Cinema Report: Dog Soldiers

Did up an average shot length for Neil Marshall's first feature Dog Soldiers. Knew it was cut pretty quick, came up with an ASL of 2.4 seconds. Could probably stand to do a second pass, as I might have missed a shot here or there in the action sequences.



Even the dialogue sequences are cut pretty fast, however, particularly near the beginning. That bit from about 7:00 to 11:00 (7:30 to 11:30 on the DVD) is just the characters sitting around, talking and swearing after being dropped off by helicopter. Majority of the shots in that sequence are under 2 seconds.

Feels like the dialogue sequences were a bit slower later on. Wonder if the early quick cutting is similar to the overly done shaky-cam at the beginning of Cloverfield. Or if it's an attempt to amp up the energy early on, while the audience is still kind of deciding on watching the film.


What do you think: Alien 3 homage?

Anyhoo, definitely feels slower, apart from the action scenes, once the squad holes up in the farmhouse, around about 35 minutes. After that point, you can readily spot which are action sequences, which are dialogue sequences by the general cutting pace.

Here's the ASL plot, with a 6th degree best fit (the red line):


Full details are here.

For comparison, here's Marshall's second film, The Descent, with slower ASL of 3.4 seconds:


The second plot seems shorter because The Descent has around 1680 shots, while Dog Soldiers, which is only 5 minutes longer, has around 2530 shots.

Details for that one are here.

Okay, that's it for now.

Take it away, Pvt. Witherspoon.