Forced Perspective in Filmmaking
Examples of forced perspective:
- A scene in an action/adventure movie in which dinosaurs are threatening the heroes. By placing a miniature model of a dinosaur close to the camera, the dinosaur may look monstrously tall to the viewer, even though it is just closer to the camera.
Movies, especially B-movies in the 1950s and 1960s, were produced on limited budgets and often featured forced perspective shots.
Forced perspective can be made more believable when environmental conditions obscure the difference in perspective. For example, the final scene of the famous movie Casablanca takes place at an airport in the middle of a storm, although the entire scene was shot in a studio. This was accomplished by using a painted backdrop of an aircraft, which was "serviced" by dwarfs standing next to the backdrop. A downpour (created in-studio) draws much of the viewer's attention away from the backdrop and extras, making the simulated perspective less noticeable.
Read more about this topic: Forced Perspective
Famous quotes containing the words forced, perspective and/or filmmaking:
“The supreme, the merciless, the destroyer of opposition, the exalted King, the shepherd, the protector of the quarters of the world, the King the word of whose mouth destroys mountains and seas, who by his lordly attack has forced mighty and merciless Kings from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same to acknowledge one supremacy.”
—Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–59 B.C.)
“Egoism is the law of perspective as it applies to feelings, according to which what is closest to us appears to be large and weighty, while size and weight decrease with our distance from things.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless—and absolutely essential.”
—William Goldman (b. 1931)