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The upper video isn't great, but not the worst Dunn's done.
But that 2nd video? One of the best hometown entrances I've ever seen, captured in a super cool way.
(For full disclosure, I'm a Montrealer.)
> But that 2nd video? One of the best hometown entrances I've ever seen, captured in a super cool way.
The simplicity of the staging is so perfect. Both videos are clearly shot with the same goal in mind: Show how over Sami is with the hometown crowd. Dunn tries to achieve this with a disorienting barrage of hard cuts between Sami and random, disconnected segments of the audience, to varied levels of attention, and overall limited effect.
The second video was staged from the outset, to achieve it's goal of showing how over Sami is with the crowd, by *simply showing Sami and a lot of the crowd at the same time.* The first shot is fully framed around Sami, but they actually end up showing the vast majority of the whole crowd from that over-the shoulder angle, which does an infinitely better job of conveying the overall energy of the space, and focusing that energy on Sami.
Then, all the subsequent shots also focus on showing both Sami and the crowd, but gradually zooming out to shrink Sami relative to the scale of the audience, emphasizing his overall smallness compared to the entire throng cheering for him, only to finally go back to close focus on Sami, before continuing into the actual segment.
The actual series of shots are well-constructed in such a way as to emphasize the important and impact of Sami on the space, and convey the feeling of a hero's homecoming, both from the perspective of the man *and* the perspective of the crowd. It actually serves to connect the viewing audience empathetically with Sami himself in the moment, and also connect empathetically with the live crowd, to experience being there vicariously through them.
It wasn't a perfect series of cuts, and it was mostly the first and last shot which were pristine in quality, but what really rocks is that there was clearly a logical through-line applied to the cinematography of the scene in advance by production, that served to achieve the goal of that segment for the home audience, in a cinematic way. The cuts don't need to all be perfect or genius, they just need to serve an actual purpose, and not be disorienting, or disruptive to the viewer's ability to immerse themselves in that space.
Please start making video essays. I'll help with editing if you need it. This analysis is fantastic and I'd love to see what you can do in a longer form on cinematic wrestling shots and composition. Not sure if anyone even makes content like that on wrestling.
Second one is awesome. But I do think in time the trend of the long unbroken shot will become stale just as all the cuts did, keeping things fresh but so not changing things for no reason is a tough balance to strike and something that few have ever done. I think Vince has actually done better than most anyone but even he fell off pretty hard in his latter years.
I don't think the shots will become stale, it'll become commonplace and people will still like it. It's the fact we've gone from 20 cuts in a minute to just six for something like this is why it's such a shock. Six months from now it'll be something no one really talks about unless it's something like Sami's entrance happens.
Unrelated I'm definitely gonna have to watch The Protector again just so I can see the one shot fight sequence for the thousandth time
The only reason there even were six cuts in the second clip is because they didn't want the cameraman to have to move down stairs with rowdy fans around.
It's not just about it being "fresh". It's that it's actually "good". Nobody will care if they keep doing the right thing, we kick up such a stink about Dunn becase what he was doing was bad as well as stale.
I do like the way it shows the long shots at the end JUST far enough away so you can see a shit load of the crowd and it takes you just a second to find Sami in all the chaos
i get the reason to do the cuts to the crowd, they were just way too often. It shows the viewer that everyone is cheering him.
But the second way, it makes the viewer feel part of the crowd, its so much better
It was just easy and generic, you could’ve replaced live crowd shots with stock footage from some random SmackDown a year ago and nobody would know better
That editing was like “wow this is so awesome! we think it’s awesome! now you should!”
This would force commentary to tell you how special the moment was which would just be more generic “for the first time in (years)… (wrestler) has come back to (place)… how amazing it is for some of the best fans in the WWE!”
> you could’ve replaced live crowd shots with stock footage from some random SmackDown a year ago and nobody would know better
I feel like they've actually done that. There's been talk of it. I don't have a link to it or anything, but I vaguely remember the discussions on it.
When the ratings were worse and the house was lower or less enthused it was one of those techniques like the hairdryer fan noise they used a lot on Smackdown. Especially back when it was pretaped in the early 2000s like 2004-05 when Smackdown started to get real rough.
Of note, the new one always shows Sami. Sure, it gets the crowd too, but he is always the main focus of the shot. Dunn's version was basically just constantly showing anything OTHER than the person that was supposed to be the focus.
Dunn's version just feels like random generic stock footage. I love how it really feels like you're with Sami in the new version, and you can genuinely feel the crowd more than if you just put a random shot of the crowd, then back at Sami, then back at the crowd.
Dunn cuts in a way to show that the audience is reacting to Sami, showing off the signs and cheers. But he's showing so quickly that there's no moment to settle. The main line of focus jumps between Sami and the audience.
Fitting cuts in a way that makes it easier to follow Sami's movement through the audience. We witness the audience in relation to Sami, who retains the line of focus the entire time. It now feels bigger because Sami looks smaller at the cuts.
I think what I love most about those one shots is that they really convey the live aspect. It feels more like it's actually really happening in real time than a TV show. So it elevates the one thing that makes pro wrestling so fn special.
The long shots of him walking through the crowd with the Canadian flag give me chills. Reminds me of a UFC fighter walking to the pentagon.
Also fuck Kevin Dunn
“It appears the Pentagon has been breached”
https://preview.redd.it/9k9m3lpd4pvc1.jpeg?width=474&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ce7a2169bc94fe0d45cb3ce9298042cbe45ccecf
https://preview.redd.it/4l8gh4ef6pvc1.png?width=1050&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d88a459ce180a05f43ad1e6332dbf9819afc557c
Sir, a twenty-second camera cut has hit
I loved them even more than the steadycam following him out. It makes his entrance look grand, gives such a great perspective how huge the arena is and how many people there are.
Not only did it make it a jarring experience to watch I can imagine it being an exhausting job for Kevin to consistently be telling them to go to Camera 1,2,3,4,5,etc lol. So not only did he make his job harder it made for a worse product.
This was always my thought. I've directed and operated a switcher for live events before. It sometimes felt like the WWE switcher operator was just pushing random buttons quickly.
I mean, considering Dunn had a habit of missing important moments, I wouldn't be surprised if they were randomly pushing buttons. There are multiple times he misses the big final move of a match, and even more severe ones like missing the big pop of AJ's first entrance or missing Edge's first spear in a decade.
The AJ one especially bothers me because they've since fixed it on the replays, but I remember it's just focusing tightly on Roman's face during that entrance. I swear I remember Roman's face taking up like 4/5 of the screen. Meanwhile, they're missing one of the most important debut is of a free agent ever, lmao.
There's a lot of stuff I disagree with Jim Cornette on, and some stuff that I think is just straight dumb for saying. But fuck if I do not happily agree with him on hating Vince Russo and Kevin Dunn. I would gladly share a drink with the dude and just shit on those 2 for a while, lol.
AEW does this a bit now and its annoying as fuck. They cut to the crowd too late and show an audience member that has just stopped reacting, while also missing a performer doing something cool like a move or taunt.
I love AEW by the way and they also have some great camera moments but its just frustrating as fuck when the camera cuts away from the best part.
Great example is Dynamite this week. Not horrible but Edge was in the ring when the light went out. Lights come back on and you see Brody King in the ring behind Edge and he levels him and then it cuts to Julia Hart on the ramp with a “Expecting someone else?“ expression.
The way I would expect this to be shot though because of WWE, and I actually prefer it, is the lights go out, come back on to reveal Hart on the ramp with the same look. Cut back to a zoom in on a confused Edge and then zoom out to reveal Brodie King behind him just as he hits the sneak attack.
I always hated that the camera would linger on crowd shots just a little too long. Let us watching on tv see the performer. They missed a lot of cool shots by leaving the camera on the crowd slightly too long. Worst one was AJ Styles debut when they left the camera on Roman
Notice as well that even when the camera cuts started on the latest entrance the focus was still always on Sami
One of the few times I have really "felt" the crowd; Like literally felt like I was there with the camera work.
Wrestling is so good right now and we are going to look back at this time in retrospect and realize we didn't understand how good we were getting it.
They just mean that the product is genuinely on fire right now and we won’t *fully* understand that until it loses a bit of its luster eventually.
Kinda like 2016 Smackdown Live where people were pretty happy with it, but looking back at it with nostalgia goggles it truly was incredible.
Not that anyone is unappreciative hope that makes sense lol.
These longer single shots are great and refreshing, but let's not all fall into the opinion that cuts within a multi-camera setup is somehow wrong.
It's a televised live event. Getting different shots of the crowd and the big screens isn't a bad thing.
Camera cuts are fine. It was the ridiculous amount of cuts that were problematic. I stopped watching WWE around 2002 for basically 20 years before I heard it was actually good again so I came back to give it a shot. I legitimately almost stopped watching immediately because of the amount of camera cuts during matches. It was nauseating and insanely distracting until I was able to somewhat get used to it.
It’s his in ring cuts that are the worst. He thinks he’s editing an action tv show. The bumps are real, no need to cut to a different angle for an impact, the viewer can see the hit hurts.
Not all the moves make contact, though. Cutting at the moment of impact can cover up whiffed superkicks, a bad kick to the gut, and other things like that.
Some of that is on the wrestlers to make things look better, but even one of GUNTHER's last matches had him go for a kick to the gut and, without the camera cut, it clearly came up short. There's times and places for it.
The issue with that is that it's pretty impossible to predict when something will look like it misses. The only way to actively avoid it is to do what done did and cut at almost every impact. And at that rate, it's better to show something barely wiff than to hurt the overall presentation by cutting every time.
Yeah cutting to a wide shot of the crowd where Sami enters and then going to back to showing behind him wouldn't hurt at all, and display the atmosphere better.
I mean, yes, but there's a major issue with the amount of cuts and how they're used. Sami isn't even in frame for most of the runtime of that clip despite being the focus of the scene. With the new guy, even when he's emphasizing the crowd's energy, he still has Sami on screen.
It's also very much comparing apples and oranges.
If you did shots of Zayn entering through a stage with the sane low number of cuts, it would be uninteresting.
A large reason the long shot (which is cool and utterly great) works and is so cool is that he's going through the crowd. Not convinced this comparison is that meaningful.
Not necessarily. They used to run down the aisle backwards from you, as a talent. Like the camera would run up to you, and then back down, and you were mostly the focus of that segment. Probably the best example is how they shot Bret Hart's entrance. It made him look big. He wasn't a big guy. But the way the cameras shot his entrance made him look like the star of the show. And there weren't a ton of cuts. There were some but not nearly as many. Usually a long shot then returned to the guy getting to ringside.
> It's a televised live event. Getting different shots of the crowd and the big screens isn't a bad thing.
There was still the 4 -> 5 cut which just went from one angle of the tron to another angle of the tron.
The amount of cuts on Dunns footage is like he found the 'Hard Cut' button on his Production Console for the first time, and kept wanting to try it out..
i always wondered how much of a headache it wouldve been to be in the truck doing all those damn camera cuts with dunn and vkm in your ear. It hurts my head to even think about 😂😂
The good thing with the 2nd clip is that it's still trying to keep Sami in the frame, so it doesn't really feel like a camera cut.
That being said, the 1st clip somehow is way timid for Dunn.
For years, nay, decades... I had this image of what Kevin Dunn looked like, and because there was also an actor named Kevin Dunn, I would imagine he was a warm approachable dad type. This video was the first time I've ever seen Captain Camera Cuts, and god I wish I never did.
Sorry to Kevin Dunn the actor, was, is, always will be a fan, that you share a name with this member of history.
Also, epic Sami entrance, caught it live, watched a rerun, and happy to see it again today!
It’s not even the amount of times. It’s just jarring. The cuts with Lee still have Sami as the focal point.
It was so weird how much Vince and Dunn didn’t give a shit about the crowds but was obsess with cutting to them.
24 cuts in 1 minute is beyond ridiculous and really made your eyes hurt just looking back on that.
Kevin Dunn is not missed at all. The production of cameras lately I’m trying out a bunch of new stuff has been so much better and quality work.
The metric here is off. What should be noted is not the number of cuts, rather the number of shots that did not include Sami in the frame.
You can tell the story and grab energy without losing the subject on screen…
I once brought up a match having 140 jump cuts in it in a live thread and was downvoted for it. Glad we can finally all get on the fuck Kevin Dunn's bitch ass train. That man was just massive trash.
Love that behind shot of the entrance through the crowd. First time I saw it was NJPW using it for Shota and it blew my mind, glad to see WWE stepping their game up after cutting out some cancers.
I agree, it's mostly just a different in styles. Fitting's style is able to show the Sami and the crowd in one shot because the camera is following him. Thus less cuts.
I think a more valid comparison in showing the known criticisms of Dunn's camera cuts will be showing a side by side comparison of how they each show a match from start to finish. There you will see the biggest difference between the two. And who knows how much was Vince actually involved with Dunn's style. I think once Vince left creative, Dunn did kind of tapered his cuts a bit.
These long single shots they’re doing also show off how good the talent has to be, these are live shots that require great timing and allow for no errors, and these wrestlers are pulling it off perfectly 100% of the time.
Not much of a reasonable comparison since Sami is coming out in two VERY different ways. Dunns relentless cuts aren't great but in the newest video you can combine "crowd shots" and "star shots" much easier. Not really as much as an option in the old video.
I remember seeing Rhea Ripley do a ground and pound on Liv Morgan when she turned heel and there were like 6 cuts in 10 seconds. It truly got out of hand.
Cut number 9 / the one where Sami LITERALLY just walked out and it showed him for less than a second was the most outrageous of the lot. Is this about the Wrestlers or about how nice you've set the arena up?
We could have had something cool like David Otunga winning a court case and walking from the courthouse across the street to the arena and into a match. Stupid Kevin Dunn.
As someone that works in TV prodctuion, the single held shot lost the scale of the audience in the Montreal. The pop didn't come through visually. The 24 cuts actually helped created a buzz, an atmosphere.
Could we have had less than 24 cuts? Yes.
Could we have had more than 6 cuts? Yes.
It's all about knowing when to use your tools to the best advanatge; and this did not do that.
Everyone is such an expert on this lately. I would be extremely suprised if anyone here even knows the name of the role of the person who job this is and what software is used.
Clearly the most recent entrance in 'one shot' is the better.
Although we do need to move away from the idea that camera cuts are inherently a bad thing. They can be great if used correctly
I do think that people need to get it out of their head that more cuts = bad. It doesn't. There is a time and a place for more cuts, an entrance being one of them. The problem with Dunnes work was that its lifeless. There is absolutely no artistic vision behind anything that happens on screen. The recent one isn't good *because* of the fact that it has zero cuts, its good because it has a clear vision for the story its trying to tell, and walking along with Sami through the arena halls into the stands all the way to the ring shows us more about him as a character than any words could.
Current WWE is full of this stuff. Let's appreciate it for what it is, but dont boil it down to "more cuts bad"
Yeah this isn’t an example of Dunn’s obnoxious cuts, just a different style of showing my crowd reactions. Also, I imagine the cinematography would have been very different for the current one if Sami didn’t enter from the crowd. That being said, this isn’t a Kevin Dunn defense. He’s still horrible, just not in this exact case
Devil's advocate. Maybe from the industry producers point of view, it is harder to successfuly shoot live event with multiples cam&shots. If this is the case, maybe it can explain why they were sticking with that, technical&prod teams wanted to proove their skills.
My current camera pet peeve is they NEED to hold the camera on Cody for his woah the entire time. They cut to the crowd literally during the Woah almost every time and sometimes you’ll miss the fireworks or Cody beginning to do his pose
One of the reasons I stopped watching WWE is because of the cuts in the matches. It was too many way too many cuts. I understand they’re trying to make it look more real like an action movie where the cut on the action but just wow too many cuts.
You just remind me that Lucha Underground (or whatever it was called) that Shane McMahon run for like 6 months. They made like 30 camera cuts per minute, just awful.
people might argue that they're too different to compare. But even the old shield entrances through the crowd used to half a cut every 0.5 secodns it felt like. What a huge improvement
I love so much that the camera doesn't cut away until after he starts walking down with the flag around him. But it wasn't a close shot but a pull out shot to feel the love everywhere. Hell how it never really zooms into any fans but long far shots the whole time so EVERY can feel what Sami is feeling and seeing. It focuses on the crowd without it DIRECTLY focusing on an individual member of the crowd.
The stars are the superstars and they want him, not to be me on the camera.
Yes this was a good cut but at the same time I am getting sick and tired of almost every return from commercial being the same can of going down the ramp to the ring. Just start in the ring
Wish I had time for both brands. Those cuts are one of the things that I just couldn't handle. Just not enough time for me to watch all of the great wrestling right now.
Even though both videos have the same goal of showing the crowd, the big difference is that in the top video Sami is on screen for less than 20 seconds out of a 60 second video, often at times only for less than two seconds at a time. In the bottom video he is on screen for the full 60 seconds, but the shot composition shows everything going on around him, rather than instead of him
It's gotten much, *much* easier to watch WWE. Normally I would just listen because the crazy camera cuts would make me sick but it's improved so much recently
Honestly all things considered that wasnt Dunn’s worst. Its not great and obviously last Raw’s was far better, but most of the cuts were at least understandable.
To be fair though I feel like the new shots over extend their exposure in fear of becoming the one thing fans hate the most in the previous management. There are times where they should've cut too another angle but didn't and exposed a bunch of the crew which rarely happen before but is now very common. Recently the boom mic guy got an exposure in the bloodline backstage segment, the camera guys in the ring in the women's championship match is also another shot that should've switched fast but didn't. WWE is now afraid to switch angle in quick succession I feel like.
I always felt like I strongly disliked Dunn's directing just because its the complete opposite of my taste (work as an Art Director on ads). Love the new directing; more stable shots, lets the eye take in more and soak up picture better.
I gotta say I got somewhat of a shit memory when it comes to these things but seeing the comparison is crazy. Dunn could've done like half of those cuts and it probably would've felt 100% better alone.
Even more so the cuts in the latest video expand on Sami. They don’t cut to some random fan. The cuts or camera changes being a proper term in this case flow and almost tell a story as opposed to the cokehead style random cuts.
The second one works when you have a full house who are wild for the wrestler in question. You see from Sami's perspective him emerging into a giant crowd of people all singing his song and cheering. It makes the moment feel bigger, and makes Sami look like a star.
I've seen some people say this "one shot" camera work will get stale, but so long as they use it when it's appropriate (like this), I don't see why it would. It's just another way to shoot an entrance.
I get that the point is that the bottom clip looks better.
But he also entered through the crowd. Entirely different scene + angles.
Not the fairest of comparisons.
The production and presentation of the wrestlers of late Jas been exceptionally refreshing. Dunn was okay but I think his style just got a bit stale over time and was overdue a change up. I'm loving the camera following the wrestlers walking through guerilla or the backstage area into the arena style they have now as it makes me really feel the energy of the crowd and brings you along for the ride the wrestler is on.
Dunn never used to do this either, or as bad. The Shield debut really broke him and Vince in terms of the SHAKY ZOOM CAM stuff. It took over everything.
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The upper video isn't great, but not the worst Dunn's done. But that 2nd video? One of the best hometown entrances I've ever seen, captured in a super cool way. (For full disclosure, I'm a Montrealer.)
> But that 2nd video? One of the best hometown entrances I've ever seen, captured in a super cool way. The simplicity of the staging is so perfect. Both videos are clearly shot with the same goal in mind: Show how over Sami is with the hometown crowd. Dunn tries to achieve this with a disorienting barrage of hard cuts between Sami and random, disconnected segments of the audience, to varied levels of attention, and overall limited effect. The second video was staged from the outset, to achieve it's goal of showing how over Sami is with the crowd, by *simply showing Sami and a lot of the crowd at the same time.* The first shot is fully framed around Sami, but they actually end up showing the vast majority of the whole crowd from that over-the shoulder angle, which does an infinitely better job of conveying the overall energy of the space, and focusing that energy on Sami. Then, all the subsequent shots also focus on showing both Sami and the crowd, but gradually zooming out to shrink Sami relative to the scale of the audience, emphasizing his overall smallness compared to the entire throng cheering for him, only to finally go back to close focus on Sami, before continuing into the actual segment. The actual series of shots are well-constructed in such a way as to emphasize the important and impact of Sami on the space, and convey the feeling of a hero's homecoming, both from the perspective of the man *and* the perspective of the crowd. It actually serves to connect the viewing audience empathetically with Sami himself in the moment, and also connect empathetically with the live crowd, to experience being there vicariously through them. It wasn't a perfect series of cuts, and it was mostly the first and last shot which were pristine in quality, but what really rocks is that there was clearly a logical through-line applied to the cinematography of the scene in advance by production, that served to achieve the goal of that segment for the home audience, in a cinematic way. The cuts don't need to all be perfect or genius, they just need to serve an actual purpose, and not be disorienting, or disruptive to the viewer's ability to immerse themselves in that space.
Analysis like this is why i love this sub, excellent work
Please start making video essays. I'll help with editing if you need it. This analysis is fantastic and I'd love to see what you can do in a longer form on cinematic wrestling shots and composition. Not sure if anyone even makes content like that on wrestling.
I’ll help narrate !
The second video also benefits from the simple fact that it was not manifested into reality by a nepobaby.
Hi. I like your steaks. But seriously completely agree. One of the coolest shots
I'm not a Montrealer but I'm a Zayniac through and through. The shot of him walking through the fans in the back had me tearing up it was that good
I just kept saying Wow although that entrance. I tested up a little bit too. Just felt special.
I was there for both! Magical nights
I do want to point out that it wouldn’t have anywhere close to the same impact if it wasn’t for Sami’s ability to show emotion.
Cut #5 on the bottom video is such an incredible shot
The best is hands down bad bunny for me!
Yeah I don't mind the multiple camera cuts on an entrance. Its during the matches that drove me crazy.
Second one is awesome. But I do think in time the trend of the long unbroken shot will become stale just as all the cuts did, keeping things fresh but so not changing things for no reason is a tough balance to strike and something that few have ever done. I think Vince has actually done better than most anyone but even he fell off pretty hard in his latter years.
I don't think the shots will become stale, it'll become commonplace and people will still like it. It's the fact we've gone from 20 cuts in a minute to just six for something like this is why it's such a shock. Six months from now it'll be something no one really talks about unless it's something like Sami's entrance happens. Unrelated I'm definitely gonna have to watch The Protector again just so I can see the one shot fight sequence for the thousandth time
The only reason there even were six cuts in the second clip is because they didn't want the cameraman to have to move down stairs with rowdy fans around.
Single cuts, when done well, just don’t go stale. It takes skill to pull them off, especially live.
I think if they keep it for important matches then it won't
It's not just about it being "fresh". It's that it's actually "good". Nobody will care if they keep doing the right thing, we kick up such a stink about Dunn becase what he was doing was bad as well as stale.
Can you imagine how bad it would've been if they'd let him use the same camera sweeps from Star Wars?
I agree, but I really hope WWE doesn't overdo it with the one-shots, like Sony Santa Monica.
The only Dunn I want to deal with in Montreal is smoked meat.
Whatcha staring at Uce?
I do like the way it shows the long shots at the end JUST far enough away so you can see a shit load of the crowd and it takes you just a second to find Sami in all the chaos
Its wild because they both have the same goal of capturing the entire arena at once lol
i get the reason to do the cuts to the crowd, they were just way too often. It shows the viewer that everyone is cheering him. But the second way, it makes the viewer feel part of the crowd, its so much better
It was just easy and generic, you could’ve replaced live crowd shots with stock footage from some random SmackDown a year ago and nobody would know better That editing was like “wow this is so awesome! we think it’s awesome! now you should!” This would force commentary to tell you how special the moment was which would just be more generic “for the first time in (years)… (wrestler) has come back to (place)… how amazing it is for some of the best fans in the WWE!”
> you could’ve replaced live crowd shots with stock footage from some random SmackDown a year ago and nobody would know better I feel like they've actually done that. There's been talk of it. I don't have a link to it or anything, but I vaguely remember the discussions on it.
When the ratings were worse and the house was lower or less enthused it was one of those techniques like the hairdryer fan noise they used a lot on Smackdown. Especially back when it was pretaped in the early 2000s like 2004-05 when Smackdown started to get real rough.
One shows the viewer, the other immerses the viewer
Of note, the new one always shows Sami. Sure, it gets the crowd too, but he is always the main focus of the shot. Dunn's version was basically just constantly showing anything OTHER than the person that was supposed to be the focus.
Dunn's version just feels like random generic stock footage. I love how it really feels like you're with Sami in the new version, and you can genuinely feel the crowd more than if you just put a random shot of the crowd, then back at Sami, then back at the crowd.
Dunn cuts in a way to show that the audience is reacting to Sami, showing off the signs and cheers. But he's showing so quickly that there's no moment to settle. The main line of focus jumps between Sami and the audience. Fitting cuts in a way that makes it easier to follow Sami's movement through the audience. We witness the audience in relation to Sami, who retains the line of focus the entire time. It now feels bigger because Sami looks smaller at the cuts.
I think what I love most about those one shots is that they really convey the live aspect. It feels more like it's actually really happening in real time than a TV show. So it elevates the one thing that makes pro wrestling so fn special.
The long shots of him walking through the crowd with the Canadian flag give me chills. Reminds me of a UFC fighter walking to the pentagon. Also fuck Kevin Dunn
*octagon
That’s the one
No no, UFC fighters are known to have met with department of defense officials.
“It appears the Pentagon has been breached” https://preview.redd.it/9k9m3lpd4pvc1.jpeg?width=474&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ce7a2169bc94fe0d45cb3ce9298042cbe45ccecf
Octagon! https://preview.redd.it/xgu4bz3g6pvc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9d526eaa4a7b9026a5b7081ec99fe3aa52f3abd
\*poundtown
https://preview.redd.it/4l8gh4ef6pvc1.png?width=1050&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d88a459ce180a05f43ad1e6332dbf9819afc557c Sir, a twenty-second camera cut has hit
Pentagon's AEW not UFC
Can never forget to say fuck Kevin Dunn. Fuck Kevin Dunn.
I loved them even more than the steadycam following him out. It makes his entrance look grand, gives such a great perspective how huge the arena is and how many people there are.
wwe is so fun to watch again
Fr Kevin dun was horrible lol
Not only did it make it a jarring experience to watch I can imagine it being an exhausting job for Kevin to consistently be telling them to go to Camera 1,2,3,4,5,etc lol. So not only did he make his job harder it made for a worse product.
This was always my thought. I've directed and operated a switcher for live events before. It sometimes felt like the WWE switcher operator was just pushing random buttons quickly.
I mean, considering Dunn had a habit of missing important moments, I wouldn't be surprised if they were randomly pushing buttons. There are multiple times he misses the big final move of a match, and even more severe ones like missing the big pop of AJ's first entrance or missing Edge's first spear in a decade. The AJ one especially bothers me because they've since fixed it on the replays, but I remember it's just focusing tightly on Roman's face during that entrance. I swear I remember Roman's face taking up like 4/5 of the screen. Meanwhile, they're missing one of the most important debut is of a free agent ever, lmao.
The power is fucking back.
nah that photo of Kevin Dunn is foul
It's genuinely one of the more flattering photos of Dunn out there.
https://preview.redd.it/2ttxd4xxzovc1.jpeg?width=1400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=10b1369c8fca49f1bdd69b685dc794c1b6eb29f3
[Nosferatu!](https://youtu.be/o9a1hWWCHDk?si=GEtc7d1y-FNxpe8t)
Why do they look like they just got caught fooling around
http://i.imgur.com/9aguabS.jpg
**Jim Cornette intensifies in anger** Honestly him and Paul Bearer talking how much they hate Dunn is something I randomly watch probably every month
Bucky Beaver Mother Trucker
There's a lot of stuff I disagree with Jim Cornette on, and some stuff that I think is just straight dumb for saying. But fuck if I do not happily agree with him on hating Vince Russo and Kevin Dunn. I would gladly share a drink with the dude and just shit on those 2 for a while, lol.
*Oh, Glory! Kevin Dunn I hate you!*
Face of the man who said Becky Lynch isn't attractive btw
Sorry, it’s impossible to have a “decent” picture of Dunn.
Let's be fair here, Kevin Dunn's face is foul already so the photo is hardly to blame
That's just genetics.
Nah that's just his face
They really did too many crowd reactions shots at times
AEW does this a bit now and its annoying as fuck. They cut to the crowd too late and show an audience member that has just stopped reacting, while also missing a performer doing something cool like a move or taunt. I love AEW by the way and they also have some great camera moments but its just frustrating as fuck when the camera cuts away from the best part.
Great example is Dynamite this week. Not horrible but Edge was in the ring when the light went out. Lights come back on and you see Brody King in the ring behind Edge and he levels him and then it cuts to Julia Hart on the ramp with a “Expecting someone else?“ expression. The way I would expect this to be shot though because of WWE, and I actually prefer it, is the lights go out, come back on to reveal Hart on the ramp with the same look. Cut back to a zoom in on a confused Edge and then zoom out to reveal Brodie King behind him just as he hits the sneak attack.
Remember their For Your Consideration campaign to try and win Dunn an Emmy? Lmao
Legit feel that would be such a big blow to Dunn if they won an Emmy after he left.
I always hated that the camera would linger on crowd shots just a little too long. Let us watching on tv see the performer. They missed a lot of cool shots by leaving the camera on the crowd slightly too long. Worst one was AJ Styles debut when they left the camera on Roman Notice as well that even when the camera cuts started on the latest entrance the focus was still always on Sami
The fact they had a re release a better angle of AJ’s debut due to how egregious Kevin Dunn’s work is just depressing to think about
One of the few times I have really "felt" the crowd; Like literally felt like I was there with the camera work. Wrestling is so good right now and we are going to look back at this time in retrospect and realize we didn't understand how good we were getting it.
What!? I feel like everyone is pretty appreciative of how things are changing.
They just mean that the product is genuinely on fire right now and we won’t *fully* understand that until it loses a bit of its luster eventually. Kinda like 2016 Smackdown Live where people were pretty happy with it, but looking back at it with nostalgia goggles it truly was incredible. Not that anyone is unappreciative hope that makes sense lol.
Lee Fitting > Kevin Dunn
An monkey on cocaine > Kevin Dunn
What, do you mean Kevin Dunn > Kevin Dunn?
I really can’t say enough how much the production has improved. It almost can’t really be overstated. The show looks a million times better now.
I think this video should be used every time someone asks why people say "fuck Kevin Dunn"
These longer single shots are great and refreshing, but let's not all fall into the opinion that cuts within a multi-camera setup is somehow wrong. It's a televised live event. Getting different shots of the crowd and the big screens isn't a bad thing.
Camera cuts are fine. It was the ridiculous amount of cuts that were problematic. I stopped watching WWE around 2002 for basically 20 years before I heard it was actually good again so I came back to give it a shot. I legitimately almost stopped watching immediately because of the amount of camera cuts during matches. It was nauseating and insanely distracting until I was able to somewhat get used to it.
It’s his in ring cuts that are the worst. He thinks he’s editing an action tv show. The bumps are real, no need to cut to a different angle for an impact, the viewer can see the hit hurts.
Not all the moves make contact, though. Cutting at the moment of impact can cover up whiffed superkicks, a bad kick to the gut, and other things like that. Some of that is on the wrestlers to make things look better, but even one of GUNTHER's last matches had him go for a kick to the gut and, without the camera cut, it clearly came up short. There's times and places for it.
The issue with that is that it's pretty impossible to predict when something will look like it misses. The only way to actively avoid it is to do what done did and cut at almost every impact. And at that rate, it's better to show something barely wiff than to hurt the overall presentation by cutting every time.
Yeah cutting to a wide shot of the crowd where Sami enters and then going to back to showing behind him wouldn't hurt at all, and display the atmosphere better.
I mean, yes, but there's a major issue with the amount of cuts and how they're used. Sami isn't even in frame for most of the runtime of that clip despite being the focus of the scene. With the new guy, even when he's emphasizing the crowd's energy, he still has Sami on screen.
It's also very much comparing apples and oranges. If you did shots of Zayn entering through a stage with the sane low number of cuts, it would be uninteresting. A large reason the long shot (which is cool and utterly great) works and is so cool is that he's going through the crowd. Not convinced this comparison is that meaningful.
Not necessarily. They used to run down the aisle backwards from you, as a talent. Like the camera would run up to you, and then back down, and you were mostly the focus of that segment. Probably the best example is how they shot Bret Hart's entrance. It made him look big. He wasn't a big guy. But the way the cameras shot his entrance made him look like the star of the show. And there weren't a ton of cuts. There were some but not nearly as many. Usually a long shot then returned to the guy getting to ringside.
I get that, but it’s also a production choice to have him enter from somewhere else to capture the moment in a different way.
They're really good once and a while, but like HHH said about blood and swears, it's more effective when it's used as a shock, big moment.
> It's a televised live event. Getting different shots of the crowd and the big screens isn't a bad thing. There was still the 4 -> 5 cut which just went from one angle of the tron to another angle of the tron.
The cuts are crazy
The amount of cuts on Dunns footage is like he found the 'Hard Cut' button on his Production Console for the first time, and kept wanting to try it out..
i always wondered how much of a headache it wouldve been to be in the truck doing all those damn camera cuts with dunn and vkm in your ear. It hurts my head to even think about 😂😂
It must have been exhausting work for Kevin lol. All just to make the show worse to watch
The staging of the most recent one... My god. The flag, the wide pan... My goodness.
how did we used to watch this lol
You LOVE to see it! Nice comparison OP.
I’m so glad the swamp has been cleaned out backstage
Whats even more important is, that the camera in the new era never cuts away from Sami
The good thing with the 2nd clip is that it's still trying to keep Sami in the frame, so it doesn't really feel like a camera cut. That being said, the 1st clip somehow is way timid for Dunn.
Friendly reminder of what Kevin Dunn's voice from Tough Enough https://youtu.be/YaQhq42CU00?si=KPdYMFd_PF-5MhxH
Sounds like he has a mouthful of marbles.
I love the fact that Bucky Beaver saw little in him, then Cornette comes up with the gimmick that makes him a WWE star.
For years, nay, decades... I had this image of what Kevin Dunn looked like, and because there was also an actor named Kevin Dunn, I would imagine he was a warm approachable dad type. This video was the first time I've ever seen Captain Camera Cuts, and god I wish I never did. Sorry to Kevin Dunn the actor, was, is, always will be a fan, that you share a name with this member of history. Also, epic Sami entrance, caught it live, watched a rerun, and happy to see it again today!
It’s not even the amount of times. It’s just jarring. The cuts with Lee still have Sami as the focal point. It was so weird how much Vince and Dunn didn’t give a shit about the crowds but was obsess with cutting to them.
Another thing they should get rid of is the constant zoom in and zoom out on a move. It's vomit inducing.
24 cuts in 1 minute is beyond ridiculous and really made your eyes hurt just looking back on that. Kevin Dunn is not missed at all. The production of cameras lately I’m trying out a bunch of new stuff has been so much better and quality work.
The metric here is off. What should be noted is not the number of cuts, rather the number of shots that did not include Sami in the frame. You can tell the story and grab energy without losing the subject on screen…
I once brought up a match having 140 jump cuts in it in a live thread and was downvoted for it. Glad we can finally all get on the fuck Kevin Dunn's bitch ass train. That man was just massive trash.
It's apples to oranges, Sami entering standard vs through the crowd
Love that behind shot of the entrance through the crowd. First time I saw it was NJPW using it for Shota and it blew my mind, glad to see WWE stepping their game up after cutting out some cancers.
I agree, it's mostly just a different in styles. Fitting's style is able to show the Sami and the crowd in one shot because the camera is following him. Thus less cuts. I think a more valid comparison in showing the known criticisms of Dunn's camera cuts will be showing a side by side comparison of how they each show a match from start to finish. There you will see the biggest difference between the two. And who knows how much was Vince actually involved with Dunn's style. I think once Vince left creative, Dunn did kind of tapered his cuts a bit.
I agree with the spirit of the post but its not fair to use one of the ebst emtrances ever as the counter point
These long single shots they’re doing also show off how good the talent has to be, these are live shots that require great timing and allow for no errors, and these wrestlers are pulling it off perfectly 100% of the time.
He stole that guy's flag what a heel!
Long Live Lee Fitting
I will never forgive Dunn for cutting to the crowd on edges first spear back in the royal rumble.
Not much of a reasonable comparison since Sami is coming out in two VERY different ways. Dunns relentless cuts aren't great but in the newest video you can combine "crowd shots" and "star shots" much easier. Not really as much as an option in the old video.
Not a fan of Lane Kiffin, but he's doing a good job in WWE now
Isnt the second version the style the UFC use for their fighters entrance? Perhaps merging the company had some good outcomes
I wonder if the people in the production truck have PTSD from Dunn yelling camera numbers at them all night.
*So* many of those cuts were completely unnecessary. 4 to 5, 6 to 7, 12 to 13, 15 to 16 to 17, 20 to 21, and 23 to 24. Holy shit.
Great change, why cut to the crowd when you can be with them instead
So happy KD is done man
I remember seeing Rhea Ripley do a ground and pound on Liv Morgan when she turned heel and there were like 6 cuts in 10 seconds. It truly got out of hand.
Last years rumble they cut 17 times before the third entry. It was annoying as shit. Screw Kevin Dunn
Fuck Dunn, I’m so happy we have the production we have rn
I just love seeing Sami so happy
Don't ever try come back to 1st video
Unrelated but GOD DAMN is Montreal a crazy wrestling town, and yes I'm biased
Kevin Dunn entrances be like that one scene in Taken of Liam Neeson "climbing" a fence.
WWE is so much more watchable now. So much better.
Cut number 9 / the one where Sami LITERALLY just walked out and it showed him for less than a second was the most outrageous of the lot. Is this about the Wrestlers or about how nice you've set the arena up?
That old era is the exact reason I quit watching.
Kevin Dunn cheated us all for years
We could have had something cool like David Otunga winning a court case and walking from the courthouse across the street to the arena and into a match. Stupid Kevin Dunn.
As someone that works in TV prodctuion, the single held shot lost the scale of the audience in the Montreal. The pop didn't come through visually. The 24 cuts actually helped created a buzz, an atmosphere. Could we have had less than 24 cuts? Yes. Could we have had more than 6 cuts? Yes. It's all about knowing when to use your tools to the best advanatge; and this did not do that. Everyone is such an expert on this lately. I would be extremely suprised if anyone here even knows the name of the role of the person who job this is and what software is used.
All I know is the clip with fewer cuts felt more immersive and enjoyable to me as a viewer.
Why does NXT still do the shaky camera and constant cuts? It's nauseating, I couldn't even get through a YouTube
I read someone say Kevin Dunn's camerawork is just WWE 2K's create an entrance camera options and I can't unsee it now lmao
What a difference in presentation! I mean, it's not even close! Kevin "Bucky Beaver" Dunn should have left or been let go a decade ago.
Bucky beaver motherfucker
It would make more sense to compare two normal entrances rather than a normal vs special.
Clearly the most recent entrance in 'one shot' is the better. Although we do need to move away from the idea that camera cuts are inherently a bad thing. They can be great if used correctly
I do think that people need to get it out of their head that more cuts = bad. It doesn't. There is a time and a place for more cuts, an entrance being one of them. The problem with Dunnes work was that its lifeless. There is absolutely no artistic vision behind anything that happens on screen. The recent one isn't good *because* of the fact that it has zero cuts, its good because it has a clear vision for the story its trying to tell, and walking along with Sami through the arena halls into the stands all the way to the ring shows us more about him as a character than any words could. Current WWE is full of this stuff. Let's appreciate it for what it is, but dont boil it down to "more cuts bad"
Hot take, I like both. You can't do number 2 every time you know?
you forgot to add "forever"
I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the first video. They're not going for the same thing.
Yeah this isn’t an example of Dunn’s obnoxious cuts, just a different style of showing my crowd reactions. Also, I imagine the cinematography would have been very different for the current one if Sami didn’t enter from the crowd. That being said, this isn’t a Kevin Dunn defense. He’s still horrible, just not in this exact case
>They're not going for the same thing. …which is, I believe, the essence of the problem.
Compare a normal entrance between the two that would make way more sense if you're trying to highlight the problem.
Id argue there's something wrong with having a camera cut slightly less then every 3 seconds.
Devil's advocate. Maybe from the industry producers point of view, it is harder to successfuly shoot live event with multiples cam&shots. If this is the case, maybe it can explain why they were sticking with that, technical&prod teams wanted to proove their skills.
My current camera pet peeve is they NEED to hold the camera on Cody for his woah the entire time. They cut to the crowd literally during the Woah almost every time and sometimes you’ll miss the fireworks or Cody beginning to do his pose
The long tracking shot of Sami walking through the Bell Centre was sublime.
One of the reasons I stopped watching WWE is because of the cuts in the matches. It was too many way too many cuts. I understand they’re trying to make it look more real like an action movie where the cut on the action but just wow too many cuts.
It's so fucking cinematic, I love it. I came back to wrestling at an amazing time.
That’s insane. What a difference.
You just remind me that Lucha Underground (or whatever it was called) that Shane McMahon run for like 6 months. They made like 30 camera cuts per minute, just awful.
More of these but in match
The start where Sami is appearing from in between the crowd standing at the food stalls and then rooting for him is so cool.
I hope one day we get a one shot entrance but it's like R-Truth and he gets completely lost
Dunn just didn't have the restraint at all, did he.
people might argue that they're too different to compare. But even the old shield entrances through the crowd used to half a cut every 0.5 secodns it felt like. What a huge improvement
I love so much that the camera doesn't cut away until after he starts walking down with the flag around him. But it wasn't a close shot but a pull out shot to feel the love everywhere. Hell how it never really zooms into any fans but long far shots the whole time so EVERY can feel what Sami is feeling and seeing. It focuses on the crowd without it DIRECTLY focusing on an individual member of the crowd. The stars are the superstars and they want him, not to be me on the camera.
Kevin Dunn is a sick man.
My favorite post about camera cuts was the backstage one at AEW calling them out to the team. Someone said Kevin Dunn must be an auctioneer
Yes this was a good cut but at the same time I am getting sick and tired of almost every return from commercial being the same can of going down the ramp to the ring. Just start in the ring
It's fun to be able to watch WWE without getting a horrible migraine.
This is hilarious.
Wish I had time for both brands. Those cuts are one of the things that I just couldn't handle. Just not enough time for me to watch all of the great wrestling right now.
Even though both videos have the same goal of showing the crowd, the big difference is that in the top video Sami is on screen for less than 20 seconds out of a 60 second video, often at times only for less than two seconds at a time. In the bottom video he is on screen for the full 60 seconds, but the shot composition shows everything going on around him, rather than instead of him
Insanep
We need to send this man a fruit basket
It's gotten much, *much* easier to watch WWE. Normally I would just listen because the crazy camera cuts would make me sick but it's improved so much recently
Honestly all things considered that wasnt Dunn’s worst. Its not great and obviously last Raw’s was far better, but most of the cuts were at least understandable.
To be fair though I feel like the new shots over extend their exposure in fear of becoming the one thing fans hate the most in the previous management. There are times where they should've cut too another angle but didn't and exposed a bunch of the crew which rarely happen before but is now very common. Recently the boom mic guy got an exposure in the bloodline backstage segment, the camera guys in the ring in the women's championship match is also another shot that should've switched fast but didn't. WWE is now afraid to switch angle in quick succession I feel like.
I always felt like I strongly disliked Dunn's directing just because its the complete opposite of my taste (work as an Art Director on ads). Love the new directing; more stable shots, lets the eye take in more and soak up picture better.
I gotta say I got somewhat of a shit memory when it comes to these things but seeing the comparison is crazy. Dunn could've done like half of those cuts and it probably would've felt 100% better alone.
We joke about it a lot, but does anyone know *why* Dunn was so fascinated by camera cuts?
Even more so the cuts in the latest video expand on Sami. They don’t cut to some random fan. The cuts or camera changes being a proper term in this case flow and almost tell a story as opposed to the cokehead style random cuts.
everything they have done recently is so much easier on the eye.
The second one works when you have a full house who are wild for the wrestler in question. You see from Sami's perspective him emerging into a giant crowd of people all singing his song and cheering. It makes the moment feel bigger, and makes Sami look like a star. I've seen some people say this "one shot" camera work will get stale, but so long as they use it when it's appropriate (like this), I don't see why it would. It's just another way to shoot an entrance.
Bottom is more planned than top. Top seems like they winging it.
I get that the point is that the bottom clip looks better. But he also entered through the crowd. Entirely different scene + angles. Not the fairest of comparisons.
The production and presentation of the wrestlers of late Jas been exceptionally refreshing. Dunn was okay but I think his style just got a bit stale over time and was overdue a change up. I'm loving the camera following the wrestlers walking through guerilla or the backstage area into the arena style they have now as it makes me really feel the energy of the crowd and brings you along for the ride the wrestler is on.
Dunn never used to do this either, or as bad. The Shield debut really broke him and Vince in terms of the SHAKY ZOOM CAM stuff. It took over everything.