For developing shots in TV productions, click here.
“The Train”
Geoff Fletcher
A memorable zoom shot is in "The Train". It starts on a W/S of a railway marshalling yard and zooms in and in to a CU of a signal box on top of a bridging gantry. It is a huge zoom, and someone once told me it was a combination of an optical zoom and a pull up of the final frame at the end of the zoom range. True or false? When I watch it I think I detect an increase in grain over the last part of the "zoom" compared with the start, but I’m not sure.
“Hugo”
Bernie Newnham
The second shot on this is fun – all fake though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svDYdh77JkA
An excellent film if you haven’t seen it.
Alec Bray
These locomotives are far and away too close to the end of the platform – and anyway there should be some buffer stops or similar devices between the front of the loco and the concourse!
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Compare this with Liverpool Street.
There are a number of videos showing how “Hugo” was made.
“The Passenger”
Chris Glass
Film “The Passenger” (1975) still has people discusing how they did it: the penultimate shot is here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke2CFuLQ6t8
A true Jim – “Don’t cut, I’ll do it all in one shot!”
Bernie Heigham
I think they pulled the bars apart at 05.15
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Keith Wicks
Yes. When the bars part, they do so unevenly – they don’t both move outwards at exactly the same rate. Also, the almost horizontal bar has some wire coiled around it at the RHS of the section where the break occurs. Presumably the wire disguises a noticeable join in the bar.
Chris Glass
The picture below shows how it was done. There must have been a big pause as the crane cable took the weight (up a bit, no down a bit).
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Other films and commercials
Pat Heigham
Another excellent developing shot I remember was a Martini commercial (probably from a helicopter). Train crosssing a bridge, camera moves ever closer until it looks through the dining car window, then tighter in to the label on a Martini bottle on the table!
I don’t know if it was achieved in a single shot or a cunning combination of several set-ups?
Geoff Fletcher
Great film shots: what about the opening sequence of Catch 22?
David Brunt
“Citizen Kane”
Alasdair Lawrance, David Brunt
There’s an interesting long and complicated single shot opening sequence on another Welles film – “Touch of Evil”.
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back to TV for this comment!
Nick Ware
A great shot that gets me everytime I see it is this one from Eurovision 2009:
First in reasonably good quality (play loud!):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvx_pOqyNDU (the shot starts at 2’13")
And then, the rehearsal, showing how he did it:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f3mUs7rS1I
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Eurovision steadicam
