Bionic

[Susan]

Not that this is highly fascinating to anyone but me, I was just thinking about movies and tv that have depicted a character with significant...strength. Mostly dated stuff, I guess it was a fad then. But I never quite understood why showing them in slo-motion was supposed to emphasize the fact they were strong.
Examples would be "incredible hulk", the Bionic Man/Woman, six million dollar man although I'm almost certain these aren't the only ones. I also didn't understand how slow motion gave the illusion of speed.

Another that comes to mind is "Superman", the movies. (not the tv show, which btw was hillarious as you know that guy was jumping on a mini-trampolene as he went headfirst out the window) I could start a whole other thread with Superman, I grew up loving the show, movies and comics. (someone needs to burn every last copy of Supergirl, however.)

I guess it always struck me as fairly silly, wonder who first came up with this effect.
Slow motion techniques are still done for the benefit of seeing action packed scenes in full detail, like the Matrix.



Post Edited (10-03-03 23:11)

[Evil Matt]

I know that in the Godzilla movies for most of the scenes with the miniature tanks and buildings getting blown up and what not are done in slo-mo because it looks fake as hell in real time.  I'm just guessing, but it's probably the same concept for the props they use to demonstrate feats of superhuman strength.  It probably adds to the suspension of disbelief when you can see every splinter of the cheap, breakaway table flying in the air when Lee Majors smashes through it in slo mo (accompanied by the GREATEST SOUND EFFECT EVER!!!) than to see him just sort of slap the thing and watch it fall apart.

[AndyC]

Matt's right. When somebody's lifting a foam rock or breaking through a balsa wood door, you can see that it doesn't have much substance. Even with heavy objects, like Lou Ferrigno tipping a car (that's being pulled from the other side), slowing down the action gives the object some extra weight, makes it look like there's more effort involved.

Slow motion is also more dramatic, and serves to set apart those special moments when powers are used. It generally makes the feat look more impressive.

As for slow motion to give the illusion of speed, imagine what the Six Million Dollar Man would have been like if they'd sped up the action. You'd have Benny Hill in a red Adidas jogging suit. I've seen movies where an undercranked camera is well used (Vanishing Point), but mostly, it looks like the film is playing at the wrong speed, and it's so hard not to give it away by getting other moving objects in the shot. By slowing it down, it's hard to judge how fast Steve Austin is going, but we know he has super speed, and that his powers are slowed down for dramatic effect. The illusion works.

[Susan]

>>As for slow motion to give the illusion of speed, imagine what the Six Million Dollar Man would have been like if they'd sped up the action. You'd have Benny Hill in a red Adidas jogging suit.<<

But isn't that a funny image? ;-)  I think it would have made him look like he was actually speedy

I don't see the slow-mo used as much these days in film I suppose because computer effects and so forth can aid in making the scene look more real than going back to the old tricks. While the effect aided in making a person have strength it equally gave me extra time to notice how fake and corny it all looked. I guess particularly with 70's programming it became too cliche for me, anyways, that I really hated seeing it copied over and again. Watching the Hulk toss around some fold up chairs in a gymnasiam in slow motion..why man, whyyy

Fast speed in film isn't used that much. I noticed that earlier films from the turn of the century had a quicker pace and I was never sure if it was because they couldn't control the speed of the film when filming (since didn't they have to turn a crank or something?) or they wanted to keep their films short.

[JohnL]

>imagine what the Six Million Dollar Man would have been like if they'd sped up
>the action.

They did that in the pilot episode, but only for one shot.

>I noticed that earlier films from the turn of the century had a quicker pace and I
>was never sure if it was because they couldn't control the speed of the film when
>filming

I seem to recall hearing that those early films used less frames per second than film today, so when it's played on today's equipment, it plays too fast. You have to be able to adjust the speed to play them the way they were meant to be viewed. I believe projectors of the time showed them at the proper speed.

[SkullNinja]

I believe when they did the one of the running sequences on Now and Again, they had Eric Close running away from some men chasing him on foot and made him easily outpace them by shooting him waist up, running on a dolly of some sort that was being pulled along. It actually looked pretty good.