Questions tagged [cinematography]
Cinematography is the art or science of motion picture photography.
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Why do lights have a streaky flicker in some movies?
I've noticed that lights (for instance, car headlights, and sometimes other pinpoints of light) in movies occasionally have a streaky flicker emanating from them on alternate frames.
You can see an ...
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Is there a term of art for a quick location-identifier interstitial scene before cutting to the action?
Is there a term used by directors to describe a brief interstitial scene identifying a location of a following scene? The interstitial doesn't need to show a sign pointing to the location, but it ...
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Why is Quirrell standing like he's praying the Muslim prayer?
Something I've wondered ever since I first noticed this shot in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (the Ultimate Extended Edition, in case it's not in the normal edition). At the beginning of ...
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The distorted images in 2001: A Space Odyssey
The final segment of 2001 includes distorted images like below to convey an eerie sense. How was it achieved? Did Kubrick use a different lens for these shots? Can anyone specify the lenses he used ...
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Do the series "Devs" and "Tales from the Loop" have any connection in terms of who worked on it?
I recently watched "Devs", and now just started watching "Tales from the Loop".
What struck me immediately is how both have the same feel. Tranquil scenes, dominated by nature. ...
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How does a Camera move freely inside a car in a movie scene?
In Children Of Men, there is an uncut scene wherein a camera moves freely inside a car full of people. It starts with a front shot with the camera in the dashboard position facing back towards the ...
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How do they shoot breaking things so close to the camera without damaging it?
In Knight of Cups (2015), Barry breaks things in rage.
Pieces fly all over the camera. But this scene is shot so closely to the camera.
How do they shoot breaking things without causing any damage to ...
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How did they get this shot in Metropolis?
How were the shots of the runners running towards the camera captured in Fritz Lang's Metropolis? Here's the shot:
Was a dolly used? If it was, would it have been mounted on wheels only or would they ...
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Which movie was the first to use the technique where the camera zooms in on a TV screen and then transitions to the scene shown on the screen?
The above is a scene from The Matrix (1999), where the camera view zooms in on a TV screen and then transitions to the scene shown on the screen. Which movie was the first to use this technique?
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How is the "eye POV" shot made?
The technique is extremely ubiquitous in movies and TV shows where an "eye POV" shot is used when a character closes their eyes when sleeping or when awake and we see the back of their ...
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Method of using previous scenes in ending credit
This is the ending credit for the game Final Fantasy 7 Remake. The ending credit uses clips from the cutscenes in the game. I've seen this kind of method of using part of the flim in the ending credit ...
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What is the effect called which uses color to show events that happened in the past?
What is the effect called which uses color to show events that happened in the past?
Attached are two screenshots from an episode of suits. Here the past has a darker maybe even orange tint. Other ...
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What is this video effect where there's a square on the left side of the frame?
I see this effect all the time used in music videos, and I always ask myself:
What is this effect?
What is the square on the left?
Is it the same effect?
I know it is a vintage camera effect but I ...
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Why does Better Call Saul show future events in black and white?
Throughout Better Call Saul Season 6, all future events (after the main storyline of Breaking Bad ends and Saul lives a low-profile life in exile) are shown in black and white.
Normally, events ...
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Did Gordon Gekko lie about the sunrise?
In Wall Street (1987), Gordon Gekko calls Bud Fox, and during the call makes mention of the beautiful sunrise he's watching:
"I wish you could see this. Light's coming up. I've never seen a ...
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What kind of camera trickery enables this "zoning out in shock" effect? [duplicate]
One of many memorable moments in the Babylon 5 sci-fi television series comes in the middle of Season 3 Episode 10, "Severed Dreams" (by itself this episode is chock full of dramatic, ...
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Is there any common name for this type of shot?
When a character makes a decision to do something, we see actors looking down and then blinking and looking forward at the same time. I think I often see this in English dramas.
Is there a name given ...
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Origin of the side-view surprise car crash shot?
The most common form of the surprise car crash shot has the camera inside a moving car, with the frame showing the driver or a passenger in profile and (past them) a side window framing the world ...
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Meaning of a movie shot type with too little of a leadroom
Sometimes in movies a character is shown in an interesting way. It's usually shot from a side and he or she is facing the frame with little to none of a space between their nose and the edge of the ...
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a close shot in music video (fisheye ? prob. not )
I was watching this music video, and my question is about the shot at minute 1:04 -> 1:06, where he leans into the camera and the background seems with no movements.
Does this effect have a name?
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How are some scenes for movies shot especially for iPhone viewing?
In his recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Rami Malek discusses how certain scenes in No Time to Die (2021) were shot especially for the IMAX version.
But he also mentioned that some are also shot ...
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Can a specific shooting style be patented?
I was watching one of my childhood cartoons and realized one of the scenes was directly uplifted from Matrix.
What I wonder about is. Can movies get sued because they copy the camera angles and stuff ...
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Who are these guys that are following the cameraman?
In this video about the filming of The Battle of Winterfell, starting at 4:04 you can see 2 people follow around the cameraman as he is filming.
What are they doing? They seem superfluous and ...
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Shots where the characters are small in relation to a still background: do these have a name?
I'm wondering if these shots have a name: shots where the character(s) is sitting or otherwise still and takes up only a small part of the screen, which is also still, i.e. the rest is pretty much a ...
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Why was Kurosawa the first director to shoot the sun?
Akira Kurosawa is often credited as the first director to point his camera towards the sun in his film Rashomon (1950). Was this an artistic first, or was there some technical hurdle that Kurosawa was ...
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Is there a name for the side angle car crash scene?
I have seen this type of shot enough that I frequently expect to see it anytime a car shot shows a side angle profile of the driver. I've begun to see a push in the other way now almost in ...
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How do cinematographers do super zoom out shots?
Sometimes I will see a super zoom out shot in a movie. For example, in Bourne Legacy, the opening scene has the protagonist swimming in an icy lake in Alaska, then warming himself by a fire. The ...
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Was Spencer Tracy's long monologue at the end of Guess Who's Coming To Dinner filmed in one take?
The film Guess Who's Coming To Dinner ends with a long scene in which Spencer Tracy does virtually all the talking.
In a recent conversation at Quora, someone asserted that this scene was shot in one ...
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Why does The Bay of Silence (2020) use a lot of wide angle shot?
Many shooting in small rooms e.g. in home in the film is wide angle shot, the image on the edge are distorted. Although wide angle can contain more people at the same time, but it seems to be not ...
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Why is number 9 modified on digital clocks in some movies? [closed]
I just found out that in some movies, for some reason the bottom part of number 9 on digital clocks is cut out. An example from Back to the Future (6 gets the same treatment):
I'd just dismiss it as ...
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How did the camera pass through the window (and then back out) in The Book of Eli?
During The Book of Eli (2010) there is an extended gunfight scene where the camera passed through a window, pans around, and then goes back out the window.
How was this achieved technically?
If this ...
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Was the slightly shaky camera effect done "In the edit" of the Kingsman movies?
The fight scenes in the Kingsman movies, as well as being fairly brutal, are amazing bit of cinema - long shots following through the action, with a mostly steady camera taking in all the detail. I ...
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Could a modern movie such as "Gravity" have been constructed/produced/directed by a crew who never went to college? [closed]
To keep this semi-specific, I'm restricting the case study to the film "Gravity"
I'm wondering if the sort of directing, cinematography and special effects you find in that film could have ...
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First use of super-slow zoom in horror films to create tension
Here I'm not talking specifically about a "dolly zoom", first introduced by cinematographer Irmin Roberts in Hitchcock's Vertigo, but about the agonizingly slow zoom that you see not ...
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Are modern movies less saturated and darker in terms of lighting? What started this?
I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this or if it is nostalgia tugging but it seems to me that modern movies are much more darkly lit than, let's say, 80's movies.
Does anyone have anything to ...
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Why do 90s movies often look noisy? [closed]
It is my impression that movies from around the 90s look more noisy than from other eras (in terms of picture quality, sorry I probably lack the proper terminology here). In particular, unlike what ...
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Why would they use a backdrop in this outdoor scene?
I was watching the movie Double Jeopardy (1999) and the opening scene features a party that takes place at a large lodge type house on the water in Vancouver. In some of the scenes the bay can be seen ...
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How did they manage to make Birdman look like one single shot?
In Birdman there are some techniques for making it all look like a single shot that I've picked up on which are quite obvious, such as the camera turning upwards towards the sky and then having it ...
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Tracking and Traveling Shot
What is the precise difference between a tracking shot and a traveling shot?
I’ve seen that some people consider them synonym, like here:
https://sites.google.com/a/colgate.edu/fmst-terminology/...
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Pasolini's hand-held camera
In most of his films, Pier Paolo Pasolini uses a shaky hand-held camera almost constantly, though it is not needed on most occasions. Can anybody clarify why he preferred to use this technique?
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How did Kubrick shoot HAL's "eye" in 2001: A Space Odyssey?
How did Kubrick shoot HAL's "eye" in 2001: A Space Odyssey? We see the reflection of the astronauts approaching HAL, but not the camera.
How was it done?
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How was 1917 filmed as a continuous shot?
I just saw the new Sam Mendes film 1917 and was really impressed with the continuous shot approach, especially given the setting in the trenches of WW1. I've seen this effect done before and know ...
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Camera manipulating actor's heights? (Chris Bauer height? The Wire vs For All Mankind)
I've started watching For All Mankind and was pleased to see Chris Bauer in a strong supporting role playing Deke Slayton. I hadn't seen him in anything since he played Frank Sobotka in The Wire
In ...
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Was there a special kind of camera used for The Rise of Skywalker?
While watching The Rise of Skywalker I noticed many many shots where the camera would be looking at the characters/events from far away and then zoom in and re-angle itself onto the character or ...
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Were any non-CGI movies shot in their entirety though a colored lens/filter?
This is a 2-part question:
Is it technically possible to shoot a movie though a colored lens/filter? (as opposed to changing the image color AFTER the movie is shot, via CGI or earlier effects)
If ...
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Are there any other films which are constructed in a "Photomontage with narration" style similarly to La Jetée?
La Jetée is a short, French sci-fi film of about 30 minutes. The whole film is just one long sequence of beautiful black and white photographs, except for a single short sequence where the photographs ...
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Are movies shot in higher resolution than the planned broadcasting? [duplicate]
Apparently The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit are going to be released in 4K (link in German).
The Fellowship of the Ring is from 2001 when the 4K technology was not generally available. Does that ...
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How to they film walk on glass scenes in movie?
Like below image, walk on glass intro scene of mass hero is very common in Indian film.
Like this kind of scenes, how to they use cameras?
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What's the longest period of time over which a time lapse film has been recorded?
Time lapse photography can create some pretty impressive visuals. I think we mostly see time-lapse photography in non-fictional works about nature, plants, or the stars. But sometimes it's used in ...
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First in-helmet shots (like Iron Man)
(I am aware of this question, but the question didn't word its request properly and as a result didn't get the desired answer)
In Iron Man (2008), a common shot is used to let Robert Downey Jr. act ...
