Dolly zoom

Last updated December 08, 2024

Computer-generated representation of a dolly zoom

In the video inset, the object moves with the camera and it does not zoom, so the FOV does not change; thus there is no dolly effect.

A dolly zoom (also known as a Hitchcock shot,^[1]^[2]^[3]Vertigo shot,^[4]^[2]Jaws effect,^[4] or Zolly shot^[5]) is an in-camera effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception.

The effect is achieved by zooming a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view, or FOV) while the camera dollies (moves) toward or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. The zoom shifts from a wide-angle view into a more tightly packed angle. In its classic form, the camera angle is pulled away from a subject while the lens zooms in, or vice versa. The dolly zoom's switch in lenses can help audiences identify the visual difference between wide-angle lenses and telephoto lenses.^[6] Thus, during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject. Hence, the dolly zoom effect can be broken down into three main components: the moving direction of the camera, the dolly speed, and the camera lens' focal length.^[6]

The visual appearance for the viewer is that either the background suddenly grows in size and detail and overwhelms the foreground, or the foreground becomes immense and dominates its previous setting, depending on which way the dolly zoom is executed. As the human visual system uses both size and perspective cues to judge the relative sizes of objects, seeing a perspective change without a size change is a highly unsettling effect, often with strong emotional impact.^{[ citation needed ]}

History

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 .^[7] 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.^[8] 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 .^[9] However, this shot has since been used in many other films, including Goodfellas ,^[10] Jaws ,^[4] 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.

Uses

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.^[6]

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 2018, where Casey Cooke peers off into the distance in unwanted curiosity. Other uses include demonstrating overwhelming fear or important epiphanies for a character.^[8] 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.^[11] 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.

Notable examples

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.^[12]

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.^[13]

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.^[12]

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.^[12]

In Shaun of the Dead (2004), a dolly zoom places comedic emphasis on Shaun's bravery, which ultimately fails when his shotgun jams.^[12]

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.^[12]

The AppleTV+ series Severance uses the dolly zoom to represent when an employee transitions between their "innie" company persona at work and their "outie" real world self.^[14]

Optics

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 $s_{\text{i}}$ , the distance between lens and the object $s_{\text{o}}$ , and the focal length $f$ are related by

{1 \over s_{i}}+{1 \over s_{o}}={1 \over f}.

Then the transverse magnification is

M={s_{\text{i}} \over s_{\text{o}}}={f \over (s_{\text{o}}-f)}.

The axial magnification $M_{\text{ax}}$ of an object at $s_{\text{o}}$ is the rate of change of the lens–image distance $s_{\text{i}}$ as the lens–object distance $s_{\text{o}}$ 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_{\text{ax}}=\left|{d \over d(s_{\text{o}})}{s_{\text{i}} \over s_{\text{o}}}\right|=\left|{d \over d(s_{\text{o}})}{f \over (s_{\text{o}}-f)}\right|=\left|{-f \over (s_{\text{o}}-f)^{2}}\right|={M^{2} \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.

Calculating distances

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:

{\text{distance}}={\frac {\text{width}}{2\tan \left({\frac {1}{2}}{\text{FOV}}\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.

Related Research Articles

In optics, aberration is a property of optical systems, such as lenses, that causes light to be spread out over some region of space rather than focused to a point. Aberrations cause the image formed by a lens to be blurred or distorted, with the nature of the distortion depending on the type of aberration. Aberration can be defined as a departure of the performance of an optical system from the predictions of paraxial optics. In an imaging system, it occurs when light from one point of an object does not converge into a single point after transmission through the system. Aberrations occur because the simple paraxial theory is not a completely accurate model of the effect of an optical system on light, rather than due to flaws in the optical elements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Depth of field</span> Distance between the nearest and the furthest objects that are in focus in an image

The depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and the farthest objects that are in acceptably sharp focus in an image captured with a camera. See also the closely related depth of focus.

In optics, the numerical aperture (NA) of an optical system is a dimensionless number that characterizes the range of angles over which the system can accept or emit light. By incorporating index of refraction in its definition, NA has the property that it is constant for a beam as it goes from one material to another, provided there is no refractive power at the interface. The exact definition of the term varies slightly between different areas of optics. Numerical aperture is commonly used in microscopy to describe the acceptance cone of an objective, and in fiber optics, in which it describes the range of angles within which light that is incident on the fiber will be transmitted along it.

The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light; it is the inverse of the system's optical power. A positive focal length indicates that a system converges light, while a negative focal length indicates that the system diverges light. A system with a shorter focal length bends the rays more sharply, bringing them to a focus in a shorter distance or diverging them more quickly. For the special case of a thin lens in air, a positive focal length is the distance over which initially collimated (parallel) rays are brought to a focus, or alternatively a negative focal length indicates how far in front of the lens a point source must be located to form a collimated beam. For more general optical systems, the focal length has no intuitive meaning; it is simply the inverse of the system's optical power.

In photography, angle of view (AOV) describes the angular extent of a given scene that is imaged by a camera. It is used interchangeably with the more general term field of view.

A camera lens is an optical lens or assembly of lenses used in conjunction with a camera body and mechanism to make images of objects either on photographic film or on other media capable of storing an image chemically or electronically.

An optical telescope is a telescope that gathers and focuses light mainly from the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, to create a magnified image for direct visual inspection, to make a photograph, or to collect data through electronic image sensors.

The field of view (FOV) is the angular extent of the observable world that is seen at any given moment. In the case of optical instruments or sensors, it is a solid angle through which a detector is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation. It is further relevant in photography.

A zoom lens is a system of camera lens elements for which the focal length can be varied, as opposed to a fixed-focal-length (FFL) lens.

In photography and cinematography, perspective distortion is a warping or transformation of an object and its surrounding area that differs significantly from what the object would look like with a normal focal length, due to the relative scale of nearby and distant features. Perspective distortion is determined by the relative distances at which the image is captured and viewed, and is due to the angle of view of the image being either wider or narrower than the angle of view at which the image is viewed, hence the apparent relative distances differing from what is expected. Related to this concept is axial magnification – the perceived depth of objects at a given magnification.

Magnification is the process of enlarging the apparent size, not physical size, of something. This enlargement is quantified by a size ratio called optical magnification. When this number is less than one, it refers to a reduction in size, sometimes called de-magnification.

An eyepiece, or ocular lens, is a type of lens that is attached to a variety of optical devices such as telescopes and microscopes. It is named because it is usually the lens that is closest to the eye when someone looks through an optical device to observe an object or sample. The objective lens or mirror collects light from an object or sample and brings it to focus creating an image of the object. The eyepiece is placed near the focal point of the objective to magnify this image to the eyes. The amount of magnification depends on the focal length of the eyepiece.

The Scheimpflug principle is a description of the geometric relationship between the orientation of the plane of focus, the lens plane, and the image plane of an optical system when the lens plane is not parallel to the image plane. It is applicable to the use of some camera movements on a view camera. It is also the principle used in corneal pachymetry, the mapping of corneal topography, done prior to refractive eye surgery such as LASIK, and used for early detection of keratoconus. The principle is named after Austrian army Captain Theodor Scheimpflug, who used it in devising a systematic method and apparatus for correcting perspective distortion in aerial photographs, although Captain Scheimpflug himself credits Jules Carpentier with the rule, thus making it an example of Stigler's law of eponymy.

In geometric optics, distortion is a deviation from rectilinear projection; a projection in which straight lines in a scene remain straight in an image. It is a form of optical aberration that may be distinguished from other aberrations such as spherical aberration, coma, chromatic aberration, field curvature, and astigmatism in a sense that these impact the image sharpness without changing an object shape or structure in the image while distortion can change the object structure in the image.

Depth of focus is a lens optics concept that measures the tolerance of placement of the image plane in relation to the lens. In a camera, depth of focus indicates the tolerance of the film's displacement within the camera and is therefore sometimes referred to as "lens-to-film tolerance".

In digital photography, the crop factor, format factor, or focal length multiplier of an image sensor format is the ratio of the dimensions of a camera's imaging area compared to a reference format; most often, this term is applied to digital cameras, relative to 35 mm film format as a reference. In the case of digital cameras, the imaging device would be a digital image sensor. The most commonly used definition of crop factor is the ratio of a 35 mm frame's diagonal (43.3 mm) to the diagonal of the image sensor in question; that is, $. Given the same 3:2 aspect ratio as 35mm's 36 mm \times 24 mm area, this is equivalent to the ratio of heights or ratio of widths; the ratio of sensor areas is the square of the crop factor.$

In Gaussian optics, the cardinal points consist of three pairs of points located on the optical axis of a rotationally symmetric, focal, optical system. These are the focal points, the principal points, and the nodal points; there are two of each. For ideal systems, the basic imaging properties such as image size, location, and orientation are completely determined by the locations of the cardinal points; in fact, only four points are necessary: the two focal points and either the principal points or the nodal points. The only ideal system that has been achieved in practice is a plane mirror, however the cardinal points are widely used to approximate the behavior of real optical systems. Cardinal points provide a way to analytically simplify an optical system with many components, allowing the imaging characteristics of the system to be approximately determined with simple calculations.

In photography, a long-focus lens is a camera lens which has a focal length that is longer than the diagonal measure of the film or sensor that receives its image. It is used to make distant objects appear magnified with magnification increasing as longer focal length lenses are used. A long-focus lens is one of three basic photographic lens types classified by relative focal length, the other two being a normal lens and a wide-angle lens. As with other types of camera lenses, the focal length is usually expressed in a millimeter value written on the lens, for example: a 500 mm lens. The most common type of long-focus lens is the telephoto lens, which incorporate a special lens group known as a telephoto group to make the physical length of the lens shorter than the focal length.

The Sigma 8–16mm lens is an enthusiast-level, ultra wide-angle rectilinear zoom lens made by Sigma Corporation specifically for use with APS-C small format digital SLRs. It is the first ultrawide rectilinear zoom lens with a minimum focal length of 8 mm, designed specifically for APS-C size image sensors. The lens was introduced at the February 2010 Photo Marketing Association International Convention and Trade Show. At its release it was the widest viewing angle focal length available commercially for APS-C cameras. It is part of Sigma's DC line of lenses, meaning it was designed to have an image circle tailored to work with APS-C format cameras. The lens has a constant length regardless of optical zoom and focus with inner lens tube elements responding to these parameters. The lens has hypersonic zoom autofocus.

In filmmaking and television production, zooming is the technique of changing the focal length of a zoom lens during a shot – this technique is also called a zoom. The technique allows a change from close-up to wide shot during a shot, giving a cinematographic degree of freedom. But unlike changes in camera position, zooming does not change the perspective ; it only magnifies or reduces the size of the entire image as a whole.

References

↑ Truffaut, François; Scott, Helen G. (1985). Hitchcock. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 246. ISBN 9780671604295.
1 2 Norman Holland. "Hitchcock's Vertigo: One Viewer's Viewing". Archived from the original on 2015-01-01.
↑ "The "Vertigo shot" and the oneiric frame". Archived from the original on 2007-09-15.
1 2 3 Wickman, Forrest (January 21, 2014). "'The Evolution of the Dolly Zoom', in One Supercut". Slate .
↑ Hardy, Rob (January 21, 2014). "Everything You Need to Know About the Dolly Zoom". nofilmschool.com. No Film School. Retrieved June 17, 2020.
1 2 3 Shields, Meg (2021-01-03). "How Does the Dolly Zoom Work?". Film School Rejects. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
↑ Lyttelton, Oliver (2012-05-09). "5 Things You Might Not Know About Alfred Hitchcock's Masterpiece 'Vertigo'". IndieWire. Retrieved 2017-02-01.
1 2 The Dizzying History of the Dolly Zoom on YouTube Retrieved2023-03-15.
↑ Nzpete (2014-06-02). "Matte Shot – a tribute to Golden Era special fx: The Unseen World of the Visual Effects Cinematographer: A Tribute to Irmin Roberts, ASC". Matte Shot – a tribute to Golden Era special fx. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
↑ This Is How a Dolly Zoom Works on YouTube, Fandor
↑ "The Sopranos - Donnie gets Whacked". YouTube.
1 2 3 4 5 The Dolly Zoom: More Than A Cheap Trick on YouTube Retrieved2023-03-15.
↑ Hellerman, Jason (June 21, 2023). "How Does Martin Scorsese Block and Shoot a Scene?". nofilmschool. Archived from the original on July 6, 2023. Retrieved November 14, 2023.
↑ "How Severance Pulled Off One of the Most Quietly Disturbing Sets on TV - Assemble". www.onassemble.com. Retrieved 2024-10-28.

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[1] Truffaut, François; Scott, Helen G. (1985). Hitchcock. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 246. ISBN 9780671604295.

[holland-2] 1 2 Norman Holland. "Hitchcock's Vertigo: One Viewer's Viewing". Archived from the original on 2015-01-01.

[3] "The "Vertigo shot" and the oneiric frame". Archived from the original on 2007-09-15.

[S-4] 1 2 3 Wickman, Forrest (January 21, 2014). "'The Evolution of the Dolly Zoom', in One Supercut". Slate .

[5] Hardy, Rob (January 21, 2014). "Everything You Need to Know About the Dolly Zoom". nofilmschool.com. No Film School. Retrieved June 17, 2020.

[:3-6] 1 2 3 Shields, Meg (2021-01-03). "How Does the Dolly Zoom Work?". Film School Rejects. Retrieved 2023-03-16.

[7] Lyttelton, Oliver (2012-05-09). "5 Things You Might Not Know About Alfred Hitchcock's Masterpiece 'Vertigo'". IndieWire. Retrieved 2017-02-01.

[:22-8] 1 2 The Dizzying History of the Dolly Zoom on YouTube Retrieved2023-03-15.

[9] Nzpete (2014-06-02). "Matte Shot – a tribute to Golden Era special fx: The Unseen World of the Visual Effects Cinematographer: A Tribute to Irmin Roberts, ASC". Matte Shot – a tribute to Golden Era special fx. Retrieved 2023-03-15.

[10] This Is How a Dolly Zoom Works on YouTube, Fandor

[11] "The Sopranos - Donnie gets Whacked". YouTube.

[:0-12] 1 2 3 4 5 The Dolly Zoom: More Than A Cheap Trick on YouTube Retrieved2023-03-15.

[13] Hellerman, Jason (June 21, 2023). "How Does Martin Scorsese Block and Shoot a Scene?". nofilmschool. Archived from the original on July 6, 2023. Retrieved November 14, 2023.

[14] "How Severance Pulled Off One of the Most Quietly Disturbing Sets on TV - Assemble". www.onassemble.com. Retrieved 2024-10-28.

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