Posted by mercury at 00-50-e4-45-ee-4e.bconnected.net on January 18, 2000 at 11:27:18:
In Reply to: A very general filmaking question... posted by Walt Flanagan's Dog on January 18, 2000 at 10:49:34:
This technique is achieved by pulling the zoom (usually a filmmaking no-no) while dollying forward or backward at the same time. This can achieve the effect of shifting smoothly from a telescopic lens to a wide angle lens while the subject remains the same size. With a wide angle lens, the background looks very far away, while a telescopic lens, the backgound and foreground look very flattened, or close together.
Example
Start out with the camera far away from the subject, while zoomed in very close. As you dolly (move) towards the subject, pull the zoom back until you've reached full wide angle, and the camera is as physically close to the subject as you want. If you work it right, the subject should stay generally the same size, but the subject and background seem to warp, giving the impression of something important happening.
You can use similar techniques to zoom out and dolly out, exaggerating the pull back effect, and vice-versa. This is a great way to work with a short piece of dolly track. If you dolly while zooming, it tends to hide the zoom. Pure zooming is a no-no because its a very unnatural technique; it pulls the subject towards the viewer - in real life, the viewer moves towards objects.
Colby