Death Sentence (2007) sequence shot
Film title: Death Sentence
Year : 2007
Director: James Wan (Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring, Aquaman, Furious 7)
Country: United States
Director of Photography: John R. Leonetti (brother of Matthew F. Leonetti - the DP of Strange Days; future director of Annabelle)
Editor: Michael N. Knue
Music: Charlie Clouser (ex-Nine Inch Nails, composer of Saw)
Camera: Panavision, 35mm - Kodak Vision2 500T 5218, Super 35 format
Device: motorized rickshaw (to precede the actors at high speed) + exterior camera movements "in flight" between levels
Shot duration: ~3 minutes
Method: apparent continuous shot - the camera moves smoothly through all 5 levels of the parking garage with transitions between floors
Wan's last film: yes, Wan confirmed on Instagram in 2022 that this is his last film shot entirely using photochemical film.
Filming locations: Columbia, South Carolina and Los Angeles, California
Budget: $20 million (revenue: $17 million, commercial flop)
A multi-story parking garage. Five levels of bare concrete, lit by neon lights, empty except for Nick Hume (Kevin Bacon) and Billy Darley's gang, who are chasing him. Nick has just killed one of them. The others want him dead. The camera starts moving and for three minutes, it doesn't let up. It follows Nick as he sprints down the first level, hides behind a car, and runs toward the stairs. The gang spreads out. Gunshots echo off the concrete walls. The camera ascends with Nick to the second level, but not by the stairs. It exits the building through a side opening, rises into the void outside, and re-enters through the opening on the upper level. As if it were flying. As if the walls didn't exist. Nick keeps running. The gang keeps shooting. The camera continues to rise, level after level, between the concrete pillars, sliding between the parked cars, plunging behind the columns, until it reaches the roof of the parking lot where Nick and the last pursuer find themselves in a car whose handbrake fails, and which slides towards the edge of the void with them inside.
Why this scene is iconic
Matt Zoller Seitz, writing in The New York Times in 2007, said that "aside from a stunning three-minute tracking shot where the gang chases Nick through a parking lot, and Mr. Bacon's performance, the film is a classic revenge story." That's the highest praise one can pay a long take: it saves the film. Without those three minutes in the parking lot, Death Sentence is just another vigilante movie. With them, it's the film that proved James Wan, then known only as "the guy who made Saw," was a true director.
Moria Reviews described the scene as "a breathless, handheld-camera chase of Kevin Bacon by the gang, a sequence that cuts through streets, alleyways, kitchens, and finally a parking lot, the camera snaking effortlessly up and down between levels as they search, before Bacon gets into a fight with one of the gangsters inside a car whose handbrake fails and it slides toward the edge of the roof." The key word is "effortless"; the fluidity of movement between levels is what distinguishes this shot from all other tracking shots in confined spaces.
The parking garage is a vertical labyrinth, and Wan treats it as such. Where the corridor inOldboy (2003) is horizontal and that of The Protector (2005) is a spiral staircase, the parking garage in Death Sentence is a concrete spiral open to the outside. It is this opening that allows for the most spectacular movement in the shot: the camera exiting the building, soaring up a floor, and re-entering through the next level. TV Tropes described it: "On several occasions, the camera actually exits the parking garage to ascend a floor, as if it were flying." This is a movement impossible for a Steadicam operator, meaning that a crane or similar device took over for the transitions between levels.
How they filmed it
Technical sources on this specific shot are limited; neither Wan nor Leonetti gave a detailed technical interview dedicated to this sequence. What we know comes from reviews, technical analyses, and the DVD making-of.
John R. Leonetti, the younger brother of Matthew F. Leonetti, the cinematographer of Strange Days (1995) , shot on 35mm Kodak Vision2 500T 5218, Super 35 format. This fast film (500 ASA) allowed him to shoot under the fluorescent lights of a parking garage without additional lighting, exactly what Savides had done with his Kodak 5263 500 ASA in the corridors of Elephant (2003). The parking garage light, cold, greenish, and intermittent, is the light of the scene. Leonetti and Wan didn't try to embellish it. The result is a raw, almost documentary-like image that perfectly suits the film's realistic tone.
A motorized rickshaw was used to allow the camera to precede the actors at high speed. This device enabled the operator to move faster than Bacon's run while maintaining a stable framing. For the transitions between levels, the moments when the camera exits the building and "flies" up a floor, the shot likely uses a jib or crane-type device positioned outside the parking garage, stitched together with the interior shot. This is the same principle as the crane in True Detective S1E4 (Fukunaga, 2014), which lifted the Steadicam operator over a fence, except here the transition is vertical and repeated on each level.
Wan confirmed on Instagram in 2022 that Death Sentence was his last film shot entirely on photochemical film. After this one, he switched to digital for all his films (Insidious, The Conjuring, Furious 7, Aquaman) with the exception of a few scenes in Furious 7. The parking lot shot is therefore Wan's last major long take on film, and there's something poetic about the fact that his farewell to 35mm is a camera movement that refuses to cut.
Popcornizer summed it up: "This is one of the most impressive feats of action cinematography this decade." For a $20 million film released in 2007, the same year as No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, that's a considerable compliment.
What to observe when reviewing it
Exterior Exits (~each change of level) When Nick goes up a floor, the camera doesn't follow him up the stairs. It exits the building through a side opening, moves up a level into the void, and re-enters through the next opening. This is the signature movement of the shot and the clue that the shot isn't a single, continuous shot, but an assembly of segments stitched together in these "aerial" transitions.
The parking lot neon lights (lighting, the entire shot). The greenish glow of the neon lights is the only light source in the shot. No cinematic lighting, no hidden spotlights. Leonetti shot on 500 ASA film precisely to capture this raw light. The result: a stark, almost documentary-like image that makes you forget it's a $20 million film.
The car slides (end of shot). The climax: Nick and a gangster fight in a car whose handbrake fails. The car slides toward the edge of the roof, five stories above the ground. The camera remains inside with them. This is the only moment in the shot where the camera stops following the chase and confines itself to an even more restricted space.
Did you know that?
The Leonetti brothers are a cinematography dynasty. John R. Leonetti, the cinematographer of Death Sentence, is the younger brother of Matthew F. Leonetti, the cinematographer of Strange Days (1995), the film whose opening POV shot is also included in this collection. Two brothers, two memorable long takes, two low-budget genre films that failed at the box office but became technical benchmarks. Matthew invented the POV helmet camera for Strange Days. John filmed the parking lot of Death Sentence on 35mm 500 ASA film without additional lighting. Long-take cinematography, like that of the Richmond brothers (George and Jonathan in Children of Men, Anthony B., their father), is a family affair.
Death Sentence is the most underrated single-take shot in this collection and one of the most influential in terms of career trajectory. That parking lot shot proved Wan could direct, not just gore. Without that shot, Wan probably wouldn't have gotten The Conjuring (2013). Without The Conjuring, he wouldn't have gotten Furious 7 (2015). Without Furious 7, he wouldn't have gotten Aquaman (2018). The parking lot shot in Death Sentence is the resume that opened all the doors.
This shot shares a DNA with the other vertical pursuit tracking shots in the collection: The Protector (2005, four flights of stairs, a true continuous shot) and Atomic Blonde (2017, a building's staircase, a montage shot). But the parking garage adds a unique dimension: an opening to the outside world. Where Tony Jaa is confined to a spiral staircase and Theron is enclosed within a building, Bacon is in a semi-open space, where concrete walls alternate with emptiness, and the camera exploits this opening to fly from one floor to the next. It's the tracking shot as architecture: the building's form dictates the camera's movement.
Sources
Matt Zoller Seitz - The New York Times, review of Death Sentence (August 2007)
Moria Reviews - "Death Sentence" (October 2025)
Popcornizer - "Death Sentence: 5 Min Review" (2025)
TV Tropes - Death Sentence (Movie), "The Oner"
IMDB - Death Sentence, reviews (2007-2025)
ShotOnWhat - Death Sentence (2007), technical specifications (Kodak Vision2 500T 5218, Super 35)
Wikipedia - Death Sentence (2007 film) (Wan's last film on celluloid, Instagram 2022)
Letterboxd - Death Sentence, community reviews
Also read:
Strange Days (1995) sequence shot https://www.plan-sequences.com/categories-de-plans-sequences/strange-days - The other Leonetti in the collection: the older brother Matthew, the POV helmet camera, and an equally little-known and equally technically impressive opening shot
Choreographing an action scene in a single take https://www.plan-sequences.com/blog-plan-sequences/chorgraphier-une-scne-daction-en-plan-squence-le-guide-complet - How to prepare a chase shot in a confined space when the architecture itself dictates every camera movement
