:Dolly zoom

The effect was first conceived by Alfred Hitchcock during the filming of 1940's Rebecca, but he was unable to achieve the desired results. Some 18 years later, success came through Irmin Roberts, a Paramount second-unit cameraman, who devised the proper method for Hitchcock's film Vertigo.{{Cite web|url=http://www.indiewire.com/2012/05/5-things-you-might-not-know-about-alfred-hitchcocks-masterpiece-vertigo-110734/|title=5 Things You Might Not Know About Alfred Hitchcock's Masterpiece 'Vertigo'|last=Lyttelton|first=Oliver|date=2012-05-09|website=IndieWire|access-date=2017-02-01}} It is thought that Alfred Hitchcock specifically asked Roberts to assist him in creating a shot that exemplifies being in a drunk state after fainting at a party.{{YouTube|title=The Dizzying History of the Dolly Zoom|id=eNFt_Gbewn0}} {{retrieved|access-date=2023-03-15}} At the time, Roberts had already designed a special camera capable of fast focal lens changes that allowed short-range projections. His expertise in focal lenses most likely prompted his innovation of the dolly zoom, which was more popularly recognized as the "trombone shot" or "contra zoom". Despite this step forward for cinematography, Roberts was not properly credited at the end of Vertigo.{{Cite web |last=Nzpete |date=2014-06-02 |title=Matte Shot – a tribute to Golden Era special fx: The Unseen World of the Visual Effects Cinematographer: A Tribute to Irmin Roberts, ASC |url=http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-unseen-world-of-visual-effects.html |access-date=2023-03-15 |website=Matte Shot – a tribute to Golden Era special fx}} However, this shot has since been used in many other films, including Goodfellas,{{YouTube|MeyjyZ6UZII|This Is How a Dolly Zoom Works}}, Fandor Jaws,{{cite magazine|magazine=Slate|date=January 21, 2014|title='The Evolution of the Dolly Zoom', in One Supercut|last=Wickman|first=Forrest|url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/01/21/dolly_zoom_supercut_video_shows_the_vertigo_effect_in_jaws_goodfellas_raging.html}} and the Lord of the Rings films. Rainer Werner Fassbinder uses the effect twice in one shot in Chinese Roulette (1976). Director Joe Dante referred to it as the "Jaws Shot" since the scene in Jaws, when Roy Scheider sees the shark attack of the little boy Alex, is the most famous use of this shot.

Among the many creative uses the dolly zoom can provide to cinematographers, the shot can be divided into two types: the dolly-in/zoom-out and the dolly-out/zoom-in. The dolly-in/zoom-out shot is usually centered on a subject, where the background is pushed away from the character to create a profuse amount of uneasiness. For example, Poltergeist's famous dolly zoom stretches the background to make it seem as if the door is much farther away from the character than it actually is. In contrast, the dolly-out/zoom-in shot shrinks the background to seem much closer than it really is.

The dolly zoom is commonly used by filmmakers to represent the sensation of vertigo, a "falling-away-from-oneself feeling" or a feeling of unreality, or to suggest that a character is undergoing a realization that causes them to reassess everything they had previously believed. In general, the dolly zoom's amplification of emotion is a special effect that compliments a director's arsenal of creativity. For example, in Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead, a dolly zoom, coupled with a Dutch angle shot, exemplifies drama between an intense shootout. An uneasy feeling of suspense can also be signified through a dolly zoom, most notably used in the movie Split in 2016, where Casey Cooke peers off into the distance in unwanted curiosity. Other uses include demonstrating overwhelming fear or important epiphanies for a character. The dolly zoom can also be utilized for the purposes of tonal shifts within the film. This was most exemplified in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, where Peter Jackson chained events together with more flare as opposed to a regular transition. Directors may also decide to use the dolly zoom as an alternative to the generic wide shot in order to give sufficient exposition on the upcoming scene.

The technique does not necessarily need to be used for aesthetic or narrative

reasons; it can serve as a way to seamlessly transition between two focal

lengths to take advantage of the different perspective distortion of each angle

of view. In the 12th episode of the first season of The Sopranos, a dolly

zoom is used during a twenty-second shot that displays the character Mikey

Palmice talking to two hitmen on a street corner at its start and ends with the camera

looking into the interior of a car to capture his discussion with his boss

Junior Soprano, who is parked close by.{{Cite web

| url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoBC3xC1Mjw?t=87s

| title= The Sopranos - Donnie gets Whacked

| website=YouTube

}}

The shot follows Mikey's short walk between the two settings, and the camera

pans to the side and tracks backwards away from Junior's car,

causing the background to "grow" in size as the cinematographer zooms the lens

in and the camera moves backwards. Here, the effect is used to avoid a

compromise that would otherwise be necessary: a longer focal length throughout

the shot would show less of the surrounding streetscape, and a wider one would

introduce distortion that would make Mikey appear smaller than Junior. The

technique allows the cinematographers to achieve the framing and perspective

they want at both ends of an extended take without needing to introduce an additional

cut into the scene or disturbing the viewer's immersion by making the movements of the camera more apparent.

In Jaws (1975), the famous "Get Out Of The Water" scene contains a dolly zoom that focuses on Martin Brody's shocking realization of a shark on the beach.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nnLUa7V9Sm8C&pg=PA65 |title=Maya® Secrets of the ProsTM |first1=John |last1=Kundert-Gibbs |first2=Dariush |last2=Derakhshani |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |date=20 February 2006 |page=65 |isbn=9780782150612}}

In Raging Bull (1980), Martin Scorsese uses dolly zoom shot to disorient the audience and put them in Jake LaMotta's shoes, and thus creating a vertigo effect.{{Cite web |last=Hellerman |first=Jason |date=June 21, 2023 |title=How Does Martin Scorsese Block and Shoot a Scene? |url=https://nofilmschool.com/how-does-martin-scorsese-block-and-shoot-scene |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230706224608/https://nofilmschool.com/how-does-martin-scorsese-block-and-shoot-scene |archive-date=July 6, 2023|access-date=November 14, 2023|website=nofilmschool}}

In Goodfellas (1990), Scorsese uses dolly zooms to convey tensions between characters. This shot is most famously employed in Henry's dive into paranoia, where he eats at a diner with Jimmy while tracking a window to see if anybody has been following him.{{YouTube|title=The Dolly Zoom: More Than A Cheap Trick|id=u5JBlwlnJX0}} {{retrieved|access-date=2023-03-15}}

In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Frodo stands by as a dolly zoom signifies an entrance of an enemy from the woods.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dgmlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA21 |title=Camera Tricks |first=Sara |last=Green |publisher=Bellwether Media |date=1 August 2019 |page=21 |isbn=9781681035871}}

In Shaun of the Dead (2004), a dolly zoom places comedic emphasis on Shaun's bravery, which ultimately fails when his shotgun jams.

In Ratatouille (2007), the food critic Anton Ego has an intense flashback, signified through a dolly zoom, towards his childhood days after eating Remy's ratatouille. Throughout the film, dolly zooms are used extensively to highlight the bonding between two characters, such as when Remy feels a personal connection with Chef Gusteau on television.

The Apple TV+ series Severance uses the dolly zoom to represent when an employee transitions between their "Innie" company personas at work and their "Outie" real-world selves.{{Cite web |title=How Severance Pulled Off One of the Most Quietly Disturbing Sets on TV - Assemble |url=https://www.onassemble.com/blog/severance |access-date=2024-10-28 |website=www.onassemble.com |language=en}}

{{see also|Perspective distortion}}

For most purposes, it can be assumed that the image space and the object space are in the same medium. Thus, for an object in focus, the distance between the lens and image plane $s\_\backslash text\{i\}$, the distance between lens and the object $s\_\backslash text\{o\}$, and the focal length $f$ are related by

:$\{1\; \backslash over\; s\_i\}\; +\; \{1\; \backslash over\; s\_o\}\; =\; \{1\; \backslash over\; f\}.$

Then the transverse magnification is

:$M\; =\; \{s\_\backslash text\{i\}\; \backslash over\; s\_\backslash text\{o\}\}\; =\; \{f\; \backslash over\; (s\_\backslash text\{o\}\; -\; f)\}.$

The axial magnification $M\_\backslash text\{ax\}$ of an object at $s\_\backslash text\{o\}$ is the rate of change of the lens–image distance $s\_\backslash text\{i\}$ as the lens–object distance $s\_\backslash text\{o\}$ changes. For an object of finite depth, one can conceive of the average axial magnification as the ratio of the depth of the image and the depth of the object:

:$M\_\backslash text\{ax\}\; =\; \backslash left|\; \{d\; \backslash over\; d(s\_\backslash text\{o\})\}\; \{s\_\backslash text\{i\}\; \backslash over\; s\_\backslash text\{o\}\}\; \backslash right|\; =\; \backslash left|\; \{d\; \backslash over\; d(s\_\backslash text\{o\})\}\; \{f\; \backslash over\; (s\_\backslash text\{o\}\; -\; f)\}\; \backslash right|\; =\; \backslash left|\; \{-f\; \backslash over\; (s\_\backslash text\{o\}\; -\; f)^2\}\; \backslash right|\; =\; \{M^2\; \backslash over\; f\}.$

One can see that if magnification remains constant, a longer focal length results in a smaller axial magnification, and a smaller focal length in a larger axial magnification. That is, when using a longer focal length while moving the camera/lens away from the object to maintain the same magnification M, objects seem shallower, and the axial distances between objects seem shorter. The opposite—increased axial magnification—happens with shorter focal lengths while moving the camera/lens towards the object.

To achieve the effect, the camera needs to be positioned at a certain distance from the object that is supposed to remain still during the dolly zoom. The distance depends on how wide the scene is to be filmed and on the field of view (FOV) of the camera lens. Before calculating the distances needed at the different fields of view, the constant width of the scene has to be calculated:

:$\backslash text\{distance\}\; =\; \backslash frac\{\backslash text\{width\}\}\{2\backslash tan\backslash left(\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}\backslash text\{FOV\}\backslash right)\}.$

For example, a FOV of 90° and a distance of 2 meters yield a constant width of 4 meters, allowing a 4-meter-wide object to remain still inside the frame during the effect.

{{Reflist}}

{{Cinematic techniques}}

Category:Special effects

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Category:Alfred Hitchcock

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