• Wondering which camera, gear, computer, or software to buy? Ask in our Gear Guide.

The Raid: Redemption, Camera Motion Added Digitally?

I just saw The Raid: Redemption, it has pretty good action choreography. It looked like there was some camera motion added digitally to enhance the action. There are probably a lot of real camera moves, but some feel a bit too smooth & precise. Getting all of it perfectly would need a Lot of takes. Things like speeding up motion on strikes & adding a bit of shake to accent hits does work well in it. A few of the other moves stood out a bit to me. I wonder if even some of the camera shake was digital. I really wouldn't have thought of it except I noticed that the gun flashes looked digital & imdb trivia confirmed it.

Maybe they shoot very high res so they can crop in on some shots where they want to add a camera move? Or the shot happens so fast you don't even notice the difference in resolution. Has anyone seen any behind the scenes footage of the editing to see if any of this is true? I tried googling but didn't find much info. What do you think?
Action starts at 00:35
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dUp2uOcEY0
 
Yeah, very obviously added in post. Helps make you feel a part of the action.

Even a lot of the normal camera shake before the fight was added in post.
 
With a well choreographed scene, there's no real reason you couldn't get this or something very close to it practically/in-camera. Of course, you could also go down the post route.
 
With a well choreographed scene, there's no real reason you couldn't get this or something very close to it practically/in-camera. Of course, you could also go down the post route.

That sounds more difficult with a higher chance of needing extra takes. Relying on the camera man.
More takes = increased risk of injury

But youre right this doesn't look particularly ambitious with the kind of motion theyre using
 
Oh cool, you watched The Raid haha.

Most of the stuff can be achieved in camera. The few noticeable edits that I can tell are the obvious blood splatters and gunshots, but they also did a few frame cutting here and there just to speed up the action a tad bit.

It's not unusual to do multiple takes just to get everything right, especially for a fight scene. When I shoot fight scenes, it's not just the actors that have to be on point, but me as well as I'm choreographing my movement along with them.

Here's the behind the scenes of the machete scene (also on home media)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5PNHCVZ0Aw

The closest that I've shot something to the same intensity and style would be this scene at 7:34
https://youtu.be/Fv0e9b4FcEE?t=7m34s
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the replies, everyone.
Nice stuff there, shortboy. Ya your post made me want to watch those films. I was also wondering about the gif you posted of the driving scene in The Raid 2. They must've added special fx right? Because even though the cameraman's dressed up like a car seat, the headrest in the finished shot looks pretty different from what he's wearing.
 
Ya the gif's so small I didn't even notice that the guy was dressed up as a car seat. I just found out when I read about it. But you guys really did a great job of doing your own version. How many takes did you have to do?
 
We did 4 takes. If I remember correctly, in the edit the front half is from take 4 while the ending is from take 3. The cut happens after the thugs get out of the car and the thug in the jacket passes the camera (you'll notice the cut if you pay attention to the background). We liked take 4 overall but the child acted better in the end of take 3.
 
Back
Top