Dy-no-mite!

I’ve always been much more of a TV person than a movie buff, so there are tons of movies that my friends are shocked to hear that I haven’t seen. This week, I crossed one of those movies off my list by watching Scott Sanders’s 2009 film Black Dynamite.

Black Dynamite is an action/blaxploitation film set in the 1970’s. It follows former CIA agent Black Dynamite, played by Michael Jai White, as he works to clean the streets from drugs and gangs after his brother is killed on the streets. Full of spoof-like camera movements and actor blocking, Black Dynamite delivers just as much comedy as action. From the nunchuck wearing, afro sporting, kung fu fighting CIA agent to one of the most absurd logical deductions probably ever made, Black Dynamite was an entertaining watch all the way through.

Through watching Black Dynamite, I gained some insight on ways to use camera movements to induce laughter. There are many times throughout the film that multiple consecutive dramatic zooms caused me to laugh while the character on screen did nothing but stare into the camera. I personally usually try to avoid zooming during a shot; i generally set the zoom beforehand and will just scale the shot in post to assure a consistent zoom speed. However, since this does cause a reduction in image quality, I generally just try to dolly instead of zooming when I am shoots. This movie showed me how planning out camera movements beforehand can add bits of comedy to scenes that may otherwise be dull at times. Between the entertaining 90 minutes of watching, and the insight on spoof-like zooms, Black Dynamite was definitely a good choice for a boring Monday night.

The Dolly Zoom

While watching Season 1 Episode 3 of The Wire this week, I noticed a camera movement that made me feel slightly uneasy. The scene shows a group of drug dealers sitting around in the projects, and one of them is telling a story.

In order to capture the perspective of each person listening to the story, the camera was trucked right while panning left to make the audience feel like they are rotating around the scene’s main character. However, as the story progressed and the situation he was describing got worse, a slow dolly zoom was introduced. This camera movement stood out to me for two reasons: first, it stood out to me because I can appreciate how difficult it must have been to accomplish this. Trucking right and panning left while dollying out and zooming in is not something that just anyone can pick up a camera and do. I was really impressed with the shot and the work of cinematographer Uta Briesewitz. As impressive as the shot was though, I felt it stood out to me because it wasn’t really necessary. The dolly zoom is a very dramatic effect, and can be great for communicating disorder or chaos when used correctly. But while simply telling a story like this scene in The Wire, it struck me as odd and out of place.

With my interests regarding dolly zooms piqued, I took to the internet to find more examples of times that dolly zooms were used effectively. I ended up finding this video on Vimeo that takes a look at the history of dolly zooms in movies, starting with Vertigo in 1958 and continuing to a couple films from 2005. Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo was one of the first times, if not the first time, that a dolly zoom was used in a widely popular movie. Because of this, the combination of dollying in/out and zooming the opposite way was was given the nickname “The Vertigo Effect”. The dolly zoom’s second most famous appearance come in 1975 with Jaws, giving it another nickname: “The Jaws Effect”.

After seeing all these cool examples of dolly zooms, I decided to take out my camera and try it for myself. Seven takes later, I came to a conclusion: a dolly zoom is tough to pull off (without tracks to smoothly dolly on). And although it might not have fit very well in the scene I first saw it in on The Wire, it made me appreciate the experimental camera work that past cinematographers have done to get the dolly zoom to where it is today.

Journeys Below the Line

In the last cinema production classes we had, we took a look at Journeys Below the Line. After seeing this my eyes were opened to the whole other world behind the camera. Growing up I always liked to watch the special features for every movie I watched because it helped give me insight on what it took to make that film. Although I knew the positions that work behind the camera, I never really understood what it really took to make it all work. Sure I knew the positions and their general jobs, but what did it take to accomplish all of that? What fine little details helped make the movie come alive? 

When we watched the Journeys Below the Line my eyes were wide open. We saw two episodes that focused on camera men, their assistants, director of photography, as well as prop master, and their assistants. With the camera men, I originally never thought you needed more than one or two. And not that I was writing that job off as easy, I just never saw myself doing something like that. I wanted to do the more big title jobs such as direct, or produce. And when we focused on the props master, I did not realize how much detail goes into it. When watching a film or television series, all the little objects in the background, the objects we see everyday, they were put there for a reason. And I did not pay attention to it as much as I should have. I just thought well yeah if that's what a hospital looks like, all the equipment is there, they probably shoot in a real hospital. But after seeing how the props master had professional medical help on set to help teach everyone about diseases, and all the machines that are actually used in real life, I was amazed. The amount of precision that went into building a set based merely off of props alone was very impressive. 

Many times people associate all the hard work that goes into making a successful movie with the director or producer, and of course the actors. And not that these jobs do not help at all, because they do help a lot, but all the small jobs that you see at the credits at the end of the movie, they really help impact the movie as well. And not everyone, but most people including myself are very quick to write off these jobs. After seeing these episodes I have definitely thought about working one of these behind the scenes jobs. They are so fascinating because they are what bring the movie to life, they give a home to the characters and give personality traits to each character. And now when I go to look for jobs, I'm going to be more open to fufilling any position needed. Even if the position is not my top choice.

Early uses of Steadicam

Steadicam shots are used in several major motion pictures today, as several of these directors and cinematographers are reaching for the limitless possibilities of camera movement. Essentially, the steadicam stabilizes the camera from jitter due to the camera operator, giving a smoother image. Its use goes back to 1975 when it was first implemented in the film "Bound for Glory," shot by Haskell Wexler, which can be seen in this shot here:

Of coarse the running sequence from "Rocky" is another early use of the steadicam that was shot only one year later. Garrett Brown, the original inventor of the steadicam, was the operator for each of these notable sequences. Then in 1980, the invention was pushed even further when Stanley Kubrick and cinematographer John Alcott asked for the camera to be lower to the ground, for certain famous sequences in his film "The Shining".