But under Paul Greengrass’ direction, the camera shots are shakier and closer to the action. Wider angles and fewer cuts to capture the action as clearly as possible. Doug Liman, in Bourne Identity, shot his sequence more like the classic action cinema we’re used to. That’s a cut happening almost every 2 seconds of the film.Īnother change you can notice is in the camera work. In the first film, Bourne Identity, the ASL was at around 4 seconds which then became 2.4 seconds in its sequel, Bourne Supremacy. And in the final film, Bourne ultimatum, a total of about 3200 shots were squashed into a 105 minute running time, making the average shot about 2 seconds. It’s a cinematic statistic that measures the average length of a scene before a cut. And from jittery handheld cameras to rapidly firing cuts, you can trace all the problems in modern action films to this series.Īn easy way to see how the Bourne trilogy changed action films forever is by looking at the average shot length, or ASL for short. So how did we get to this point? It’s impossible to pinpoint a specific source, but one of the biggest influences was the original Bourne trilogy. These films were revolutionary in the action genre, not to mention both a commercial and critical success. But perhaps the real shock comes when you realize this is all intentional. When you compare these movies side by side, the difference is unmistakable. They are choppy, chaotic and a lot of times just confusing. They lack that fundamental clarity that we’ve become so used to. The camera also rarely moves and when it does, it follows the actions of its characters, accentuating speed and power.īut modern action movies aren’t shot this way. To achieve this, scenes were often shot in a wide angle, with most of the body visible in the frame. And it makes sense, earlier action films, especially martial art pictures, focused on showing the physical feats of its stars. The one common denominator among older action films is clarity. It's sometimes so bad that you may ask yourself, "What am I watching?" So how did we exactly get to this? Let’s rewind a bit. The shaky camera, fast cuts and just plain overall mayhem.
You've probably seen this countless times.
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