Writing low budget action scenes.

Sure I'd be okay to do it boost moral. It's actually a good idea.

@In every job I've worked I had to bring my own, and no one I know has a job where it is expected for the boss to arrange food for everyone.@

BUT you get a wage no?

Feed the free help - no food no energy.

Or put it this way you want people to give up there free time AND have them pay for their own food...

harmonica44 said:

Sure I'd be okay to do it boost moral. It's actually a good idea.

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It's not just a 'good idea' to 'boost morale' it's absolutely essential. If you tell an actor that you need them on set at 8 am every day for a few weeks and that they have to bring their own lunch they'll assume you're either taking the piss or a complete jackass. I can't think of anything more unprofessional than not even providing food and drink for cast and crew, especially if you're not paying them.

But even if you were paying them you'd still get it catered. It's just the done thing.

Jamster said:

@In every job I've worked I had to bring my own, and no one I know has a job where it is expected for the boss to arrange food for everyone.@

BUT you get a wage no?

Feed the free help - no food no energy.

Or put it this way you want people to give up there free time AND have them pay for their own food...

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Oh I thought I'd probably be paying the crew and not have them work for free most likely.

For sure. I'll feed them then, no problem. I still can't find any low budget movies, with the same budget as mine that have really good action scenes. If you can make an action movie for a budget of 70,000, then why aren't filmmakers doing it?

Jamster said:

"Quantum of Solace? Yes I know, bad action movie"

Huh?

If you regard a Bond movie as a 'bad action movie' then I really don't know what the hey you think you'll be able to produce for $75,000.

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I don't regard all Bond movies as bad action films. But the action scenes in Quantum of Solace were way too quick cut and edited and were not as creatively written, and could have been a lot better.

In response to the actual question:

It depends on directorial vision and mostly the actual narrative. For an example of how a rather well done action scene can have LITTLE impact in a major motion picture, refer to the Snow Chase in INCEPTION.

As well produced as it was, and awesome, it does very little to move the narrative along and has very little impact on the overall movie. Thankfully, it didn't detract much, but it added little. This movie is still highly regarded by myself as pretty fantastic motion picture.

Just, that scene, it was out of place.

Depending on what kind of director you are, take this with a grain of salt: the best low budget action scene you can have is the one where you don't necessarily need much action at all to occur, only the turmoil and danger of someone losing their life.

Someone fighting over a teleportation module the size of a wrist watch in the confined space of a kitchen while a child cries in a corner can be infinitely more intense and entertaining than a forest of ninjas hunting down one man, destroying pagoda's in their wake.

Write action for the story, not for the action, and you'll get your incredible action scene.

On the technical side of things: if you cannot get someone that can execute a punch for camera (camera action is not the same as real life or accurate) then hide it in a close-up. That's not to say machine-gun-cut your way to an action scene, but shoot around the weakness.

And, lastly, most great action sequences are not written out. They're created on location by trained professionals before the shoot date, and executed to spec. In scripts, writing too much action is not the way to move the story. WRiters in asian territories, the best, simply put something to the effect of "They fight" in their scripts and move on.

Kholi said:

In response to the actual question:

It depends on directorial vision and mostly the actual narrative. For an example of how a rather well done action scene can have LITTLE impact in a major motion picture, refer to the Snow Chase in INCEPTION.

As well produced as it was, and awesome, it does very little to move the narrative along and has very little impact on the overall movie. Thankfully, it didn't detract much, but it added little. This movie is still highly regarded by myself as pretty fantastic motion picture.

Just, that scene, it was out of place.

Depending on what kind of director you are, take this with a grain of salt: the best low budget action scene you can have is the one where you don't necessarily need much action at all to occur, only the turmoil and danger of someone losing their life.

Someone fighting over a teleportation module the size of a wrist watch in the confined space of a kitchen while a child cries in a corner can be infinitely more intense and entertaining than a forest of ninjas hunting down one man, destroying pagoda's in their wake.

Write action for the story, not for the action, and you'll get your incredible action scene.

On the technical side of things: if you cannot get someone that can execute a punch for camera (camera action is not the same as real life or accurate) then hide it in a close-up. That's not to say machine-gun-cut your way to an action scene, but shoot around the weakness.

And, lastly, most great action sequences are not written out. They're created on location by trained professionals before the shoot date, and executed to spec. In scripts, writing too much action is not the way to move the story. WRiters in asian territories, the best, simply put something to the effect of "They fight" in their scripts and move on.

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I agree. For my last screenplay I tried writing most of the action scenes with as much turmoil as I could. For my current one I wanna write them with even more, especially since their is not as many action scenes, and I'm writing it much lower budget. So I wanna write the car chase and shootout with more turmoil, rather than just big destruction, on a tight budget. Since I wanna shoot the script myself in the future, what if I shot it so instead of the outside of a car getting smashed up, I just showed the driver and/or passengers getting killed or maimed, on the inside?

But will the viewer finds it distracting if the scene cuts from outside of cars to the insides, every time the main car crashes into a random car on the street? Like for example, in The Bourne Supremacy, Bourne crashes alongside several civilian cars in the tunnel, but they only showed the destruction from the outside. If it showed each one of those vehicle operators get killed or maimed, every crash, that could work well.

Firstly - I agree with Kohli.. he said pretty much what I was going to say.
I also agree with something someone else said about people taking you more seriously after they work with you. (but I totally know how difficult it is to get your foot in that door.)

I personally am a huge proponent of writing for what you have to work with.

Anyway - no one really has yet, so I'm going to suggest a few movies you might take something from. These aren't for the most part strictly action films.. but they are all have cheap sequences that are exciting. (it's been a while since I've seen some of these so I may be a little off)

Inglourious Basterds..
There is a scene in which the girl, the theatre owner, is sitting at a table eating a pastry with the guy that killed her family.. and there is so much tension in that scene - simply because of the circumstance.. that if she took off running you couldn't have helped but being on the edge of your seat. A simple foot chase through the building would have been more exciting than the tens of millions Michael Bay spent on thirty seconds of Transformers.

Intacto..
Spanish film.. several tense scenes.. dirt cheap to shoot.. mostly exciting with a giggle because of the premise... but none the less - great examples of making something exciting because what's going on - not because of explosions, etc. The blind-folded run across the street/run through the forest come to mind.

El Mariachi
The infamous.. probably more a long the lines of what you're talking about when it comes to action.. I'm not a huge fan - but it did launch Robert Rodrigueses career, and as I understand it it cost eight (?) grand to make.. in line with what a lot of the others have been saying though - Rodrigues had been making movies non-stop since he was like.. two. he knew exactly what he was doing. Every take was printed, and every cut was cut to the end of the shot.

The Way of the Gun..
One of my favorite car chases ever.. the slow chase. Played upon expectations.. very clever way to make something exciting. Think outside the box!

Anything Jackie Chan..
If you can find someone extremely talented.. than you can put them in a room with a single chair, a tennis ball, and a toothpick and magic will happen.

I haven't seen Intacto, but saw the gunfight in The Way of the Gun. It was kinda fake in some shots, and I thought El Mariachi didn't have near as much turmoil as it could have. But I see what you're getting at. I recently saw the latest Robin Hood(2010). There are many battles between large numbers of men, with arrows and swords, flying everywhere. Not that much turmoil though, and it all felt generic.

Not compared to Robin and Marian (1976). Same characters and legend, but shot on a much lower budget, with not near as many actors or vast sets. However this one is much more compelling and exciting just because of how's it's directed. So it's a great example IMO of how micro-budget action, can outdo Hollywood.

harmonica44 said:

Not compared to Robin and Marian (1976). Same characters and legend, but shot on a much lower budget, with not near as many actors or vast sets. However this one is much more compelling and exciting just because of how's it's directed. So it's a great example IMO of how micro-budget action, can outdo Hollywood.

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Micro-budget?! According to Wikipedia and the Bank of England's inflation calculator, that film cost £5m… or £28m in today's money.

Well I was going by the cost of the action scenes themselves, not the whole movie. The sets, costumes, and big name actors add up to millions, where as in some other microbudget action movie, can only be a few thousand, and still have action just as good, if done right.

Aaron M said:

The Way of the Gun..
One of my favorite car chases ever.. the slow chase. Played upon expectations.. very clever way to make something exciting. Think outside the box!

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Seconded! Not really my sort of movie, but that car chase was amazing. I was absolutely riveted; incredibly tense scene, and so different from the typical "exploding cars" sort of chase scene.

It would be neat to try and apply the same sort of philosophy to other action scenes. They removed one of the defining characteristics of a car chase (the speed), and played with the idea. What if you took a shootout, and took out the massive ammunition usage? Don't script it like a standoff, but a typical duck & cover, maneuvering for advantage gun fight, but without firing a shot. What would stay the same? What would change? How would someone draw the other person if you only have one shot and need to make it count. Sort of like the end of The Man With A Golden Gun, only without pre-arranging tricks and traps.

not to steal the thread but there was a handful of great things about "way of the gun"..
The opening "punch the girl" scene.
The sperm bank "I've never killed anyone." scene. (cracks me up every time.)
The Slow Chase.
And maybe most importantly the fact that at the end ::SPOILER:: they don't win.

Anyway - the most obvious setup for a bulletless gunfight would be out of ammo.. each participant doesn't know the other is out.. I have a feeling that would probably incite laughter more than anything though.. Would be an interesting problem to solve and an interesting scene to watch, I think.

::Ahem:: sorry to highjack the thread - we no return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Hmm perhaps I should see "The Way of the Gun". I was told to watch the shootout to get a good idea of how to write a good shootout. So I watched just the shootout on youtube and thought it was kinda fake though, but still should see the whole movie of course.

I believe (I may be wrong) it's written and directed by the guy that wrote "The Usual Suspects" if that means anything to you.

Another idea I have for an action scene is a shootout on rooftops surrounding a bank that the villains wanna break into. Kinda like the wild bunch where characters on rooftops, shoot at the characters breaking into the bank. Would shooting on multiple rooftops be too expensive for microbudget? I could have it all take place inside the bank, if that would cost less money, but it would be illogical. Why wait inside the bank for the bank robbers, when waiting inside, will set off the alarm? The bank is closed when this happens.

That's the thing. How do you write microbudget action and still keep it logical with those limits?