There’s a moment in “Day Shift,” a new vampire action movie on Netflix, that might be easy to miss, but for those paying attention, speaks directly to a moment happening in cinematography right now that’s changing how films are made.
It happens during a high-speed car chase in which Jamie Foxx’s beleaguered San Fernando Valley vampire slayer is trying to elude various baddies. It’s a zippy sequence for sure (the director is J.J. Perry, a former second-unit director and stuntman who worked alongside the creators of “John Wick”), but what really set me off (I RewoundIt is then that the camera is launched. InsideOne of the cars was seen traveling through the sunroof while continuing to capture action. It’s a small flourish but a truly incredible one that embodies not just how Hollywood is changing the way modern action movies look, but also how they feel.
“In this business, everything’s been done already,”Perry stated that. “And it’s trying to find a way to do things a little different, captured in a different way.”
Inauspicious beginnings
Drone photography — or attaching a camera to a drone to capture certain shots on film — isn’t necessarily new. Drone shots used to be a more affordable and agile option for helicopter shots. This has been used for years in documentary features. You can see this in things like 2017’s firefighter thriller “Only the Brave,”The camera tracks the firefighters in the middle of the story glacially. (Cinematographer Claudio Miranda had a pilot’s license and operated his own drones for the movie.) The final shot. “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One”Trailer showing Tom Cruise riding a dirt bike was partially captured by the drone. This footage was revealed at CinemaCon this year.
In 2018, Time film critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote A bit academic pieceLearn more about drones “revolutionizing the way film and television is made,” but her examples of how drones were being utilized were, quite frankly, boring — an overhead shot above a yacht in “Wolf of Wall Street,”A dinosaur glides toward performers “Jurassic World”(The shot was meant to) “mimic the movement of the flying reptiles”() An episode of “Black Mirror” where the drone shot stood in for… a menacing drone.
These shots could have been taken with a technocrane, a jib, or a helicopter. What this latest crop of action movies does is create shots that could have only been accomplished with a drone, and that aren’t ashamed of their inherent Drunkenness.
“It’s very personal,”Perry spoke of that “Day Shift” shot. “You’re in the car, you’re in the chase, you’re in the thick of it, and then throw it out and be outside of it. All of a sudden, everything becomes God’s perspective. And now you’re over the chase.”What can you get from modern film technology? God’s perspective?
2022: This is the year drones were invented
2022 is the year drone use has moved beyond the established shot/helicopter shots aesthetic. Drones are now more formal and adventurous. artistic. Recent filmmakers have made the most of drones by aggressively propelling them into (and). Through) the action in new and bewildering ways.
First there was Michael Bay’s “Ambulance,”The drone photography limits were pushed this spring by the release of this drone footage. The drone footage, which was filmed by Jake Gyllenhaal as Yahya Abdul–Mateen II as bank thieves who hijack an ambulance to make it an escape vehicle, heightened an already outrageous scene. The drones were piloted by drone racing champions who wore VR headsets to allow them to see the drone’s view in real time. Bay had the drones race up the sides of buildings, racing alongside an out-of-control ambulance and dodging in and out shootouts. Bay even allowed them to enter, zooming through the underground parking garage or bank corridors.
Then there was Joe and Anthony Russo’s Netflix action extravaganza “The Gray Man.” A high-concept spy thriller starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans, the drone shots are notable for their versatility — there are some that simply zoom through a location, say, but there are more that do head-spinning stuff like following a character from outside to inside. This is evident from the first action sequence.
“We wanted the project to have a dynamic, kinetic energy. We wanted it to be controlled chaos. The exercise of the movie was a relentless action film that from the first frame to the last frame is breathlessly caught up in everything that is going on. We needed the camerawork to reflect that,” Joe Russo explained.
Both Russo brothers wanted their audience to be as diverse as possible. “It’s inarguable that our attention spans are dwindling. Our ability to process information is exponentially better than it was even five years ago,”Joe Russo stated. “We like to play around on the cutting edge of what we think your brain can handle.”
Joe Russo explained that their long-time operator introduced them the speed drone. As it turned out, this is how they were able achieve the shots of the drone following behind a character, or zooming from outside to inside. “It’s very light and can travel up to 60-70 miles an hour. If it hits an actor, it won’t cause pain or damage,”Joe Russo stated. “You can actually use them in very close proximity to actors and send them through very tight spaces.”
The Russos felt that drones spoke to the same genre as the music they were using. “The language of these films, because they’re a travelogue, you’re moving from location to location around the world. You have to establish those locations. There’s only so many ways you can do that,”Joe Russo stated. There’s the slow, creeping style of David Fincher and Christopher Nolan or the more “spectacular”Russo described the stunning wide shot of Steven Spielberg as “awe-inducing”. “To stay in the language of the movie we thought we’d try to develop a new, more kinetic way to bring you from location to location,”Joe Russo stated. And so they turned to drones.
And, indeed, “Day Shift”This is the most recent movie to use dynamic drone shots in 2022, mainly by throwing one out of an open sunroof.
The aesthetic shift
Every once in a while, an action movie introduces an element that is instantly repeated throughout popular culture. From one film, an entire aesthetic blossoms. Think about it. “The Matrix,” which back in 1999 introduced Eastern influences to Western audiences – everything from John Woo-inspired gunplay to the wirework of Hong Kong martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo-ping. (Would “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,”Yuen Wooping also oversaw the adoption of these ideas a year later. “The Matrix”Do you need to prime the pump?
The last time action movies felt a stylistic shift was in with “The Bourne Identity” films’ use of the shaky-cam aesthetic. It was introduced by Doug Liman in the original film. Paul Greengrass directed the second, third, and fourth installments.
Greengrass transformed action filmmaking into an experimental cubist form. Most of the movies that followed in Greengrass’ footsteps simply borrowed the chaotic camerawork and quick editorial rhythms, without thinking about why those elements were so effective in “Bourne”In the first place. Still, you could feel the influence everywhere – even the new James Bond movies, while spectacular, were still indebted.
Perry sees the drones as a similar artistic shift.
“It will change the way that car chases are filmed the way that when the Russian arm camera crane came 22 years ago, it changed,”Perry said. Perry said, “Look at the way.” “Smokey and the Bandit”was filmed and compared with “Fast and the Furious.” It’ll be that kind of leap. “It’s like, when we get a new tool or a new toy or a new technology, you almost have to know what to do with it when it lands because it’s going to exponentially grow. Every six months, it’s going to change and get better. It’s kind of just getting in front of that right away,”Perry said.
Drones can be used for more than just taking high-quality overhead shots and wild, out-of control camera movements. It’s also allowing for filmmakers to make their films with more flexibility. David Leitch, who directed Brad Pitt’s action-comedy “Bullet Train”And whose production company made it “Day Shift,”They told me that drones are used for surveillance. “Bullet Train” because the movie was filmed during the pandemic and they couldn’t physically get to Tokyo, where the movie is set. They used a drone operator to film plates in Tokyo. Leitch and Jonathan Sela provided real-time feedback. “We were on WhatsApp and Zoom,” Leitch said.
Perry used drones in a very similar way. “Day Shift.”Although the movie is set in San Fernando Valley (the movie’s main location), most of it was shot in Atlanta. They only had 11 days in Los Angeles. He was able to make the most out of his short time in Los Angeles thanks to drones.
Given that drones can fly almost anywhere, the next application of drones is quite obvious: the superhero film.
Perry picked up his cell phone as he was finishing our chat. He mentioned the drone work they had done. “Day Shift”Was a “prototype”For what they are able to accomplish now. He showed me an excerpt from a major superhero movie he was currently working on. It was amazing, and clearly built on the work he had done with Bay this year, but it was more fluid, faster, and more exciting, even though I was viewing it via Zoom video calls. “They’ll animate this superhero flying in the foreground,”Perry said. Pointing me towards the place where the character would eventually appear.
It was like magic.
