Hitchcock’s famous vertigo shot—a tracking in one direction while simultaneously zooming in the opposite direction. Irmin Roberts, the second-unit director of photography/cameraman, is credited (though not in the film) for having developed this photographic “trick” done with miniatures placed horizontally. Also called a contra-zoom shot or a trombone shot, by zooming the lens, in this case, in on the subject, while simultaneously tracking out, the subject, according to all accounts, allegedly remains the same size as the background changes through compression. This is an accurate description of later vertigo shots for example in Jaws (Spielberg 1975) and Indochine (Wargnier 1992) etc., however it is not an accurate description of the effect in Vertigo where the subject is minimized as the “sides” of the image expand, creating an unusual three dimensional effect. Rather, the result is that the foreground remains relatively constant, if a bit elongated, as the background recedes.
Published in Chapter:
Stylized Moments: Creating Student Engagement and Participation in an Asynchronous Online University Film Course
William Thomas McBride (Illinois State University, USA)
Copyright: © 2016
|Pages: 27
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9582-5.ch020
Abstract
This chapter provides academic researchers and teachers with access to a unique pedagogical approach to teaching film online with a detailed exhibition of strategies and technological tools that have proven to encourage and ensure interaction, presence, and participation in an asynchronous online setting. With a persistent comparative eye toward both F2F and asynchronous online versions of the course, the chapter reveals both the content and the infrastructure as it is currently delivered to 100 students, detailing how each component works, and the advantages and disadvantages of delivering such a course online.