Lighting & Camera Movement (for UT Tyler)

For the sake of this article, I'll be highlighting John Wick for its dynamic lighting and smooth 3rd person camera movement... unrelated, but worth noting, is the fight-scene in Oldboy (a 2003 South Korean action movie.)

I digress...

The John Wick trilogy(?) remained mostly consistent with its lighting and cinematography style, though it did become increasingly dramatic and theatrical (in a good way!)

John Wick implements a lot of wide angles, to showcase the saturated and atmospheric lighting, as well as the landscapes and backgrounds... the saturated lighting is also, often, bold and contrasting. The camera movements I've found to be controlled amid the chaos, which really puts an 'ethereal' and/or 'onlooking' type of feeling... much less anxiety inducing than the frantic camera movements and quick scene switches in a lot of other action/thriller movies. Understandable, a director may want the audience to 'feel' the action and sit on the edge of their seat, but I feel the choice to NOT go that route is part of what set John Wick apart.

Also setting John Wick apart was its focus on wide angles... these angles made it possible to 'enrich' the shots with as much activity as possible & made it possible for lengthy fight-scenes to travel throughout the screen (and have more play-room to choreograph the fights out onto.) This is why I commend (and recommend) Oldboy because it, also, has a drawn-out fight scene with saturated colors and very wide-angle shot... the camera movement was slow and controlled and it almost had the feeling of a 2-dimensional fighting game.

Again, I digress.

Also, worth noting that the lenses used for John Wick's wide-angles range in price from $20 - 90k (I would imagine they rented them, but still... insane money.)

Another thing on John Wick's cinematic style (and camera movement(?)) is that during the fight scenes there was very little cutting/editing, which is great because it really showcased Keanu's abilities as his own stuntman, and actor, and also the production's commitment to 'perfection' (as opposed to most movies editing their production 'to death.')

Lastly, and again, the John Wick choices in lighting are artistic, intentional and semi-unreal. The play on lighting in these films really created an almost comic-style world, heavy and laden with artistic flare... Truly akin to a paintbrush on canvas, with the paint being hundreds of thousands of dollars of rental lighting equipment. I think, aside from the artistic color palette, the one thing I would commend (and beside the price) is the amount of distance that the lighting needed to cover - due to the wide angles throughout... that says 'dollar signs' for sure.