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Is there an inverse of Dolly zoom?


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I'm sorry if this sounds and comes out like a shower thought, but is there an inverse of the dolly zoom, where instead of the camera body moving, it is the subject that is moving (the lens would also adjust by going wider if the subject moves nearer or tighter if it moves farther)?

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7 minutes ago, Mark Dunn said:

That would be called..........let me think about it......a "zoom"?

Yes Mark, it is indeed a zoom, but would it not yield an effect if one attempted to meticulously maintain the moving subject's size while zooming?

Edited by Joshua Robert Dy
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You can see this in the stair fall scene in "Psycho", where the actor is stumbling down the stairs (away from the camera) after being stabbed with a knife, while the camera zooms in, so the face of the actor is always the same size. In "Vertigo"  it was the camera that was moving.

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18 minutes ago, David Sekanina said:

You can see this in the stair fall scene in "Psycho", where the actor is stumbling down the stairs (away from the camera) after being stabbed with a knife, while the camera zooms in, so the face of the actor is always the same size. In "Vertigo"  it was the camera that was moving.

Hi David! I believe this is the scene you are referring to:

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the camera only tracking the actor here instead of zooming in (the actor seems to be standing/harnessed to the camera dolly to me)?

Edit: Yes, the shot is that of a dolly track instead of the zoom since you could observe the accretion of the table's feet on the upper left corner.

Edited by Joshua Robert Dy
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Oh, then i got it wrong, my bad.

But back to your question, you would get a warping 'vertigo' effect of the background with both approaches - moving the actor, or moving the camera and maintaining the size of the actor with the zoom.

 

EDIT:

You can easily test this in a free 3D software like blender

Edited by David Sekanina
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Just now, David Sekanina said:

you would get a warping 'vertigo' effect of the background with both approaches - moving the actor, or moving the camera and maintaining the size of the actor with the zoom.

I found that really interesting! One could keep the camera stationary, but still be able to get the vertigo effect (that said, it probably would be way more difficult to execute). Thanks David!

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The fall down the stairs is a process shot. I agree it could conceivably have been practical, but I think Hitchcock preferred the abstraction of a visual effect. Either that, or he just didn't care too much about so-called "realism", or believe that audiences did.

I'm sure there must have been theses written about this. If not, I'd better get cracking on my PhD.

One sees so many visual effects of this period that, to our eyes, are so clearly artificial that I do wonder if they were actually accepted as "real" by contemporary audiences prepared to suspend disbelief much further than we are- or were before the digital age.

 

Edited by Mark Dunn
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I was mistaken in this statement:

19 hours ago, Joshua Robert Dy said:

I found that really interesting! One could keep the camera stationary, but still be able to get the vertigo effect (that said, it probably would be way more difficult to execute). Thanks David!

As kindly pointed out to me by my lecturer, what gives the dolly zoom its effect is the dynamic monocular cue of optic flow; as the monocular cue is dynamic rather than static, it is NOT possible to recreate the vertigo effect without camera movement.

Despite this error, I STILL take refuge in the fact that I think I found a novel technique that might be worth looking into; thank you so much for everyone's inputs!

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I reread my lecturer's message (attached and quoted w permission) and I realized that it is still possible to get the Dolly zoom effect with a stationary camera: one just needs to somehow move both the subject and the background (in this way, it is still all in accordance with the three points of interest)!

Quote
Hi Josh
Your reasoning does have a degree of logic but the answer is no 
Consider this, There are 3 points of (lets say) interest in a Dolly  Zoom shot 
1 -Zoom focal Length
2-Camera distance to subject
3 -Camera distance to background  
The Dolly Zoom effect works because all three of the above change in-shot
While changing the zoom size will alter the size of the subject in Frame, as too will the subject themselves by moving closer or further away, but the background will remain at the same distance, as the zoom becomes a longer lens(higher mm) the background will change the degree of focus, but it will not physically move and that is key to the whole illusion of a Dolly Zoom shot 
Trust this is of some help

In response, my lecturer said of this about my insistence that dollyless dolly zoom still being possible despite its impracticality:

Quote

In theory yes but that would depend on the background being of a size to move, and if you can move a background.....why no track the camera ???

God bless my teacher for his patience with my tomfoolery.

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If your actor moves away from the camera you change the distance to the camera - you compensate him getting smaller by zooming in. This changes the field of view, hence you have the background warp around an actor that keeps his size.

Your actor ends up in a different position in the room, yes, so the end image will not be the same as when moving the camera away. The field of view change and the warp still happens, doesn't it?

Edit: I might be wrong, I have to test this ?

 

Edited by David Sekanina
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39 minutes ago, David Sekanina said:

If your actor moves away from the camera you change the distance to the camera - you compensate him getting smaller by zooming in. This changes the field of view, hence you have the background warp around an actor that keeps his size.

Hi David! When you zoom in or out on a background, the background does not warp; the background simply only becomes smaller or bigger in the frame. Only when you move, does warping happen.

 

If you notice in the video you shot, it only zooms in on the background, but in the Vertigo effect, the background 'moves'!

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10 hours ago, David Sekanina said:

the video was shot with my cellphone, so the zoom is not a zoom but a crop-in - which is not the same like a zoom in.

Hi David! Isn’t a zoom basically a crop while maintaining the same resolution? Also, the way I found it easiest to understand is when I remembered that lens does not compress/expand space. The common misconception is that telephoto is what makes space look closer or that wide is what makes space looks big, however this is not entirely true; if you truly want to compress space, you grab the camera and its telephoto lens and move far far back, while if you want to expand space, you take your camera and wide lens and move much closer. That is the essence of the Vertigo effect. Hope this helps!

Edited by Joshua Robert Dy
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A challenge might be in maintaining sharp focus and correct distance between the subject and camera. With modern repeatable motion-control tech, anything is possible. Making it all happen smoothly by the armstrong method is another thing entirely. Years ago, the dolly/zoom combination was used in a mini-series which was shot in a remote area "Flight Into Hell". If I remember correctly, the spatial disorientation this visual effect creates was intended to confer subliminally into the audience's perception, the beginnings of delerium the two characters were experiencing as they slowly succumbed to dehydration and tropical heat. 

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On 9/2/2022 at 1:23 AM, David Sekanina said:

silly.gif.e9e6d3cce3faf0a761e1b761362e6e44.gif

it's so so cute omgggg thank you for this David

In stop motion, it actually does look like the Vertigo effect and it is fairly convincing! The downside I see to this is that there is a lack of movement of the background, which is what the Vertigo effect stands for; the watcher feels the Vertigo effect because the watcher feels like he is moving because of the moving background, but in this case, the background only zooms out rather than 'moves'.

I personally think that it is still a very very cool effect (in stop motion it looks extremely convincing and it might be a way to cut costs), but I wonder how it would look on 24 fps. I'll keep you posted on what I find!

Edited by Joshua Robert Dy
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10 hours ago, Joshua Robert Dy said:

The downside I see to this is that there is a lack of movement of the background

Pure coincidence, I'm watching 'Deer Hunter' this morning. Vilmos Zsigmond has a shot where he tracks the camera from left to right, while maintaining the size of the actors walking towards the camera by zooming out. It's an interesting effect, combining the field of view change with a parallax change:

1.JPG.a84334b7d327fb0855b107cbac3bcc86.JPG

2.JPG.1bfca23ee055b55e0e630f756bcee1ee.JPG

3.JPG.93b4e6267dfcbff1d1727b88e53811ac.JPG

4.JPG.1bc4e8e527d0039daf1112ab821bc7ca.JPG

 

 

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