Films › Cinematography
Mad Max: Fury Road
Directed by George Miller, 2015
John Seale and Miller centre the point of interest in nearly every frame so the eye never has to search during high-speed cutting. Day exteriors are pushed to saturated orange and the night work is shot day-for-night and graded blue, giving the film only two visual states. Frame rate is manipulated constantly, dropping or raising it so action reads clearly at speed. Practical vehicles and real stunts anchor the digital work rather than the reverse. Editor Margaret Sixel, coming from outside action filmmaking, cut against genre convention by simplifying rather than accelerating the pace, trimming shots until only the essential beat of each action remained. Stunt coordinator Guy Norris built practical vehicles engineered to survive real desert chases, giving Seale's camera something with actual weight and momentum to track. Color grading sessions were extensive, since the two-state palette had to hold consistently across thousands of visual effects shots layered onto practical plates. Editors working in action should study how a slower cutting rhythm, not a faster one, made this film's chaos legible.
What to watch for
Watch the centre-framing rule and how it lets an action cut land in under a second.
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