Certain Camera Technique

[Ash]

I was wondering how a certain camera technique was done.

Maybe one of you knows the answer.

I'm referring to when the main subject stays stationary or moves slightly while the background zooms in....resulting in a very surreal effect.

One good example is in "Mortal Kombat" when Johnny Cage is fighting Scorpion in the wooden ladder area.  You might know the scene...
Cage is knocked to the ground and when he recovers, the camera zooms away from him a bit while the background zooms in.

Another one is in "Hulk" when Banner transforms after that guy attacks him in his home.
He stays in place while the camera zooms the background in closer.
What is the name of such a shot?  Hollywood has names for everything.

Anyone know exactly how they do this?
It looks pretty trippy!



Post Edited (10-31-03 01:44)

[Brother Ragnarok]

It has something to do with pulling the camera backwards on the dolly and cranking the focus in on the character, resulting in the character being stationary while the background flies away like the dad's kitchen cupboards in Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders.  I'm not sure on all the technical stuff, but that's the basic idea.

Brother R

[The Burgomaster]

What is the camera technique they use to make a 90 minute film, and the entire thing is a piece of crap?

[Vermin Boy]

My friends and I tried that a few times in our short movies. Problem is, we had to do it by leaning over the subject and suddenly jerking back, so the characters in our Vertigo shots are usually smirking instead of shocked.

[Fearless Freep]

I'm referring to when the main subject stays stationary or moves slightly while the background zooms in....resulting in a very surreal effect.

I think Spielberg invented it for "Jaws"

[The Burgomaster]

"I think Spielberg invented it for 'Jaws'"

There is a similar technique used in THE GRADUATE. Near the end of the movie, Dustin Hoffman is running toward the camera, but he doesn't seem to be getting anywhere (i.e., his feet are moving, but the background doesn't seem to be getting any farther away from him).  I think this is done by zooming in at the exact same speed that you are dollying backward.  The lens is also important (I think it is done with a short focal length lens . . . or is it a long focal length lens? . . . I always get that part confused).

[Phantom 187]

Great camera focuses would be those used in the old Chinese shau lin films. When they zoom in and out you can actually see how steady they must have had to have been with a flow of the focal lens. I've always tried to accomplish this technique, failing at it miserably. I've hypothesized the technique to have needed some sort of rod to move the lens in and out quickly. Sadly, most modern digital and analog cameras cannot produce such a wonderful shot due to the very slow focal lenses used. The Chinese must have had a wonderful flow to the shot since if it did have a bar for the hand it would have taken some extremely steady camera hands to produce or at least some good editing to render the shot a usable one.

Also another technique I'm dieing to learn would be the one where subjects seem to shake rapidly looking sort of like a time laps shot . A good example of these shots can be seen in the movie "Spun" in certain scenes and are present when the characters take the  meth drugs. The earliest shots of this were made by the brothers quay back in the 80s.

[C Reynolds]

I'm referring to when the main subject stays stationary or moves slightly while the background zooms in....resulting in a very surreal effect.

This shot is known as a "Tracking Zoom" and was invented by Hitchcock in the film "Vertigo".

[dean]

>This shot is known as a "Tracking Zoom" and was invented by Hitchcock in the film "Vertigo".

i guess that's why they call it a vertigo shot then!  

i always wanted to be able to do this shot, but my camera doesn't have a manual zoom, so it makes it nigh on impossible to get the timing right when trying to move back at the same speed.

>Also another technique I'm dieing to learn would be the one where subjects seem to shake rapidly looking sort of like a time laps shot .

is this at all similar to what i call the 'flapping head' shot in house on the haunted hill [new version] where one character's head moves about unnaturally fast yet the rest of him is still?

i tried something similar in a short film i did for shool, and just got a friend to moves his head from side to side and various angles [to the song 'time warp' no less] and then just sped up the footage and added the appropriate sound effects. it actually came out pretty cool [compared to the rest of the film especially!]

[AndyC]

My experience is in still photography, but long focal lengths (telephoto) tend to flatten a scene while short focal lengths (wide angle) tend to deepen it. By pulling back the camera while zooming in on your subject, I think you should be able to keep your subject about the same size, while tightening your view of the background,so it would appear to get closer. It must require some pretty precise control to produce the kind of shots you see in movies though.