AMBUSHED (Giorgio Serafini, 2013)

[Nathan]

Ahhh right, so that's what it is. I thought it was just the convenience of using one set of actors for both films but I guess that is a pretty cool idea. Maybe if they were packaged together or, you know something like Grindhouse, it would generate a lot more publicity in terms of originality but they'd make half the money no doubt so haha that's definately out. Randy looks not half bad as the villain. Is that Dolph fighting him on the bridge there?

[Jox]

Red Epic camera on remote-controlled helicopter shot with Dolph observing


Randy


with the Director of Photography


DP cameo as Russian gangster

[Jox]

Actor Daniel Bonjour

[Tom]

Seems to be some effort in this one. I like the little Helicamera rig too. Never seen one of those!
I'll assume it'll be the same for BOR. They'll try and deliver a solid action film.

[Jox]

Yeah but what bugs me is how rushed (and very low budget it seems) the productions are, both shot in 17-20 days (and this seems to be a general tendency with those kind of movies, allowed with less and less time)... That's where you understand Dolph accepted to do RESCUE 3: even though they'll have to shoot like one 40-50 minutes episode a week, they'll have about $1,5 million budget per episode, which is a good budget for TV, and almost 75% the entire budget of BLOOD OF REDEMPTION apparently.

[Tom]

Yep. It's part of what I really hate about digital film. It can be done very quickly. Limited set ups. Often they can use natural light. It just lends itself to a lot of half assed and very cheap looking film-making. I guess in part this is what has held Dolph back from directing another feature. He was held back enough in something like Command Performance say, but even just 4 years on now, things have got to a point that he'd be very lucky to film in super 35 again, and get 30+days. He'd probably have to shoot HD in 20 days unless he produces and partly finances himself.

I'm looking forward to Dolph's TV show. The budgets per ep, if true is good. It'll allow for a good development of character over the two seasons. Hopefully the writing is solid enough and they get a good stunt team for the action.
As much as I really enjoy Dolphs interesting supporting roles at the moment. If most of the films end up looking like TV shows and being cheap. I'd actually rather have him leading a TV show. A new hour of Dolphage a week! ha ha.

[Jox]

Honestly digital didn't change much in terms of how quickly they shoot, the process doesn't really take less time or set-ups in the end. I think Florentine had like 36 days on NINJA 2 which is not bad, just a bit more than CP and US4.

[leigh1975]

Yep. It's part of what I really hate about digital film. It can be done very quickly. Limited set ups. Often they can use natural light. It just lends itself to a lot of half assed and very cheap looking film-making. I guess in part this is what has held Dolph back from directing another feature. He was held back enough in something like Command Performance say, but even just 4 years on now, things have got to a point that he'd be very lucky to film in super 35 again, and get 30+days. He'd probably have to shoot HD in 20 days unless he produces and partly finances himself.

I'm looking forward to Dolph's TV show. The budgets per ep, if true is good. It'll allow for a good development of character over the two seasons. Hopefully the writing is solid enough and they get a good stunt team for the action.
As much as I really enjoy Dolphs interesting supporting roles at the moment. If most of the films end up looking like TV shows and being cheap. I'd actually rather have him leading a TV show. A new hour of Dolphage a week! ha ha.

Not necessarily. In fact, filming digital is far more cost-effective. The shorter shooting time is also attributed to not having to change film stock. A standard roll of 35mm film only covers about 11 minutes of footage before running out, hence the urgency of 'cut', which obviously limits time spent shooting takes before changing reels. However, with digital, you can technically not have to 'cut' as such, you can keep rolling and achieve multiple takes, and just keep rolling; therefore less of the working hour is wasted, less time is wasted adjusting the lighting because unlike with film, what you see on the monitors is exactly what is filmed, unike film, where the image on the monitor is not really indicative of the desired look. All this cuts down on shooting days and budget. It has it's downsides of course, but it's more beneficial than people think.

[Tom]

It can be good, as long as it's made to look like film. The trouble is with so many b-movies, is they'll just shoot fast and because HD can capture so much they'll not take the time to light scenes properly.

I want to see Dolph going back to 35mm in his films more but of course, that's not gonna happen sadly.
Though because you can leave the camera rolling, it doesn't necessarily give actors more time to deliver a more varied amount or better quality takes. Generally in these films they seem to limit to 2-3 takes and move on. Some directors and actors can work like that well and prefer it, but you have to be very skilled. What should be the major strengths of HD are rarely harnessed. Some films in recent years, particularly in DTV have looked woeful.

[Jox]

Digital didn't change much in that regards, believe me it's like with editing: people thought it would get everything done quicker but in the end, it takes as much time (if not more) and as much time is "wasted" on set.

About lighting, you can't light it the same way, it's always been much harder to be a good DP with video and HD than film. And most DPs now aren't seasoned veterans who know their classics if you know what I mean...

[Nathan]

How can they ever expect Dolph to make a decent movie? The budgets get less and less, the shooting time gets less and less, his roles get less and less. We've sort of fallen into a period of Dolph playing second fiddle in movies with other action stars. I mean, what was his last starring role, I can't even remember that far back now. It's like I was saying over on the Van Damme forum, in the off-topic section, C-grade actors of the past like Don Wilson do nothing now and people like Dolph and JC are the ones getting budgets of $1 million. It's kinda depressing.

[Tom]

I agree. But even now it seems like some of those old C-grade actors are coming back. Rothrock was gone for ages but she's got two films coming out. It seems both were shot really cheaply in the same location, but they look totally like home movies. It's ridiculous, and a shame. Really cheap, really rushed looking.
The thing is, the demand has gone. On the film sight I write for we've got a retrospective about VHS coming up. But going to that, when the video market first came about, everyone wanted in on it. It's why they had so many action stars coming out, left right and centre. DVD had a brief kind of boom, but not to the same extent. It's why they've not launched many new action folk in the last decade, and some of the older folk have seen work dry up. Gary Daniels, Lorenzo, Don etc will very, very rarely be able to lead a film now. Gary seems reserved for 5-6th in the cast sometimes, if he's lucky. He had a brief purple patch after Expendables getting a couple of significant bad guy roles, but that's passed.

I've enjoyed Dolph's characters of late. He's stolen most of the films he's "supported" in. That's good, even if it kind of goes a bit wasted in something that's not very good like Stash House. OITC and Package were fairly decent though thankfully. But I do really miss Dolph leading a film. I guess it still boils down to the recession. It really effected the movie world at all levels. So a Lundgren leading role vehicle will probably cost (generally) half what it might have 10 years ago. And even so, producers seem to be opting for multi-star pictures. It's all team ups to try and maximise returns. I would hazard a guess they pay for say JC and Dolph combined what each would have earned alone 10 years ago, roughly.

That said I look forward to seeing Dolph playing the good guy again and getting to square off with Couture. In as much as BOTD looks fun what you can plainly see is it probably cost 20 pence to make.

[Jox]

1/ No one except him and the fans expect Dolph to make a "decent" movie (what investors and producers want is to make movie just with like any other film produced btu even more so)

2/ as said the market is very bad these days (for any kind of movie), financing has gotten tough

3/ it was mostly up to Dolph to choose supporting roles lately, not only to work on his acting craft and make money for his divorce (& consequences) but also because he's bored and tired to play the leading man/hero in a basic action movie after doing 40-50 of them (he told me so a couple of times when I talked to him this fall and winter)

4/ As far as budgets I realized talking to directors that the budget for Dolph were never really high even back in the early 90's when they were actually around $6-7 million salaries included, 10 years ago they were around $2-4 million which is still the case...

[leigh1975]

3/ it was mostly up to Dolph to choose supporting roles lately, not only to work on his acting craft and make money for his divorce (& consequences) but also because he's bored and tired to play the leading man/hero in a basic action movie after doing 40-50 of them (he told me so a couple of times when I talked to him this fall and winter)

I feel like Dolph has wanted to be seen as a character actor, and quite often they arent the top billing kinds of roles; it's fair to say that if you look at Expendables/US4/Package/Stash House/OITC, he's by far the strongest character in the film, and he's getting the best reviews of his acting career right now, rather than going through the motions playing the lead where the only distnction between the roles is that the hair in Direct Action is different from the hair in Direct Contact. Even back in the day, it's safe to say his best acting roles were in Universal Soldier, Men Of War (not strictly a support, but definitely more of an ensemble role rather than a starring role) and Johnny Mnemonic... spot the connection? Let's not also forget... taking the juicy supporting role is getting him in movies alongside a good caliber of star. Even if somebody like Cuba Gooding has fallen into DTV (in reality, what has become of independant film), could anybody have predicted Dolph would be co-starring with an Oscar winner? The truth of the matter is, Dolph has reached the point where his name still sells a DVD no matter where his name is on the case, and he's also highly billed on blockbusters. Would that have happened post-Universal Soldier? Would anybody take a film where he's star like, say, Diamond Dogs over a film where he's co-star like Package? Not bad for a 'career slump'.

[Tom]

I'd take The Package over DD any day. I do think he's moving into TV at the right time. For now he's kind of done as much as he can with these villain roles. Too many more and they'll start getting too similar. He'll basically end up, as happened with his heroic roles, doing the same thing over and over.
It will be great seeing how he develops his character over 2 full TV seasons, and I think with how Dolph's acting has developed of late, it gives him a good base to give this character some depth.

4/ As far as budgets I realized talking to directors that the budget for Dolph were never really high even back in the early 90's when they were actually around $6-7 million salaries included, 10 years ago they were around $2-4 million which is still the case...

True but I don't think you get as much for your money as you did 10 years ago, and certainly not 20 years ago. I mean Silent Trigger say looks like a big blockbuster in comparison to Stash House.
Again though in large part, budgets might still be the same but again, it's that HD can cheapen the look of a film. Icarus didn't look far off a well made home movie at times. I guess it boils down to the fact that consumers didn't buy 16 or 35mm cameras to make their home movies. A lot of people now buy digital or HD cameras. The gap between the consumer and the professional market has closed somewhat, whilst I also think the people in the business in certain areas seem less skilled nowadays.

RED cameras can look very good though. So I really hope the DP has done a good job.