Best (and longest) Vertigo-shot ever: Goodfellas by Michael Ballhaus (1990) HD

[@lucasbookfield4000]

I love how Scorsese conveys Jimmy's anxiety; it looks like their table gets smaller and more diagrammatic, while the background looms closer and becomes far more real! All of that energy from outdoors seems to compliment DeNiro's performance.

[@lucasbookfield4000]

We also lose the curtain on Jimmy's side which makes him look unframed and raw

[@crashstitches79]

incredibly subtle

[@jamesm2078]

I watched this clip in my Video Production class as an example of a Vertigo shot and it’s pretty creative in the sense that the world is closing in on these two characters in a dramatic moment.

[@t.j.corcoran]

This was so subtle I didn’t even notice it when watching the film for the first time

[@forma2k1]

it's done by simultaneously zooming in while dollying out...it's an technique that's been used for many many years by various cinematographers.

[@fSebastianRe]

Hitchcock started it with Vertigo!

[@thenewherooftime815]

Brilliant shot, and this is just par for the course for goodfellas. Insane

[@djangotrios8142]

It's dolly out with zoom in. Requires smooth dolly, cool optical zoom, proper lighting...A flaw at any of this , can prove disastrous..

[@winstonmarx763]

i think the dolly goes out and then in

[@guidoinsunglasses6385]

I think that this is only the third best dolly zoom... But I still absolutely love it!

[@clownpaint20]

i did this with a camera phone while zooming in on my brothers head,it didnt come out as good but it was still cool

[@EnzoGiannotti]

I think you can do it with a canon 70-200 L series, cause its a paraphocal lens (keep focus while zoom in or out)

[@Cuetips1000]

Always love to see those Hitchcock-Zooms and the mood the director wants to transmit with it. You can also find a very nice H.-zoom in Freeway, when Vanessa faces crippled Bob Wolverton in court. The realization of dolly zooms is complex (although nowadays exists special mechanical devices to coordinate zooming and dolly tracking) and you need much stretch of road (I bet Ballhaus needed more than 20 meters for his dolly track). I am wondering if you can realize the same effect with chroma keying/bluescreen or with old school rear projection? Or is the dolly zoom something you can't simulate in postproduction, something you have to do live hic et nunc?

[@frankentomato]

It's done by dollying forward and zooming out at roughly the same speed (or vice-versa), lens doesn't particularly matter, but it's tricky to pull off technically. Alfred Hitchcock and his DoP for Vertigo invented it.

[@EyeLean5280]

Also known as a "dolly zoom."

[@DyslexicGod]

I think Michael Ballhaus did it almost again in Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, can't remember which scene though.

[@rorschach2992]

They repeated this in Elementary (TV Series) Season 03 Episode 14 - The Female Of The Species. It's even longer.

[@Nateson]

Sick

[@michaelbroyles2601]

Hitchcock! Vertigo!

[@josueolivera4839]

pinpoint lock family case josue josue "quoting no more problems memory" 2011 now getting MADE

[@andreww5574]

The camera is moving back and zooming in right? hence the flattening of the background with the foreground?

[@JustinSuhr4]

Exactly, because telephoto focal lengths make background objects look large, as opposed to wide and ultra wide focal lengths make foreground objects look large while making background objects look miniscule

[@michaelbierman861]

I'm sure you can cheat and have the background stuff outside of the window be a green screen with the footage of someone zooming in slowly would play on. Then the only thing that is actually being shot is the zooming out in the restaurant.

[@richardfuller7435]

@@michaelbierman861 I bet that Scorcese shot that scene with dolly and zoom. for the technical kudos. But the interior lighting frames the interior lines so hard against the exterior that it might as well have been green screen. But if it hadda been green screen then I bet that the transitions would have been smoother, and it is the nervousness of the shot that I like, it is technical balls.

[@soldiersam7424]

It's called a dolly zoom.

[@edwardrodriguezphotographe2103]

Dolly out with Zoom in?

[@lonesoldier91]

+edwardrodriguezphotographer exactly

[@LazerballsVanir]

@Jose Salazar Spurgt

[@Procyon626]

camera phones only have digital zoom. you need to do it with optical zoom.

[@derDooFi]

No, it doesn’t matter… Zoom is just tightening the field of view, whether it’s optical or just cropping theoretially gives the same effect. You have to move the camera in real life though.

[@Neutrum_org]

you forgot the paralax movement from background and foreground. this is indeed an effect of the lens shifting, whereas a digital zoom is just a crop from a larger image.

[@klaine987]

You can do it with digital zoom also, the greater parallax effect comes actually from the movement of the camera. This is easy to demonstrate with most video editing software that supports key frames, scaling and transformation - you need a clip where the camera gets closer / farther from a subject in preferably a straight line. In a forward dolly shot, you would start with a crop of the image and widen it smoothly towards end of the shot where picture is shown 1:1.