The dolly shot was achieved with a special-built inverted rig hanging from an overhead rail. When production returned to Paramount Studios, an indoor set stood in for the Folies Bergère. The remarkable café shot involved a specially constructed camera mount that was attached to an overhead track. This created the illusion of the camera floating at table level. The vertical structure, which kind of looks like construction scaffolding, was supported by a rail that allowed the rig to move smoothly. A flat platform at the bottom of the structure supported the camera operator, E. Burton Steene, who lay on his stomach while he worked the Eyemo, a non-reflex, compact 35mm camera. The Eyemo was mounted on an extension below the boom. During each take, the camera would dolly-in from one end of the room to the other via the ceiling track. There was a plan to replicate the technique in a later scene with Rogers and Bow walking down a street. But Steene suffered a heart attack and the shot was ditched. If you watch carefully, you can clock the meticulous choreography of the extras. They appear to move closer to one another even when, in actuality, they are springing apart moments later to allow the camera to pass. In an unexpected twist, director William A. Wellman was not a fan of the "push" shot or its proliferation in other films. Wellman, as quoted in Kevin Brownlow The Parade's Gone By, puts it like this: "Camera movement I loved and then I got awfully sick of it. I did the first big boom shot in Wings when the camera moved across the tables in the big French café set. Then everybody got on a boom, and both me and Jack Ford got right off. We both agreed we'd never use the thing again. There's too much movement. It makes some people dizzy, it really does, and they become more conscious of the camera movement than they are of what the hell you're photographing I used to get some wonderful odd angles, but then everybody started odd angles shooting through people's navels."
Scritto da il
05-03-2025 alle ore 07:32