the electric internet

Geography is an important but rarely used device that is the key to making any action sequence work. No action sequence will have any real tension to it unless we know exactly where everything is at all times: where the hero is in relation to his objective, how close or far away he is from his goal, what obstacles are at play and where they are in relation to the hero in the scene.

Most film makers don’t bother to figure this out, because it’s difficult and time-consuming, and requires a lot of forethought, so usually action sequences are just a frenetic and confusing pyrotechnical fest that ends when the loud music stops. In a well-done sequence, we know what the hero is trying to do, and we always know how far along he is in his goal of obtaining his goal, and the sequence is over when we see him clearly get what he wanted or when he is definitively denied what he wanted.

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Nobody is better than Spielberg at geography. If you just look at any sequence from Raiders, you will see how well they are all plotted out, how you always know where everything is, what elements are in play and how close or far away Indy is from getting his goal.

Think about the sequence where Indy and Marion are trying to commandeer the Nazi plane. There are so many elements in the sequence that affect how it turns out, and they are all added very clearly and always one at a time (which is very important, but again, very rare) to build a nice progression and keep raising the tension at a constant rate, and always we are oriented to where we are, what the dangers are to our heroes and and where they are coming from.

The sequence has a good example of one of a really cool film trick that can only be pulled off if the audience has a clear understanding of where everything is located. I don’t know what to call it other than the unseen threat.