I think it could be good Brian, if Ryan takes the time to digest and really try to understand it.

At the recent video show at Battersea - prime lenses were absolutely the product of the year - there were hundreds of them everywhere, showing I think where people are now spending their money. Finally, moving from the camera is everything, to the entire capture chain, and how critical glass is. Some of the lenses I couldn't believe the price.

Here's the interview with Art Adams. It covers the subject in a pretty humorous way, there are books and articles that go into the details in more depth. This might be one of those lenses that you can't believe the cost, but you usually rent these and they last for years.

What Makes Cinema Lenses So Special!? | DEEP DIVE on Arri Signature Primes - YouTube

Thanks for sharing that was really interesting. I think we needed a break from Ryan.

I was trying to determine if he had a cine lens (its like pulling nails) and if not get a basic set if he intends to buy the bmpc. Most any person filming a movie will want to be able to control the focus manual for technical and artistic reasons. The Rokinon a really inexpensive choice.

Who are we kidding his movie will most likely be like that Karate video. Btw what ever happened to that project? Did he ever get a final result?

Brian's link was one of the most interesting ones we've had for ages - lighthearted but the Arri guy really knows how to explain these pretty complex subjects in a simple but effective manner. we should flag this video up for everyone interested in the subject to read. I learned a few things too - especially the solution to lens breathing when focussing. I'd worked out that they had solved it with clever optics, but never realised they actually do it with a small zoom working in reverse to the zoom the focussing element causes. I also did not know that lenses were mapped so that the camera could recalculate the 'repair'. No idea why I had never picked this up before.

About 8 or 9 years ago I went on a Fijinon training session on box lenses - and was amazed at the number of elements that actually moved during zoom and focus.

You are hung up on mimicking big budget cinema production - giving each shot a 'title'. You are constantly talking about this "panning shot" as if it's somehow something special, yet in your movie, it seems to be just another connecting shot in the story telling.

Pete's talking about focussing on a real cine lens, while you seem to think that turning a focus ring on a lens is pulling focus, in terms of a role, or process. You've got into thinking technical terms are indicative of the link with a role. The difference between a photography lens and a moving image lens clearly you haven't quite got a handle on, so when people give advice, they have to guess if you really mean what you ask?

I'm often left wondering if the movies you shoot would be better off made on a simple handicam - point, zoom, and shoot. Some of these have quite decent sensors, but are a balance package of components. You could plonk the camera down, jiggle the actors around and have a notional lens angle of say 73mm, rather than this mystical movie focal length of 85mm? Would it matter? For you I doubt it would - you could use the zoom to set the composition, and wouldn't need to reblock actors and move the camera.

You are trying to shoot movies with tiny bits of pro movie production technique, and this isn't working. You started out with a training course that did NOT cater for your individual learning style, so you have picked up lots of really bad habits that you cannot now shake off. You have a warped interpretation of technical matters, and have nearly understood things. People give advice. You take little strands of it, and then apply it in new situations out of context. You MUST start to try to understand this. You are building a rule book that is flawed, yet you cannot understand this, or why it has happened. You are treating movie making as a collection of little elements that when all done guarantee a great movie. Your scripts - the very basic building block of movie making are from what we've seen, not very good at all. You use actors who really cannot act, mixed in with a few who can. You struggle to direct them, or often, let them direct themselves.

Nothing you can do with technology will improve the fundamental problem. I think yesterday we finally convinced you that lenses don't magically change the speed of light, and that fast lenses can produce deep depth of field - something you really should have been aware of when trying to make buying choices. Today, your cine lenses turn out to be photographic lenses. What else have we misunderstood from your posts?

Ask yourself some questions. Do you NEED cine lenses, or will the ones you have work well enough in your production. I suspect they will. Have you ever checked how accurate the lens markings actually are? Pop one on, find a suitable subject and find the sharpest focus setting - measure it. Then change the stop and repeat. Does the sharpest point shift? You may be surprised how much it does. Next question is does it matter? To a professional focus puller, used to marking tape with pens, yes it does. If the cameraman needs to change aperture, all the marks will be wrong. Is this something you're aware of.

If your team's technique is to set up, and then focus visually and then shoot, that's actually fine - but it is not how real cinematographer crew work. Is all this stuff sorted in your head?

Yes I did know that changing the aperture changes the marks for the subjects, yes. Will the lenses I have work well enough? It depends on which ones. My two wider primes have hard stops but the longer one does not.

As for marking in the lens, I always used a grease pencil for that.

But it was suggested to me before to hire a professional DP and let them worry about the shots, rather than worrying about them myself. So should I just do that, and be comfortable putting it in their hands, without knowing everything, and stop trying to be the DP as well, and just direct?

Focus pullers usually put tape around the lens and put their focus marks on with a fine sharpie, It's more precise than a chinagraph pencil.

I assume you're planning to use your stills lenses on your current camera, rather than buying the BlackMagic. 4k.

You are hung up on mimicking big budget cinema production - giving each shot a 'title'. You are constantly talking about this "panning shot" as if it's somehow something special, yet in your movie, it seems to be just another connecting shot in the story telling.

Pete's talking about focussing on a real cine lens, while you seem to think that turning a focus ring on a lens is pulling focus, in terms of a role, or process. You've got into thinking technical terms are indicative of the link with a role. The difference between a photography lens and a moving image lens clearly you haven't quite got a handle on, so when people give advice, they have to guess if you really mean what you ask?

I'm often left wondering if the movies you shoot would be better off made on a simple handicam - point, zoom, and shoot. Some of these have quite decent sensors, but are a balance package of components. You could plonk the camera down, jiggle the actors around and have a notional lens angle of say 73mm, rather than this mystical movie focal length of 85mm? Would it matter? For you I doubt it would - you could use the zoom to set the composition, and wouldn't need to reblock actors and move the camera.

You are trying to shoot movies with tiny bits of pro movie production technique, and this isn't working. You started out with a training course that did NOT cater for your individual learning style, so you have picked up lots of really bad habits that you cannot now shake off. You have a warped interpretation of technical matters, and have nearly understood things. People give advice. You take little strands of it, and then apply it in new situations out of context. You MUST start to try to understand this. You are building a rule book that is flawed, yet you cannot understand this, or why it has happened. You are treating movie making as a collection of little elements that when all done guarantee a great movie. Your scripts - the very basic building block of movie making are from what we've seen, not very good at all. You use actors who really cannot act, mixed in with a few who can. You struggle to direct them, or often, let them direct themselves.

Nothing you can do with technology will improve the fundamental problem. I think yesterday we finally convinced you that lenses don't magically change the speed of light, and that fast lenses can produce deep depth of field - something you really should have been aware of when trying to make buying choices. Today, your cine lenses turn out to be photographic lenses. What else have we misunderstood from your posts?

Ask yourself some questions. Do you NEED cine lenses, or will the ones you have work well enough in your production. I suspect they will. Have you ever checked how accurate the lens markings actually are? Pop one on, find a suitable subject and find the sharpest focus setting - measure it. Then change the stop and repeat. Does the sharpest point shift? You may be surprised how much it does. Next question is does it matter? To a professional focus puller, used to marking tape with pens, yes it does. If the cameraman needs to change aperture, all the marks will be wrong. Is this something you're aware of.

If your team's technique is to set up, and then focus visually and then shoot, that's actually fine - but it is not how real cinematographer crew work. Is all this stuff sorted in your head?

I suspect they were suggesting you find another method for you to shoot your chase scene that doesn't involve using a long focal length lens. However, since you regularly seem to be given 4 + 4 and yet manage to come up with 3 it could be a misunderstanding on your part.

It was suggested to not shoot with really long lenses. I didn't think that meant necessarily change the type of shot too, depending. I thought I could still have the actor run in a circle with a shorter lens.

Well, you can try, but chances are that the camera operator will end up in a tangle with the tripod legs as they rush around in circles following the runner using a relatively short focal length lens compared to the 300mm. The real world means changing your method if your lens changes, again, think things out.

Yes thanks, I actually thought of this too, that with a shorter lens they will have to run much faster. This is why I thought of the telephoto lens way back then, is because I felt the operator would not have to move as much.

Why does everything need to be explained down to the smallest detail? You should be able to show up to the location and select the focal length needed for the framing you want.

Sure I can do that.

So why ask here? Most of your questions you could answer yourself on the day with a moments thought. I like the new rule - shorter lenses mean actors have to run faster. I'll remember this one next time.

I mean shorter lenses, mean that the operator has to run faster to keep up with the panning. Well I prefer to storyboard everything to know more about the lens choice beforehand. It doesn't have to be firm and final, but just a preliminary storyboard list.

The way I understood it. The camera would be stationery on a tripod in the middle of the park, the subjects running in a circular path around the camera. Depending on the framing and the distance they’re from the camera will determine the focal length needed. However the same shot hand held is a different story if you try to use a telephoto. Again we can speculate here all day but it wil still come down to whether you can execute it.

Oh I didn't say anything about handheld, did I? I meant the operator would pan with the actors in a circle, while the camera was on a tripod.

er, yes - you did?
the operator has to run faster to keep up with the panning

if it's on a tripod, where would he be running too?

I think you have taken this circle technique slightly skewed. I think what we mean is a small arc of a full 360 degrees. We're thinking that with your long lens, you have the actors at a distance, so that their rate of change of angle is limited. let's say they are 20m away, and they run in an arc that is maybe 30 degrees of pan at the camera. This gradual change of direction is very gentle rate of change, compass wise - so they don't really run in a circle at all - they just gently change direction. The camera sees a straight line, the actor sees a gentle curve.

If you do it at 5m, a 30 degree pan is too short for the shot to last very long, and they have to run a more extreme curve, and the camera operator has to pan faster.

I had a similar problem myself a while back when doing my parachute experiments (as in before the real job, I spent a day with them practicing and experimenting) and found that being too close to the landing zone was a killer, because they would travel all around me, meaning the camera had to turn through maybe 500 degrees very fast, and I could not do it. I crashed into the tripod legs. I then tried a small jib, hoping I could rotate that through the huge range without running into the legs. I could, but I couldn't keep the image centred and framed properly AND run. Nothing I tried produced good images, so it HAD to be done with two cameras.

Yes that is why I wanted the long lens to begin with, so the camera operator does not have to pan the camera that much, while the camera is on a tripod.

But it was suggested to me to use shorter lenses, and forget the telephoto. So if I do the chase with shorter lenses, but still want to pan with the actors, the circle will be much tighter, if I still do that type of shot.

To go back to a reference in another thread, I suspect this may be the idea for the panning with the runner. Although, the motivation here comes from the character and drama of the scene,

The Good The Bad The Ugly Cemetery Scene(1080p) - YouTube

Interesting one, Brian. Ryan needs to watch this because it demonstrates how you can break loads of rules of normal camerawork and still have an end product that works for the purpose.

The cemetery scene shows that type of shot nicely. Anyone notice the dog at the beginning? I’m assuming it must be intentional.

Btw here’s an example of shooting with wide angle lens and the dof it afford. He’s using a full frame camera with 16-35mm. 7:30 filming pov hardcoring is well done. Of course he’s talented gimbal operator. Imhop this style of shooting is more exciting than telephoto where you feel like a spectator rather than a participant.

https://youtu.be/k4mtJTBdtVs

Btw if Ryan is looking for some scenes to emulate. :p

https://youtu.be/AfnpFtc03NM

Interesting one, Brian. Ryan needs to watch this because it demonstrates how you can break loads of rules of normal camerawork and still have an end product that works for the purpose.

Yes I've seen The Good, the Bad and the Ugly before. And I wanted a shot like that for the chase scene. This is what I had in mind. But it was said before that it's too difficult cause I want to use a long lens, when I should use wider lenses?

As for using a gimbal, there are going to be gimbal shots, too, during the case. But I wanted a long lens panning shot from the side, cause it gives the gimbal operator a break, and not every shot during the chase, has to be a gimbal shot then.

There are going be gimbal shots from the front and back of the chase, and a long lens panning shot from the side. Or at least that is how I had it planned.

You don't use a shot to give a camera operator a break - that's plain silly!

You also never told us this was the kind of shot you had in mind, or we wouldn't have wasted time with all the circular running stuff. The long lens fast panning stuff hasn't, as far as I can see, been mentioned before. If we knew that's what you had in mind, then all the go closer and wider stuff we'd not have bothered with because for this shot, a wide angle would not work. You take responses literally, without understanding context is everything. Give us poor or incomplete info and you get wrong advice.

That shot uses a very long lens, and a background that's far enough away to blur really well. I doubt your 300mm would be enough for that one.

To be fair I always thought that's what he meant.

You don't use a shot to give a camera operator a break - that's plain silly!

You also never told us this was the kind of shot you had in mind, or we wouldn't have wasted time with all the circular running stuff. The long lens fast panning stuff hasn't, as far as I can see, been mentioned before. If we knew that's what you had in mind, then all the go closer and wider stuff we'd not have bothered with because for this shot, a wide angle would not work. You take responses literally, without understanding context is everything. Give us poor or incomplete info and you get wrong advice.

That shot uses a very long lens, and a background that's far enough away to blur really well. I doubt your 300mm would be enough for that one.

Well I also wanted the shot because I also liked how the long lens, makes the background look like it's going by faster, and thus makes the chase look more intense. I know this scene was done with a longer lens than a 300, but didn't know the location was big enough for a longer one.

In the test I did before, the 300 can still cover quite a lot for pan.

As for not knowing this is the kind of shot I wanted, I said I wanted to do a running chase shot, where I panned with the running actors, during the shot, didn't I? So I thought I explained it, or tried to before. And after I described the shot before, it was said to me to use a wide lens instead of forget the telephoto. So I was trying to go by what was suggested, cause it was said before that telephotos will not add anything to the shot I want, after I tried describing it. I also showed the video I did where the shot is of a person running where I panned with the lens, so I thought I explained it, but sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

I suspect there was a range of lenses used in the scene. The film was shot in Techniscope, which is 2 perforation pull down Academy 35mm, not Super 35.

There were a range of telephoto lenses made by Kilfitt in the 1960s that went up to 600 mm

Oh okay, well for mine after the tests I did, I felt a 300mm would suffice, unless I should go longer? Not sure if the location is big enough for longer, but I can try. It might be able to do 400mm. However, in my indoor location, a large parking garage, the background will not blur, like in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly example. Is that bad if the background will not blur, like in that movie as Paul pointed out?

What stop are you using and how far away is the background from the subject?

Are they moving against the background? Because you can a strobing effect with vertical objects when you quickly pan across them when shooting with film or progressive frames.

It's only bad if it's distracting or if it's not what you want.

Oh I haven't decided on a stop yet. The lens I tested it with opens up to f6.3 but no wider. But I was going to get a different lens anyway for it possibly, if I get a new camera.

Without knowing how far the background is from the subject and other factors it;s hard to tell, Ff6.3 is a pretty slow lens and for the crematory scene they may have used a faster and longer lens for some shots.

Oh okay. Well I can get a faster lens if that's the better. It's hard tell when it's zoomed in cause even f6.3 looks shallow on a telephoto zoomed in.

So i thought I wouldn't want to open up more if it's shallow, but if there is no such thing as too shallow and the more open, the better, than I could get a faster lens. It was said before that MFT lenses are less shallow but haven't tried one yet. But even if they are less shallow is there any type of trade off as a result?

The snag is that the G,B&U clip isnt a chase - it's a travel of one person. A garage cannot have that amount of fast travel can it?

Now you've said garage, I'm surprised you dont use a car for the camera, and drive past the parked cars at the actors running speed? You've then got an option to cut away to the chaser, then cut back to the first subject, but having gone back a bit to give the impression the car park is much longer. Concrete and colours in soft focus while subject legs it would look pretty good. If it's a concrete style multi-floor structure, you also have the great edit opportunity the passing vertical supports create when you want to cheat.

In my mind I'm now seeing for the first time, a scene that could really work with your basic kit, and be complimentary to action, not a barrier.

Without knowing how far the background is from the subject and other factors it;s hard to tell, Ff6.3 is a pretty slow lens and for the crematory scene they may have used faster and longer lens.

I came across this, which may be how some shots were done in the crematory scene:

"This is what legendary cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli had to say on how they made this scene: “When we filmed Eli Wallach running around the cemetery, I had the idea that in order to cut the close-up and the long shot together, I’d put a pole on the tripod and put a camera at each end of it – at one end a camera with a 25mm lens and at the other a camera with a 75mm lens. The cameras turned together, so if the actor was framed with the 75mm lens, the 25mm lens would automatically be better for editing as well. In this way, we made a lot of circles all at the same time, while Eli Wallach did a lot of running”. "

Yes, in a parking lot, putting the camera in a car would make sense or even a Quad bike, since it's not a public road Running around with a Doggicam as in Point Black would give some action.

Oh okay thanks, that scene looks like it was shot with a longer lens than a 75mm though in the shots where it looks like a longer lens was used.

The snag is that the G,B&U clip isnt a chase - it's a travel of one person. A garage cannot have that amount of fast travel can it?

Now you've said garage, I'm surprised you dont use a car for the camera, and drive past the parked cars at the actors running speed? You've then got an option to cut away to the chaser, then cut back to the first subject, but having gone back a bit to give the impression the car park is much longer. Concrete and colours in soft focus while subject legs it would look pretty good. If it's a concrete style multi-floor structure, you also have the great edit opportunity the passing vertical supports create when you want to cheat.

In my mind I'm now seeing for the first time, a scene that could really work with your basic kit, and be complimentary to action, not a barrier.

That might be an option, but then I would need an extra person to drive the car, but it might work. However, on a longer lens, it makes the actors look they are running faster, cause the background is more compressed, compared to a wider lens. So I thought that was the advantage of using a longer one.

The car might work for some shots, but if there is a miscommunication in timing between the car driver, and the camera operator, I thought that might make things more complicated compared to one person panning on a tripod, controlling it all. Plus I thought if we are driving cars around, that the insurance might go up as oppose to camera operators being on a tripod.

But when you say with a car I can pass vehicle supports to cheat, couldn't the panning pass those supports as well?

And to compare to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, I know it's running and not chasing, but I came up with technique that I thought was best for shots during a chase, and it turns out to be the same kind of shots for running.

I've shot stuff from cars and there was no increase in the insurance. You should check first, rather than making assumptions.

You should use some one with suitable driving experience, as long as there' enough space using a car or pick up shouldn't be a problem, You can use a bicycle if you want, you don't an operator if the cyclist has a monitor to frame a camera mounted onto the bicycle,

"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" has a very busy background of grave stones which adds to the sense of movement, a parking lot doesn't have that, unless it's surrounded by vertical railings.

The snag is that the G,B&U clip isnt a chase - it's a travel of one person. A garage cannot have that amount of fast travel can it?

Now you've said garage, I'm surprised you dont use a car for the camera, and drive past the parked cars at the actors running speed? You've then got an option to cut away to the chaser, then cut back to the first subject, but having gone back a bit to give the impression the car park is much longer. Concrete and colours in soft focus while subject legs it would look pretty good. If it's a concrete style multi-floor structure, you also have the great edit opportunity the passing vertical supports create when you want to cheat.

In my mind I'm now seeing for the first time, a scene that could really work with your basic kit, and be complimentary to action, not a barrier.

Okay thanks, I thought of the bicycle before, however, here is my take on it. When using a car or a bike, I use a wider lens, right? When you ride along with the actor on a wide lens, the actor does not look like he is running as fast from the side, compared to a telephoto. The reason why, is because the telephoto makes the actor looks like they are running faster.

For example, if you are zoomed in and panning with the actor while they are running, an actor looks like he is running past a car for example, much faster, compared to a wide lens. That is because of the compression. The lack of compression in the wider lenses, makes the actors look like they are moving slower.

This was my reason for using a telephoto olens for these panning shots. Does that make sense, as to why I thought a telephoto would be more suited, compared to a wide?

Given that the camera car has decent suspension. you should be able to shoot with an 85mm lens from a car,

Oh okay, but if a car is better than why didn't other directors do this in their movies? For example, in The Good the bad and the Ugly, why did the director choose a tripod for the running shots, instead of a circular track and dolly to follow the actor on? Why is the car better than a tripod panning shot? It was said before that a car could make the parking lot seem bigger, but couldn't a panning tripod shot do that as well? I guess I am just not seeing what advantage driving around in a car has, compared to panning on a tripod.

If moving the camera from spot to another is better than panning, then why did Sergio Leone for example choose to pan, on a tripod? I thought that keeping the camera operator in one place if I can was a good thing?

This is comparing apples and oranges.

I gather Sergio Leone was heavily into circles at the time, so shooting a circular crematory the way he did makes sense. The scene was about searching for a grave among thousands, so the method he used worked dramatically, without being boring, which is the visual reality of looking for a grave in a large crematory (which tend not to be circular).

There aren't that many circular parking lots around, you have to let the location speak to you, not impose things onto them.

Why do you always over complicate things before even giving the whole thing some thought.

The circular cemetery - why did he use a static camera and pan rather than lay down miles of camera track? Because it is simple, effective and gives the feel he wanted. Can you not see the differences?

An car driving along a packed car park isn't remotely the same thing as panning from a single place. Neither is bad - just different.

You see everything so contrasty. You don't think about the camera op staying in one place, you think of the result, and work backwards. You're trying to create by using your rulebook again - this clearly does NOT work for you. You see problems everywhere, and never solutions.

The compression you talk about - you've just got it all misunderstood. The compression is because of perspective. There is no real compression visible in the cemetery chase because the background is completely blurred in the fast movement shot. Without background or foreground objects perspective is irrelevant. Where do you get these ideas from?

Let's start again. Explain the scene to us properly. Details of the location, the size, the actors and the movements they are planned to make. Clearly if the layout is all squares, then all the circular running stuff is out the window!

You have to think what the scene is really about and how you can use the location to tell it.

#ThisIsHowWeDoIt - YouTube

Get Carter 1971 Car Park Scene - YouTube

Ever notice that every scene Ryan requires super telephoto and compression. Intimacy...compression! Speed... compression!

Good movies tell a story in a visually interesting way. In the GBU look at the variety of shots and how they all work with the location and enforce the point of the scene.

I try not to spend too much time because its a waste. He doesn't listen or can not comprehend.

Ryan instead of asking us these questions, go to the locations and try them out for yourself.

Sorry, I am trying to comprehend it.

As for the parking structure, it is very square shaped with pillars. I said a few pages before that I don't think the circular motion was do-able, but it was then replied to me to do it anyway and not be so picky, so I was trying to do it anyway therefore.

However, in this test shot I did, before, with my friend running through, the park, she is not running in a circular motion. She is doing it in a straight line, and the lens can pan with her for a bout 14 seconds:

lens running test 2 - YouTube

That's plenty of time, for a shot to last I think. So even in a straight line, the focal length can hold for plenty of time it seems.

Their are two main chases in the script.

One is outdoors, in the woods and the other is in a parking garage. The parking garage is mostly the police closing it make arrests and the villains running away, and a firefight starts during the chase.

The outdoor one is more of a simple chase between three people, without guns.

As for a long focal length not being able to make the actor look like the are running faster if there is no objects for them to run past, the parking garage has plenty of pillars in though, so wouldn't those be the background and foreground objects to create that effect with a long focal length?

You can do something with a telephoto lens, but having the camera tracking in a confined space is much more dynamic for a chase. It doesn't even have to be smooth and steady.

Your telephoto shot is just for jogging, it's not a chase shot. It'll work if they're running through moving cars and between moving cars, with everything moving, but not the way you're planning. There;s no danger in that.

Why did you ask us about the panning chase in the park? You filmed a test and seem to be happy with it. You wasted our time on something that wasn't a problem. The parking garage is a completely different situation. Why don't you go there and do a similar test and stop asking us these what if questions. I can see the restricted space and low light are going to be factors you will have to discover for yourself.

Well I wanted to do a test there but it costs a lot to shoot there, and that would be an extra day of costs to do a test. I tried just going there to do the test without it being a shoot day, and just see if I could do it, but they would not let me. That's why I didn't choose there. But I thought that the park test, would also suffice for the outdoor chase as far as tests go.

When you say there is no danger in the way I am planning it, what do you mean specifically. How is there no danger in the way I am planning it?

When you say that a tracking shot will be more dynamic, if this is the case, then how come other directors do not use tracking shots for chases? Like for example, off the top of my head, why did the directors who made Seven Samurai, and Ben-Hur, chose for their cases, to be panning shots, instead of tracking ones?

There's no struggle, no overcoming obstacles, it's just running,

Here's a walking chase scene that has danger.

Marathon Man (7/8) Movie CLIP - I Know Who You Are (1976) HD - YouTube

Things have moved on since the Seven Samurai and Ben Hur.and you're aiming at a different market.

Oh okay, but I thought that in mine that when the police are shooting at you and you are shooting back, as in my scene, isn't that danger? More so than Marathon Man, if there are bullets flying?

This is danger from Ben Hur.

Ben-Hur (3/10) Movie CLIP - The Chariot Race (1959) HD - YouTube

The danger in Marathon Man was him, a Nazi walking through crowds of Jews being called out for what he is and the possibility that they may turn on him.

You need more than just bullet and shooting guns for a chase scene in a thriller. Westerns for kids have had that since the Lone Ranger from way back.

Well I felt there is more than just bullets flying. Characters are killed during and two other characters are effected by it. So I thought there was danger going on, but we are talking about types of shots, or the story danger?

Everything, because the story will affect the type of shots, as will the location and what is happening in the location apart from the chase, People getting killed is par for the course in these things, you need more than that for a good chase scene,