Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Zooming in movies - useless and annoying or not?

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-07-2004, 06:34 PM:

After watching Miracle I think I have just about had it with this "style" of photography.

I have already made my comments on this thread, but after seeing I am not the only one who detests unnecessary zooming, I felt the discussion needed it's own thread. Please read the comments at the link above, then reply on THIS thread.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-07-2004, 06:36 PM:

What link above? Oh wait! You edited! I will read and then comment.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-07-2004, 06:39 PM:

Taking your time, eh?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-07-2004, 06:40 PM:

Now I will reply:

Zooming sucks. So does the "I can't hold the camera still" type of "cinematography". NYPD Blue or whatever it's called drives me nuts with its amateur camera work. Anyone who does any camera work on NYPD Blue sucks ass and should be skinned, set on fire, and then sprayed with acid. It's that simple. I see it in a lot of commercials too.

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 02-07-2004, 06:40 PM:

ZOOM...ZOOM...ZOOM,ZOOM,ZOOMMMMMMM

If you over use special effects, they are no longer special.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-07-2004, 06:42 PM:

I agree with your point. It is the main reason why I never watched "NYPD Blue" very much at all. It is cinematography from the school of Shakes: The Cameraman.

I wish I was there on the set of one of those shows when the camera operator started shifting his handheld shots all over the place. I'd smack him on the back of his head and bark, "cut it out already! Get a damned tripod!"

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-07-2004, 06:43 PM:

quote:
If you over use special effects, they are no longer special.

YES THEY ARE!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!111!!!!!!

Zooming is not a special effect. A special effect is something that is rendered on a computer. Look at how awesome Van Helsing looks! It will be the best movie ever made because of all the CGI. Hopefully it'll have zooming as well!! [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 02-07-2004, 07:35 PM:

I can't stand not only zooming but also when the camera operator feels compelled to move around left.. right.... up... zoom in... left... quick zoom out... I see this a lot in interviews that I guess are supposed to be somewhat trendy looking or something. Instead it looks like the guy has one leg shorter than the other, and he can't get an angle he likes on the person talking.

"Hey buddy... HOLD THE F*CKING CAMERA STILL ALREADY!!" [Mad]

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 02-07-2004, 08:38 PM:

Anyone who has taken a basic cinematography 101 class knows that ZOOMING IS AGAINST THE LAW.

So many times when watching Miracle, I wondered how much more awsome the movie could have been if they moved the camera across the ice following the puck, as opposed to cameras around the perimiter, zooming on the action.

Stylisticly, I'm allright with one or two zooms, as long as they support the story. But they have to be used with care & moderation.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 02-07-2004, 09:03 PM:

Haven't seen Miracle yet, but that NYPD Blue style of zoom does get a little annoying. However, anyone ever notice in AOTC how Lucas slowly does some zooming on certain characters in certain shots? I never noticed the first couple times I saw it, but it became evident. I didn't find it annoying, but rather asked why he was doing it.

AJG

Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 02-07-2004, 09:09 PM:

Mark Said:

quote:
I can't stand not only zooming but also when the camera operator feels compelled to move around left.. right.... up... zoom in... left... quick zoom out...

I noticed this happening in quite a few films. Cheaper By The Dozen, Freddy Got Fingered, Unfaithful and Legally Blonde 2 all have this " style " of cinematography. Notice the first 3 are from Fox. Few of these films were shot by experienced DP's ( Mark Irwin & Peter Biziou ). Can a studio dictate how a film looks?

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 02-07-2004, 09:13 PM:

I think I know why there were all those slow zooms in Attack of the Clones. I saw a Digital Cinema presentation last year at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas. They were showing a trailer for Attack of the Clones and the first few minutes of Ice Age. I must have watched the loop about four times. Whenever there was a static shot that stayed on the screen for very long, your eyes immediately started to notice the pixels. There were some shots like that in Ice Age where some little character was moving around in front of a huge, static background and, bang! There were those pixels. However, in the Attack of the Clones footage there was always movement all over the screen, even if that movement was due to a slow, deliberate zoom. And, presto! The pixels were virtually invisble.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-07-2004, 09:27 PM:

Zooming is especially annoying in "period" films, since high quality zoom lenses are a fairly recent development. A film set in, say, the 1930s really shouldn't use zooms at all.

As for the "gratuitous handheld shot," I really don't see how this is any worse than the "gratuitous steadicam shot" that was popular in the early to mid 1990s. They're both annoying, but handheld camerawork is OK for sports and action. It also works for getting the "claustrophobic" (sp?) effect; check out the opening scene in "Bonnie and Clyde" for an example of an effective handheld shot (which would never have been shot that way in a film made today).

As for effective use of zooms, check out the one in Vertigo and a similar zoom/dolly shot in a semi-obscure French film called "La Haine" (which is great). There's also one in The Graduate that works nicely. Probably others, too, that I just can't think of right now.

Was anyone else annoyed that the fake 16mm game films that the coach in Miracle was watching included zooms and were even edited as if shot from multiple cameras? Completely ridiculous. At least he had a Kodak Presstape splicer in his desk.

Edit: what's the earliest film to feature a zoom shot? I can think of "It" (1927), but I can't believe that it was the first one.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 02-07-2004, 09:34 PM:

The original Judgement at Nurenburg had a lot of zooming in on faces

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 02-07-2004, 10:25 PM:

quote:
Zooming is especially annoying in "period" films, since high quality zoom lenses are a fairly recent development. A film set in, say, the 1930s really shouldn't use zooms at all.

So a film set in the 18th century shouldn't use cameras at all? [Devil]

(and shouldn't this be in Yak?)

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 02-07-2004, 10:56 PM:

My Dad taught me to use his 8mm movie camera when I was about 10 years old. His rules were:

Only zoom in/out once per shot.
Never begin or end a shot with a zoom. Always hold the shot before cutting.
Never have two or more successive shots with zooms.
Never break the plane of the action with the camera, lest you cause the actors to seem to change places on the screen.
All the above goes for pans, tilts and trucks.

As for "fluid camera". I don't care for it unless it's so subtile that the viewer doesn't notice it.
There are some camera guys who are really good at framing up a shot and moving around with fluid camera so that the viewer's eye naturally follows the points of interest on the screen.
Example: Let's imagine a scene where a police detective is interrogating a suspect. The camera shows a medium close-up of the detective trying to pry information out of the suspect he knows is guilty. There's a clock on the wall in the background. The viewer's eye is attracted to it so as to notice the time. This is good fluid camera in action. The camera man has attracted your attention to the clock in order to give the impression of passing time... The detective and the suspect are spending hours sparring back and forth. The fluid camera & clock device punctuate the battle of wits. Chances are you won't even notice the device because the movement of the camera is so subtile. Maybe the camera didn't move hardly at all. Properly done, it might only take a slight focus shift to the background and back to the foreground to make the viewer notice the time.

Compare that to a fluid camera shot where the camera follows virtually no discernable pattern or rhyme & reason. It just looks like the camera man is high or something. It's crap.

I think this should be added to my Dad's rules:

Only one fluid camera shot in every so many shots.

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 02-08-2004, 02:14 AM:

quote:
The original Judgement at Nurenburg had a lot of zooming in on faces

Been a while since I have seen it but didn't it zoom in when it changed from German to English?

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-08-2004, 04:37 AM:

I seem to remember vaguely reading that zooming was not really an option in many of the new widescreen formats in the 50s but in the mid 60s it became technically possible due to some improvements made by Panavision. And indeed, a lot of late 60s-early 70s movies zoom like hell. For instance, "Death in Venice", there is so much zooming that you could become seasick.

Posted by Matt Frankish (Member # 2131) on 02-08-2004, 06:32 AM:

Has anyone seen Oliver Stone's Commandante? It's an interview with Castro, and it managed to make me leave off watching it in disgust - it has the most annoying camera style I have ever seen, and I've seen Moulin Rouge!

Why do they think that a sudden fast zoom into someones ear, for example, adds anything to what is being said? It's a documentary, and an interview with someone who has some very interesting things to share. Why would I want a fast-cutting montage of alternate B&W and colour close-ups of his feet? Why?

Rant ends...

Posted by Liam Utley (Member # 1931) on 02-08-2004, 06:40 AM:

Greg Anderson made a good point. Do you think that changes in technology ie - pixel problems, would be enough to dictate how cinematographers shot movies? Surely there is no substitute for keeping the camera still though.

Posted by John Anastasio (Member # 607) on 02-08-2004, 07:04 AM:

I forbid my production students to use a zoom unless there's a specific dramatic reason for the shot...and then they'll have to defend it. When I demonstrate the wonderful sense of depth you get from dollying a camera instead of zooming in or out, they're usually amazed. When it's used properly, a zoom can be very effective, but it's over-used and improperly used, usually just for the sake of convenience. The shaky camera technique is also annoying. It was originally designed to make it look like "actuality" style shooting, but sometimes it's so obviously faked that it's sickening. If one of my students comes in with a shakey, hand-held zoom-and-pan production,full of medium shots all done from eye level and looking like "The Blair Witch Project", I send them right back to do it all again. John Ford had a great idea....get it lit properly, lock the camera down and let the movement take place inside the frame, then edit it to make it seamless.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 02-08-2004, 09:40 AM:

Early front element anamorphic attachments were focal length specific and zoom anamorphics had to wait till jacobson came out with the rear element anamorphic adapter with taylor hobson

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-08-2004, 10:04 AM:

Most over-used zooms in the history of motion pictures: oriental chop-socky movies!

Most-annoying zoom practice: the combo dolly-in, zoom out shot (first used in JAWS).

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 02-08-2004, 07:07 PM:

quote:
Most-annoying zoom practice: the combo dolly-in, zoom out shot (first used in JAWS).

Gotta call ya on that one Tim. Jaws was most definitely not the first use of that kind of zoom shot (see the Vertigo reference above for a much earlier use).

I don't care for the way most zooms are done these days either. Especially on a big screen. They cheapen the look of the production to me.

There was a great comment made about NYPD Blue's "nervous" camerawork back when Jimmy Smits first joined the cast. The cast change was made in part due to actor's salaries. The comment: "Good. With the money they're saving maybe they can buy Shaky The Cameraman a tripod."

Posted by Mike Babb (Member # 1379) on 02-08-2004, 10:41 PM:

I ran a trailer recently for test(sorry, can't remember which one)and it had a simulated film jam/bonanza effect.

Also the zooming I hate specifically is when a conversation is between a person in the foreground and background and the focus jumps back and forth with the dialogue, never fails to generate a complaint.

Posted by James Robertson (Member # 888) on 02-08-2004, 11:46 PM:

Quote

." Anyone who does any camera work on NYPD Blue sucks ass and should be skinned, set on fire, and then sprayed with acid. It's that simple. I see it in a lot of commercials too. "

Joe

In defense of camera operators on shows such as N.Y.P.D the style of shooting is very much dictated by the director and unfortunately "wobblescope" as it's known in the trade was/is very popular as the theory is that it imparts a sense of immediacy and rawness. I agree with you though and think it's a pain in the arse.
]
Jim

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 02-08-2004, 11:58 PM:

Although I did not notice any zoom effects in "THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT", the thing that made me dislike that film very much among many other reasons was the constant hand held camera movements.
I can see why unnecessary camera lens zooming in a movie scene can be unnerving but if done well and there is a purpose, I have no problem with that.

-Claude

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 02-09-2004, 07:03 AM:

I seem to remember MTV being the reason for shaky camerawork.

Another reason to hate MTV: Superbowl, and shaky camerawork.

Posted by Robert E. Allen (Member # 1351) on 02-10-2004, 03:04 PM:

I remember when zoom lenses first came out in the 60s and they were so overused that, for me, it became annoying, especially the fast zooms. I'd rather see a dolly in or out shot. I wasn't aware that anyone was still using zoom lenses. Hey!, maybe "Smellavision" will make a comeback.

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 02-10-2004, 05:10 PM:

Scott Norwood wrote:

quote:
Zooming is especially annoying in "period" films, since high quality zoom lenses are a fairly recent development. A film set in, say, the 1930s really shouldn't use zooms at all.

Kubrick did it in BARRY LYNDON, and IMHO it worked fine. But I know what you mean, and few other directors have the taste of Kubrick and the technical perfection. And he NEVER pans or tilts the camera while zooming, he goes from one perfect composition to another.

I dislike most zooming, but it can become a great storytelling tool when you really know how to use it. If you remember THE SHINING, there is a great scene in which Scatman Crothers gets a "shining" vision of the bad things happening at the Overlook hotel. Kubrick does the scene in three consecutive slow zoom shots, and it works great and looks by no means artificial.
These are zoom #1 and #2:

Zoom #3 goes from a Medium Shot to a very tight closeup of Crother's face when his expressions changes to shock (because of his vision). In three zooms Kubrick introduces the character at home, anticipates his later death by showing two altar-like picture compositions and focuses the attention on the vision when it starts. To me that's brilliant filmmaking.

Oh, and IIRC the first anmorphic zoom lens was not made by Panavision, but by a French company under the trade name "FranScope". Jan Jacobsen's UltraScope zoom was second, but it started with quite a long focal length (about 76mm, I think) while the FranScope began at 40mm wide angle. I will look it up these days.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 02-10-2004, 07:36 PM:

the ultrascope was the first with a rear element anamorphic element the french franscope was a front element design it was used under the name MegaScope I believe by Hammer for many of there films
I was told that Berthiot made the glass for it but that is all shrouded in lots of myths and mist

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 02-11-2004, 04:28 AM:

zooms have their place in film vocabulary. usually they signal a focussing of attention on part of the film frame. a dolly-in does this too, but also moves the p.o.v. closer to, or into the action. whether this additional effect is desired can determine which technique is appropriate. a focus pull can also direct attention, if the objects in the frame are at different depths. the iris-in was used a lot in silents but is pretty dead nowadays. babe is the last film i can think of that uses this, and it has a very retro feel. night of the hunter has a good one.

live television uses zooms for their convenience, and this association indirectly gives zooms a connotation of "live". it's part of their cultural baggage. maybe this is what miracle was going after. more likely, the director just wanted to literally imitate the look of the action as most people saw it at the time, on tv. or maybe he was lazy and didn't put a lot of effort into it. (i didn't see this film.)

but i have noticed that whenever i see depictions of football games on tv or in movies, where we are placed in the midst of the action, these scenes on one level just don't have the ring of truth to me, because that's not how i see it on tv.

carl

Posted by Liam Utley (Member # 1931) on 02-11-2004, 07:31 PM:

There was a very good use of zoom in "Wayne's World".

EXTREME CLOSE UP..... Whhhhhooooooooaaaa.....