Prison Break

Robbie Comeau

Robbie Comeau

Como's back. back again
There's an effect in Prison Break, and when it goes to commercial, it does all this quick camera movement, and each shot is like 5-6 frames long.

The music kicks in, theres maps, theres random footage, and they blend it all in.

The final composite is about 2-3 seconds. If that.

If I wanted to achieve this effect, what's the best way to film this, and then edit it? What effects are used?

Thanks,

Robbie
 
Yeah, it's just various tracking shots at high speed with a bunch of crazy color filters and maybe a few image overlays as well. Shouldn't be too hard to replicate. Just watch it a bunch and frame by frame it to see exactly what they do.
 
I absolutely love Prison Break, but find some irony in a thread about it on the cinematography forum.

A lot of my favorite shows seem to have one element I strongly dislike about them. In Burn Notice, for instance, it's the extremely obnoxious editing, as though the editor or editors think there is a reason for calling unnecessary attention to their work, like the more I notice their editing the better it must be, or perhaps the more "clever" I will think it is.

With Prison Break, it's the cinematography. Maybe I should blame the directing, but I don't have the heart because the performances are too good, and the cinematography too consistently not-so-great for me to think its the fault of the directors, who are more or less hired on a per-show basis to do their jobs and be done with it. No, a cinematographer is more likely the culprit. Exhibit A is the constant use of out-of-focus shots where we have two fantastic performers, and for some reason (i.e. because the cinematographer has awful taste) I have to endure seeing the background actor thrown out of focus in every scene, even when his or her REACTION to what is being spoken is AS important or MORE important than the actor actually delivering the dialogue. This is terrible storytelling, and I blame the directors, too, because you need enough spine to tell the cinematographer, like the editor on Burn Notice, to screw off and let their craft serve the story rather than trying to call attention to itself. There's nothing worse than the idea that "professional" filmmaking is all about having everything out of focus, as though somehow that's desirable all of the time, no matter what. Hey, busy background, two characters having an intense, emotional conversation, great, throw the background out of focus so we can concentrate more on the two characters! All for it. But don't make Character B blurry when Character A is, for instance, telling him that he has cancer -- don't you think the reaction is just as important while Character A is talking? I sure do. For a show I consider not only one of the best in television but one of the best ever, it's very frustrating to have such a weakness.

Exhibit B -- don't shoot on film if you can't afford Kodak's special stock for low light situations. Season Three is a prime example of this. Get it on Blu-ray. You'll regret it. 20% of the footage wouldn't pass muster at a community college film program because it's so grainy, I wouldn't put it in the rough assembly of a prequel to The Blair Witch Project. If you can't get adequate lighting into an area, at least bother to shoot with a camera or with film stock that will not exhibit so much grain that it's distracting to the story. It's all about the story and these issues ruin my enjoyment of that story. And for highly paid professionals, it's not acceptable.
 
Prison Break is a great show but I agree with Jonathan about the out of focus. Way over used in tv and film. If it helps the story fine I like it but if you use it thinking your great or starting a new trend then please just support the story. If it doesn't support the story then it shouldn't be in there. Then again I like CSI Miami a lot.
 
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