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Zodiac Shot


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Hi,

I don't know if this question hs already been asked, but here goes anyway. I just saw Zodiac and loved the shot where the camera tilts up from the bottom of a building that being built, and as it does, all the scaffolding etc moves. It looks like a simple time lapse shot, but surely they didn't leave a camera there long enough to catch it. Any ideas?

Mary.

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It's not historical time-lapse footage of the Transamerica building being constructed -- it was CGI (computer animation basically with a fake time-lapse effect.)

 

But yes, normally you'd have to leave the camera out there for the duration in order for the framing to stay constant (and a tilt-up or down, or a pan, would require a complex motion control rig, or simply careful camera movements if it didn't have to be smooth. It's a little like stop-motion photography.)

 

Nowadays, though, someone probably would use a digital still camera with a high resolution, and if the camera was brought out there once a day, a picture taken, and removed again, so the framing wasn't precise, it probably could be realigned in post by zooming into the photo a little.

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The April 2007 issue of Cinefex has an article about that shot and the other effects shots in "Zodiac," quite informative. You can order back issues here: http://www.cinefex.com/index/listings/backissues.html

 

It's a pricy publication though, like $13 or so at newstand.

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  • 1 month later...

The photography really looked superb on this movie. There were very few shots at all that gave away its digital origins in a bad way, and a few night and evening shots that just looked great (like Collateral and Miami Vice).

Edited by Tom Lowe
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