117
votes
Accepted
How do they shoot binocular scenes?
As has been mentioned, the binocular "look" is just a mask.
It's also worth noting that if you're looking through binoculars properly you will only see one circle.
- 1,578
75
votes
Accepted
How are some scenes for movies shot especially for iPhone viewing?
It is all about the framing - what will fit in a shot when it is eventually shown in a streaming or BluRay/DVD format, or indeed before that, a non-IMAX cinema.
As I don't have any access to examples ...
- 53k
53
votes
How was 1917 filmed as a continuous shot?
Similar techniques were used in Birdman which was also visualised as a single shot, and the opening scene of The Revenant.
Usually, if you're looking out for them you can see the wipes they use - ...
- 53k
49
votes
Accepted
What is this camera effect used in Hot Fuzz?
The Michael Bay Spin
I'm joking, but as far as I can tell the technique doesn't really have a name. All that's happening is that the camera is moving around subjects in the foreground, and the ...
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47
votes
Accepted
Are lights a worthwhile investment?
The short answer is: You've picked three of the most talented and, significantly, indulged directors in history (Stanley Kubrick, Terence Malick, Milos Forman) and asked "Why doesn't everyone work ...
- 2,498
46
votes
Accepted
Shots where the characters are small in relation to a still background: do these have a name?
It's an example of 'negative space'.
Mr Robot plays with this a lot, very effectively. It also uses a lot of lower quadrant framing & even adds to the negative space by removing the leading room ...
- 53k
39
votes
How do they shoot binocular scenes?
They don't, it's a fixed matte applied in post, these days with a simple 2D mask and some mild edge blurring. I'm reasonably certain nobody ever in the history of film and TV ever used anything ...
- 2,738
39
votes
Accepted
Why are paused frames of DVDs blurry?
Interlacing
Interlaced video is a technique for doubling the perceived frame rate of a video display without consuming extra bandwidth. The interlaced signal contains two fields of a video frame ...
- 133k
35
votes
Accepted
Time freezes and actors and things can be viewed from different angles. What is this special effect called and how is it made?
They use an array of cameras usually kept in curved setup having object in the middle. While every camera captures images from different angles, final shot is produced by editing frames from different ...
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34
votes
Accepted
Is there a term of art for a quick location-identifier interstitial scene before cutting to the action?
Arguably this is a form of an establishing shot:
An establishing shot in filmmaking and television production sets up, or establishes, the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its ...
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32
votes
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Why does Better Call Saul show future events in black and white?
The color change serves to immediately alert the viewer to the time jump. Generally it is the past that is shown without color, however since moments in the past are predominant in the series doing so ...
- 436
31
votes
Accepted
How was 1917 filmed as a continuous shot?
Quoting from Wikipedia under filming section.
Filming was accomplished with long takes and elaborately choreographed moving camera shots to give the effect of one continuous take.
Careful editing ...
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27
votes
What is this camera effect used in Hot Fuzz?
TV Tropes refers to it as an "orbital shot" which somehow seems more appropriate for describing the technique.
You can find this technique in Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs when the ...
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25
votes
Meaning of a movie shot type with too little of a leadroom
It's called 'negative space' and is often used to convey a sense of isolation - Watch: What's Negative Space
Mr Robot does a similar thing, called quadrant framing - The Socially Anxious Framing ...
- 53k
23
votes
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How was the special high-contrast cinema release of Se7en created?
It's a technique called silver retention, also known as bleach bypass.
To quote from Cinematography: Theory and Practice : Imagemaking for Cinematographers and Directors:
Deluxe, another film lab ...
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23
votes
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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?
It's really just a modern take on Orson Wells' Citizen Kane (1941) 'through the skylight' shot - though the transition is smoother due to advanced editing/CGI techniques. In the original they try to ...
- 53k
20
votes
Accepted
How did Game Night make shots that made the scene look like a model set?
This is a technique called Tilt Shift Photography. It can be performed entirely using optical techniques or using software to post process an image.
A lens with tilt and shift capabilities allows ...
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20
votes
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How did they manage to make Birdman look like one single shot?
I know I teased this as a comment, but the answer really is disappointing…
They used CGI to mask the transitions.
After comments
This doesn't mean it wasn't clever or a lot of hard work by some ...
- 53k
20
votes
Did Gordon Gekko lie about the sunrise?
He was previously staring out at the ocean, then turns to face the camera so you could see the sunset that he'd been looking at. The lights from houses are coming up, and the setting sun is bouncing ...
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19
votes
Are lights a worthwhile investment?
There's a lot missing with natural light and there's a lot that can't be done if you rely on natural light and most of it relates to being in control of your set.
Natural light is great... if you ...
- 26.4k
18
votes
Accepted
Why do soap operas have the soap opera effect?
You've got it backwards. No effect is being applied to soap operas. It's the tvs that are applying an effect. Let me explain.
To fool the human brain into believing that a series of flashes are a ...
- 899
17
votes
Accepted
What's usually the effective visual resolution of typical Hollywood Movies?
When distributed to the theaters, new digital films will likely be 4K, with better color depth and resolution than home 4K. But theaters will not be able to show at that resolution if they have not ...
- 11.1k
17
votes
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When recording on film, how does the crew see the footage?
Do you mean in this day and age, or back in the day before we had digital cameras?
You can get a tap from the camera these days, but you still can't see what was actually captured to film until it ...
- 53k
16
votes
Time freezes and actors and things can be viewed from different angles. What is this special effect called and how is it made?
Note: This is an addendum to Rahul's answer, which is essentially correct.
In the Matrix movies, the filmmakers didn't rely exclusively on the still photos from the stationary cameras. To make the ...
- 23.6k
15
votes
Accepted
How did they shoot the Las Vegas scene in "Now You See Me"?
It's combination of 3 separate cable cam shots with a lot of CGI crowd duplication work.
The FX house was Rodeo FX and they posted YouTube videos of how it was done.
In a major sequence inside the ...
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15
votes
What is this video effect where there's a square on the left side of the frame?
To extend on the previous answer: this effect is simulated film perforations. In analog film recording (as opposed to analog magnetic recording or digital recording), physical film reels have ...
- 251
14
votes
Accepted
Why is the path of film through a camera so convoluted?
One of the reasons is to create a "loop", but this "loop" is probably a different definition of the word than you're thinking.
Film comes off the reel smoothly. Film being exposed to light from the ...
- 23.6k
13
votes
When recording on film, how does the crew see the footage?
Before the video assist that the fine answer from @Tetsujin described, and perhaps even afterwards until all-digital production, you had the Dailies/Rushes where each day's raw film was developed.
...
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13
votes
The distorted images in 2001: A Space Odyssey
This has so far proven to be a long and not entirely fruitful search.
The generic answer to "what lens is it?" is .. it's a wide-angle lens, very wide - a type known as a fish-eye.
Precisely which ...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible