AS11-44-6550 and AS17-134-20384

[Luke Pemberton]

Just to add to the discussion, this is where I get exasperated with the CTs and the duplicity of their photography arguments when they hold the lofty position of twoof seekers. They claim all manner of expertise, but are not prepared to acknowledge an obvious untruth, dolly zoom being a good example. Even the most basic research should show why the Earth looks bigger in some photos. HWSNB wants to be recognised the carrier of Kaysing's flame and an expert with his TAFE in 'I know how to take the lens cap off the camera', yet is unwilling to put his hand up and point out where CTs are just talking BS. It's another reason why I don't trust their motives. I think it's called dishonesty or is just wilful ignorance. 

[smartcooky]

My friends and I have a theory that Jay is a collective, like the Borg.  But would a collective have its birthday on the IMDb Big List o' Birthdays for today?

Resistance is futile!

[Luke Pemberton]

A similar effect is used to make the Moon look larger against foreground objects. A long telephoto lens will achieve this effect:

...and that is my doh moment of today. 'Oh, I've always wondered how they make the moon look super big in photos'

Doh!!! As I said, a photographic numptee here.

[Count Zero]

Truffaut used the dolly-zoom in his 1966 adaptation of "Fahrenheit 451".  In Montag's dream, there is a POV shot of gliding down a corridor.  The walls are going by, but the end of the corridor never seems to get closer (it retains the same angular size).  Tobe Hooper used it to the opposite effect in 1982's "Poltergeist".  Jo Beth Williams is trying to reach her children's room. In the shot, she keeps the same angular size, but the end of the hallway seems to telescope into the far distance; then she starts running towards it and the dolly-zoom goes the other way to collapse the corridor back towards her.  It's a brilliant moment that really grabs you!

[ka9q]

Hey, I just found an example of it being used for comic effect. Apropos another thread, it's in the Key & Peele sketch "Georgina, Esther and Satan" at 4:16 when Georgina is possessed by Satan:

(Warning: dialogue is very NSFW)

[JayUtah]

Fairly comprehensive set of SFW examples --

.  I'd say about half of them don't really work.

[Sus_pilot]

Really great compilation you found, Jay.  I good have done without the incessant looping of the track from Vertigo. 

I'd say the most effective shots were from Vertigo, Apollo 13, Road to Perdition, Poltergeist, and E.T.  Most of the others seemed, for lack of another word, pretentious [edit: wrong word came to mind earlier] on the part of the director or cinematographer. 

The ones that didn't work looked like really poor matte shots that didn't handle perspective well, like the dolly/crane shot at the end of the "Broadway Melody" number in Singing in the Rain (although, arguably, that one works because of the context of the scene).

Questions, since what I know about cinematography could fit on the head of pin:  is the lens somehow linked mechanically to the dolly,  causing the zoom (and focus tracking) to follow along, or does the camera operator do what he needs to do in the view finder?  How did they do this with older, blimped cameras that didn't have a reflex view finder?  Did the focus puller have to know what rate to change the focal length and the focus?

Anyone who knows, this might be a good article for the www.widescreenmuseum.com site.

[JayUtah]

Really great compilation you found, Jay.

Thanks, one of the guys at Sundance pulled it up, so I bookmarked it.

I good have done without the incessant looping of the track from Vertigo.

I'm okay with it since it helps you focus on the visuals.  Also, probably copyright blah blah handwaving.

I'd say the most effective shots were from Vertigo, Apollo 13, Road to Perdition, Poltergeist, and E.T.

Indeed.

Most of the others seemed, for lack of another word, pretentious [edit: wrong word came to mind earlier] on the part of the director or cinematographer.

Indeed -- more of a "look what I can do!"  That's the same complaint I have with the current trend of handheld cameras and snap-zooms.

Questions, since what I know about cinematography could fit on the head of pin:  is the lens somehow linked mechanically to the dolly,  causing the zoom (and focus tracking) to follow along, or does the camera operator do what he needs to do in the view finder?

For most of those shots, not even that.  The camera operator had the viewfinder and the pan and tilt wheels.  The focus puller sat to the side and operated all the lens controls, which were typically pinioned into knobs (see below) precisely so that they could extend through holes and slots in the blimping.  But the focus puller couldn't see through the viewfinder.  Even with the advent of cable linkages, the job of focus puller was retained simply because geared heads still required both hands to operate.

The dolly was pushed by two or three stout lads, none of whom could see anything the camera saw.

How did they do this with older, blimped cameras that didn't have a reflex view finder?  Did the focus puller have to know what rate to change the focal length and the focus?

Yes.  Older cinematographers relied on taped distances for focus, and standalone viewfinders for focal length.  The focus puller would measure the distance with a tape attached to the lens linkages, with the zero point set at the focal point.  The knobs for focus and zoom had a white index mark.  Behind the knobs is a white glass (or later, plastic) disc on which he can mark temporary settings with a grease pencil.  So he measures the beginning and ending of each shot for focus and zoom, and marks the corresponding index positions in grease pencil.  During the shot, he is responsible for manipulating both knobs at the proper rate between his index marks.

Similarly the dolly position at the beginning and ending of each shot is marked on the floor (or dolly track) with spike tape.  It's the job of the dolly grips to push the dolly at a precise, repeatable speed through the shot.  That's the case even when you're not attempting a dolly zoom.

The pinnacle of today's state of the art is fully programmable motion-control rigs, built in some cases from industrial robots.  These can be programmed to accept and imitate even handheld camera movements, also at scaled speeds to account for different frame rates.  The cinematographer can literally move the camera physically by any means and the rig will record its motion precisely.  The lens adjustments can also be programmed in advance, also by capturing the "artful" manipulation of the controls by an expert focus puller.

Less expensive are servo-controlled remote heads that can be placed on dollies, cranes, and other traditional camera rigs.  The camera operator and focus puller sit side-by-side at a remote station, often with the director, and operate remote versions of their respective controls.  The operator, for example, has traditional pan and tilt wheels that behave as in a normal head, but simply encode the motion for repetition (in real time or recorded) by the servos in the remote head.

[smartcooky]

In the '80s it was sometimes called the Spielberg Zoom even though Steven Spielberg never claimed credit for it.  He just used it in creative ways after zooms had fallen somewhat out of style.  Starting in the mid-1970s most cinematography was done with prime lenses, as cinéma vérité styles from earlier art film movements migrated into Hollywood mainstream.  The classic movements of the camera survived, but changing focal length was seen as a way of drawing attention to the camera as an artificial eye rather than a proxy for the viewer.  Even still, the dolly zoom doesn't overtly change the focal length in that way when combined with the zoom.

The insurgence of the found-footage genre and the attendant handheld cinematography (even in other genres) has resurrected the snap zoom, which is another way of establishing depth in a shot.  Part of why Firefly works visually is the snap zooms on the exterior-space shots.  In blatant contrast to the carefully choreographed (by necessity) process shots of the physical-model era, the space cinematography in Firefly mimics the happenstance cinematography of journalism.  And now that's how a lot of that sort of stuff is shot.

The reboot series of Battlestar Galactica used something like that, often combined with an unsteady frame that pans back and forth as if "searching" to get the spacecraft in centre frame. 


One of my favourite pieces of camera/greenscreen trickery was the stairway/mirror scene from Carl Sagan's "Contact"

My first reaction when I saw that scene in the theatre was "Wait! What the ***!"

[ka9q]

That is a good one. It took me a moment to realize what you were talking about because it is pretty seamless. But you can tell that the first part of the shot cannot be a reverse zoom from a mirror reflection because of the changing hallway perspective seen by the camera. It had to be actually in front of Ellie, dollying backward away from her.

There's a subtle edit just as she reaches the mirror. The camera's reflection isn't visible because we're looking over Ellie's left shoulder, not square-on to the mirror.

Speaking of "how did the director keep the camera out of the mirror?" shots, my favorite is in General Turgidson's bedroom in Doctor Strangelove. "Miss Foreign Affairs" answers the phone, and we see Turgidson's reflection in the mirrors on the walls as he comes out of the bathroom. The mirrors form a corner reflector, but we can only see shadow where the camera had to be. I wonder if that was simply done with careful lighting, or if Kubrick actually hid the camera behind a black drape.

Edited to add: Looking at it some more, I think the mirrors are all carefully but only slightly out of alignment, just enough to keep the camera out of the shot. The right wall may also not be exactly square with the left. We see them at an oblique angle so we can't really tell.

[BazBear]

Similarly the dolly position at the beginning and ending of each shot is marked on the floor (or dolly track) with spike tape.  It's the job of the dolly grips to push the dolly at a precise, repeatable speed through the shot.  That's the case even when you're not attempting a dolly zoom.

My only work in film was on this sales clip for the GE Defense Systems GPU-5a gun pod, three decades ago

I was the dolly grip on all the "sound stage" shots (actually a National Guard armory in S. Burlington VT). All the field footage was done by others. I also had to operate the camera crane in addition to moving the dolly; of course it was just a smaller Fisher dolly carrying a 16mm Arriflex. I was and still am amazed what goes into even a little production like this. It took four of us five 10-12 hour days to set it up, shoot it, and break it down. I got the gig because my photographer friend had done some work with the head of GE's sales dept. for his side business, and the small two man production company out of Boston that were hired to film it wanted a couple of extra hands, and my friend recommended me. I had actually never seen this film until late last year when I thought to look for it on Youtube - and there it was.

[smartcooky]

That is a good one. It took me a moment to realize what you were talking about because it is pretty seamless. But you can tell that the first part of the shot cannot be a reverse zoom from a mirror reflection because of the changing hallway perspective seen by the camera. It had to be actually in front of Ellie, dollying backward away from her.

Yep. Cameras don't see around corners!

[JayUtah]

Yep. Cameras don't see around corners!

And you can't dolly up stairs either.  That's a Steadicam shot.  And it's a hard-as-[bleep] Steadicam shot because you're running backwards up the stairs with the camera boom in front of you.  Take the weight of the camera and double it, because you have the battery counterweight at the other end of the boom.  And you have to strap the vest on very tight, so your balance is compromised.  There's a reason good Steadicam operators are expensive and hard to find.

The smartguns in Cameron's Aliens were on Steadicam rigs.  Pretty awesome prop design, if you ask me.  I'd make one for Comic Con events, but a Steadicam retails for about $6,000.  A little beyond my price range.  Plus our con is so well-attended you can barely walk the floor.

[JayUtah]

My only work in film was on this sales clip for the GE Defense Systems GPU-5a gun pod, three decades ago

That's some pretty good work, to be honest.

[BazBear]

My only work in film was on this sales clip for the GE Defense Systems GPU-5a gun pod, three decades ago

That's some pretty good work, to be honest.

Thanks. I do sometimes wish it hadn't been a one-off job for me. It was hard work, but a lot of fun.