Cool Zoom Effect

[technicolour]

Does anyone know how to do/how that cool zoom effect is achieved when like in movies when something happens and the camera zooms in on the person but the backround gets further away so they sort of *jump* out of the picture

Anyone know what I mean? It happens in Jaws quite early on when Brody (the police guy) is on the beach and sees that kids get eaten and the camera does the cool effect then

thanks

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Jim

[Shenan]

If I'm undertanding the effect you're talking about, it's an opposite zoom and dolly (don't know the exact term for it). You zoom in and dolly out at the same time or vice versa depending on which way you want the effect to go.

[This message has been edited by Shenan (edited August 15, 2001).]

[MadFor3D]

I love that effect!

Also works great in a scene, like...

INT. CLASSROOM DAY

BRAD sits at his desk chewing nervously on the end of his pencil.

Another angle: Brad is secretly pushing a piece of paper across the floor with his foot to the girl sitting next to him.
TEACHER
(Off Camera)
Brad, would you care to share
your love note with the rest
of the class?

Back to Brad: We close in on Brad with a "perspective warp?" as he sits up, pencil falling from his mouth.

...what are you going to use it for?

-M

[Alex]

I think Hitchcock gets credit for that one while making the the movie "Vertigo". (Movie-Making had already been around 40-50 years when Hitchcock did it, don't know if anybody did it before Hitchcock)

In the movie Vertigo, there is a POV shot (point of view) of Stewart looking down several flights of stairs (perhaps 50-60 feet down) and he gets disoriented, because he has vertigo.

Hitchcock wanted the audience to feel Stewarts dizzyness...

The "vertigo" camera effect was created while "craning" the camera in a vertical descent while simultaneously zooming out.

Or vica versa, the camera was "craning" up away from the floor while zooming in.

However, how did they get the camera to look straight down the flight of stairs, and crane....?

I mean, we're talking some huge heavy rig here for a 35mm Camera to defy gravity. Perhaps a dolly (like a fisher dolly) with a limited crane was used and the camera had a 90 degree adapter plate attached...however the crane action would probably not be enough.

Would a mirror have let them do the trick without a crane?

But the "vertigo" effect also works on level ground...just "dolly in" with the camera while zooming out..., or "dolly away" with the camera while zooming in.......but timing is everything.

Anybody else remember a movie where you have seen this effect?

-Alex

[MovieStuff]

I think Hitchcock was the first simply because usable zoom lenses hadn't been around very long when he did it. Also, I believer Vertigo was made even more difficult because they shot in Vistavision, which didn't even have TTL viewing; they used paralax viewing. We sort of take zooms for granted, kind of like Radio Shack audio mixers for $69.00, but back then, both were quite exotic and expensive.

Roger

[This message has been edited by MovieStuff (edited August 15, 2001).]

[Rigo]

There?re endless combinations of this effects. They combine movements of subject, camera and focal length.

Hitchcock is said to be the inventor of the effect of closing up to a subject by dollying out and zooming in.

Spielberg does the opposite, and moves the subjet slightly to the camera giving a whole 3 dimensional appear to the image.

Put your eye in the depth of fild to catch the effect.

[8th Man]

We used to call this the "Hitchcock zoom" when I was younger. It must take a few tries to get right though. Probably easier with super 8 because of a wider depth of field range. The idea is to keep the subject in the same frame and in focus as the background changes from wide to telephoto or visa-versa. It can be tricky to pull focus and adjust zoom at the same time you dolly to or from the subject.
Usually it's done fairly fast but there is a good example of a slow one in Goodfellas with two guys in a diner talking.
Do you want the background to go from wide to telefoto or the other way around. It
may depend on what the subject in going through.Is his world distorting or is he being brought back to reality?
P

[MadFor3D]

Doesn't it happen in the "Evil Dead" movie a few times?

-M

[8th Man]

Christ, by the time I'm done typing 2 other guys have already posted
P

[8th Man]

And one more while I wrote that.