read something about Cameron's editing. At one time, some years back I was more critical about what the editing looked like in Aliens for example but I am always ready to reinterpret so I do find it very lean. It was at a time when I was watching all the Alien films.