The Dolly Zoom in "Ratatouille"

The subtle dolly zoom in "Ratatouille". Scroll down for a large, annotated film clip.

Vashi Nedomansky has edited a brilliant 8 1/2 minute montage called "Evolution of the Dolly Zoom", which is a big hit on the internets. Thankfully, Nedomansky did not feel the need to add every single dolly zoom used in the history of cinema, especially since the 1990's the trick shot technique has long since turned into a visual cliche -- a crutch to crudely jackhammer an emotional reaction from the audience. Nedomansky's montage flows extremely well, especially with his soundtrack choice: Bernard Herrmann's haunting music from "Vertigo".

My first exposure to the dolly zoom was Steven Spielberg's "Jaws". I nearly burned out my VHS copy of the film, rewinding its dolly zoom shot over and over again to study the effect. Many years later I saw Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo", which many regard as the origin of the technique in popular cinema.

To sum up the effect of a dolly zoom: the camera moves closer to a subject while at the same time zooming out its field of view. The effect could also be achieved in reverse: the camera dollies away from the subject while zooming in its field of view. The effect is jarring - the world seems to become a foldable accordion; we rarely see these two processes happening at the same time in cinema. One can dive deeper into the mechanics of the dolly zoom here.

The camera move is most often used by directors who want to visually punctuate a dramatic emotional turn; a character's world is being turned upside down, and their relationship with the world has dramatically changed in a single moment. In "Jaws", Spielberg used it at the precise moment Chief Brody's deepest fears came true, as he witnesses a brutal shark attack at the beach. (For "Jaws", Spielberg began the shot with a long lens and the camera far away, then dollied close to Roy Scheider while zooming out.) In "Quiz Show" director Robert Redford applies the technique as Charles Van Doren takes his first step into a world of deceit and fraud inside the game show booth, betraying his values by cheating on a television game show.

In contrast, in"Goodfellas" Martin Scorsese uses the technique to illustrate Henry Hill's increasing pressure and paranoia.. Hill meets with Jimmy Conway, but is fearful that Conway is setting him up for a fall. As they sit down at a restaurant for their discussion, tension fills the screen as the background dramatically increases in size while Conway and Hill remain consistent, visually mirroring the intense, increasing stress these characters are under. (For "Goodfellas", Scorsese does the opposite of Spielberg's "Jaws" example: he begins the shot with the camera close to the actors, slowly dollies backwards while zooming in during the move, collapsing visual depth during the shot.)

Evolution of the Dolly Zoom by Vashi Nedomansky
And, most dramatically, its use in Tobe Hooper's "Poltergeist" is terrifying. Simulating the awful dream-like feeling of running without getting anywhere, with your goal receding into the distance, Hooper (and Spielberg) designed a shot where Diane Freeling, desperately running down a hallway to rescue her children from ghosts, sees her children's bedroom drift into the distance, putting them out of reach. It's a truly nightmarish sequence, visually portraying a loss of control.

In his video edit, Nedomansky also smartly includes context for these dolly zoom moments, rather than simply creating a supercut of dolly zooms cut together. This way, students of film can catch a glimpse of the surrounding shots, giving a bit of context as to how and why the dolly zoom was used by the filmmaker.

However, not included in Nedomansky's cut is the subtle dolly zoom in Brad Bird's "Ratatouille", one of my favorite uses of the technique in the last decade.

Why do I find this use of the dolly zoom in "Ratatouille" so brilliant?  For one, most audiences did not even consciously realize the effect was occurring because a critical piece of the emotional core of the film was being delivered to the audience. In the shot, the camera is focused on the television in the background, giving the audience important information about Remy's culinary hero, Chef Gusteau. The chef gives our hero an inspirational speech across space and time (through the television), and reminds Remy of the all-important notion that "Anyone can cook, but only the fearless can be great." The shot begins with a conventional move; the camera dollies towards Remy, with the television in focus. In the middle of the shot, the camera slows to a stop, and begins to dolly backward just as a zoom-in begins. Remy remains the same size in screen space, but the television screen blows up dramatically. A lovely feature of this effect is not only the collapsing depth (which focuses our attention), but also the ever decreasing depth of field. Remy becomes more out of focus as the shot progresses (since the focal length is getting larger), which is exactly what would happen with real-life camera systems.

(I've written about "Ratatouille" and its thoughtful camera work before; if you're interested, click here and scroll down for other "Ratatouille" articles.)

Director Bird could have simply dollied in toward the television as Gusteau gives his speech, but he chose to execute a dolly zoom. The scene lays groundwork for the emotional themes of the film. The dolly zoom underscores this important, emotional moment.

The dolly zoom from "Ratatouille" in context with annotations, by Todd Vaziri. Direct YouTube link.

The effect is used in "Ratatouille" with confidence and elegant subtlety; like previously stated, most viewers do not even realize the perspective is flattening out*, which is antithetical to the modern, in-your-face cliche use of the dolly zoom. The technique is generally used as punctuation (usually an exclamation point), screaming "The characters are going through something significant RIGHT NOW!" In this scene from "Ratatouille", the dolly zoom is simply part of the mise-en-scène  and not the focus of the shot. Like the editing, costumes, and the lighting, the dolly zoom is not meant to be seen, but felt.

Although the effect has been done in animated projects before, it is extremely rare to see the technique outside of live-action. Pulling off a flawless dolly zoom in live-action takes repeated rehearsals and intense, precision choreography between the camera operator, camera assistant, grips and actors.  The zoom and dolly need to ramp in and out of their curves with grace, and requires the crew to execute the move with nearly a hive-mind. (Just look at all those dolly zooms in Sam Raimi's "The Quick and The Dead" in Nedomansky's supercut. For the most part, the initial starts and ultimate ends of the moves are left on the cutting room floor, but the shots add an additional variable - the animated dutch angle, where the camera rolls during the dolly zoom. Just the thought of the intense choreography that was required to pull off those complicated moves makes my head spin.)

In computer animation, the intense precision required to pull off a flawless dolly zoom in live-action is greatly simplified with curve editors plotted on a computer screen. In the digital realm, where pretty much any camera move is possible, the filmmaker is allowed to express himself with precision nearly impossible within the confines of the real world.

The bonus, super-quick dolly zoom from Ego's bite of Remy's food. For the animated GIF above, I've edited out the flashback, retaining only the start and end of the flashback, which reveals the extremely subtle dolly zoom effect.  As a bonus, notice how the lighting on Ego's face is neutral/cool before the flashback, but after the flashback he's bathed in a warmer light on his face, visually underlining his new, warmer perspective.

In fact, Bird sneaked an additional dolly zoom into "Ratatouille", albeit a brief one. In the film's single most dramatic and memorable shot, Anton Ego's first taste of Remy's ratatouille dish throws him into a childhood flashback. The first frames of that flashback, depicted as an extremely fast whoosh with the camera traveling backwards in space (and time), settling on a young Anton Ego at his childhood doorstep, begins with a smash dolly backwards that actually ends up moving through young Ego's pupil and settling on the final composition. The flashback whooshes away, revealing the present, and the camera inverts the action with the reverse of the initial dolly zoom. The effect is disorienting and barely visible, introducing this radical and unexpected flashback, and ultimately enhances the emotional impact of the brilliant shot.

*Before publishing this article, a Google search for "dolly zoom Ratatouille" came up with zero results discussing the Gusteau dolly zoom, which I found quite remarkable.

"Ratatouille" and Visually Connecting Sequences

Movies aren't just a collection of scenes. Just as a song needs to gracefully transition from verse to chorus, a traditional Hollywood film needs to gracefully move from scene to scene. Unless it is the filmmakers' intention to create a jarring, disorienting cut from one sequence to the next (perhaps, mirroring a character's confusion within a story, like Leonard's journey in "Memento"), an audience is more likely to enjoy the ride if these transitions feel seamless and emotionally honest.

Usually, the brunt of this job is handled by creative uses of sound mixing and music, which can emotionally tie scenes together into a cohesive experience. A diegetic sound effect from one scene, such as a background fog horn or the sound of the wind, can be subtly and subliminally carried over into the next scene, which could take place in a completely different setting. Also, non-diegetic sound elements, like the orchestral score, can bleed over from one sequence to the next, editorially and emotionally tying together two very different sequences, ensuring that the audience continues their journey with the filmmakers.

One visual way to help bridge the gap from one sequence to another is to extend the logical path of a camera move from the last shot of a sequence into the first shot of the subsequent sequence. Let's look at these two scenes from Brad Bird's "Ratatouille."

"Ratatouille" Rotation by Todd Vaziri on Vimeo

Did you see it? It's almost subliminal. Watch it again. The last, craning shot of Colette and Linguini kissing has the camera rotating counter-clockwise, which blends brilliantly with a shot inside Anton Ego's cold, stark office; the first shot of the next scene has just a taste of the exact same camera rotation, but rapidly decelerating to a level horizon (while continuing to travel backwards). We move from one scene (our dopey hero getting a big romantic kiss) to a completely different scene (the cold, dark, bitter office of Anton Ego) with a clever visual continuation of a camera move, not to mention the beautiful transition from one musical theme to another by composer Michael Giacchino.

The counter-clockwise rotation of the camera that began in the courtyard sequence continues through the cut, settling on the portrait of Ego inside his office, leveling off and settling to a zero angle dutch mere moments after cutting into the scene.

This kind of physical choreography would have required a staggering amount of preplanning and careful execution, had "Ratatouille" been conceived as a live-action film. Not only would each camera move have required extensive previsualization (answering questions like, Can we fit a crane into that location? Do we have enough room to swing the camera that far in the interior location? How will we be able to match the rate of rotation on each end of the cut? etc.), but it also backs the live-action filmmaker into an editorial corner. This type of transition, which would require significant resources to pull off, locks the editor into this narrative decision: these two scenes 100% positively, absolutely need to live side by side, or else the production would have wasted valuable resources creating the shots to achieve this effect. And, when editing a film, especially a blockbuster-type Hollywood movie with lots of locations and lots of characters, one needs to have the editorial freedom to move entire sequences around.

But in the animated world, the continuation of a camera move from the last shot of a scene into the first shot of the next scene, is a relatively trivial matter. Even after the major editorial decisions have been made, and animation finalled, it is the simple, imminently doable task of creating new camera moves by the layout department to blend these two very disparate scenes together.

This example illustrates some of the fundamental shot design and editorial differences between live-action and animation. With the exception of expensive reshoots, the live-action filmmaker is required to pre-plan his long-term editorial choices, should his or her choices be anything more sophisticated than a cut, while the animation director retains a certain amount of freedom to make these kinds of decisions well into post-production.

Playing With Expectations

I love filmmakers who don't feel the need to sink their film to the lowest common denominator; filmmakers who, even within the context of a blockbuster-type film, give their audience a bit of credit for their intelligence. These writers and directors accept the fact that they are working within a framework of expectations - not simply the expectations of the traditional Hollywood narrative structure, but genre-specific elements for which audiences have become accustomed.

Of particular interest to me are little phrases and lines that you fully expect to hear coming from characters' mouths that don't happen onscreen. The filmmaker knows you're expecting it, and takes that expectation and turns it into something more interesting.

What am I talking about? Here are three basic examples.

The first is from the prologue of "Casino Royale," Martin Campbell's brilliant 2006 reboot of the James Bond franchise.


Let's exclusively examine the dialogue for a moment.

Dryden: If M was so sure I was bent, she'd have sent a double-oh. Benefits of being section chief. I'd know if anyone had been promoted to double-oh status, wouldn't I? Your file shows no kills, and it takes...
James Bond: Two. [cuts to Bond fighting Dryden's contact]
Dryden: Shame. We barely got to know each other. [Dryden pulls the trigger, but no bullet is fired]
Bond: I know where you keep your gun. I suppose that's something.
Dryden: True. How did he die?
James Bond: Your contact? Not well.
Dryden: Made you feel it, did he? Well, you needn't worry. The second is... [Bond shoots Dryden]
James Bond: Yes... considerably.

Firstly, admire the incredible efficiency of this dialogue. There are so few words, and yet a complicated story is being told on several levels, and nearly every line advances the story and gives us new information about these characters. Both characters understand what's going on-- these fellas are smart. Director Campbell and writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis are assuming that the audience is smart enough to realize that these characters are smart. They both know what each other is scheming. Bond is finishing Dryden's sentences. Dryden realizes Bond is there to kill him. Bond knows that Dryden knows that Bond is there to kill him (why else would he have surreptitiously disarmed Dryden?).

After Dryden shows some compassion for Bond ("Made you feel it, did he?"), he gives cold comfort to Bond, intending to tell him that his second kill would be easier. But Bond, just as he finished Dryden's sentence for him earlier, cuts him off with a bullet. The audience didn't need to hear Dryden say the full line: "The second is easier." Bond didn't need to hear it, either. We all knew it was coming. And the authors of the film gave us enough credit, rewarding us for actually paying attention to the dialogue (with a suprising, intense and explosive reaction from Bond, cutting off Dryden's dialogue, and shooting him dead), and not giving us a cliched, cheesy, needlessly excessive line of dialogue. For this kind of sly writing to appear in a Bond film, a film series that virtually pioneered the 'talking villain' cliche, this is especially refreshing. (For a description of Roger Ebert's 'The Fallacy of the Talking Killer," read his review of "Licence to Kill.") On another level, by literally cutting off the villain's cliched line, the filmmakers are slyly telling us that this is not your ordinary James Bond film, that they will be literally cutting off the obvious cliches of the genre.

The audience is further rewarded with Bond's post-shooting response of, simply, "Yes. Considerably." How easy could it have been for Bond to respond with "... easier? Yes. It is considerably easier." In this elegant and efficient way, we see Bond emerging as a double-oh, evolving from an inexperienced agent who actually felt some emotion during his first kill to a cold-blooded, emotionless weapon. All within just a few minutes of screen time, and with only a few lines of dialogue.

As an aside, notice the ultra-fast flash frames and whip pan that occurs as Bond ultimately shoots Dryden. A few frames of a family photo on Dryden's desk appear for a split second, almost subconsciously giving the audience a sense of Dryden's humanity, just as he's being shot dead. Once again, this is a remarkable feat for a Bond film; most Bond films are quick to paint their villains as one-note, two-dimensional cutouts.

Another example comes from J.J. Abrams' "Mission: Impossible III," also from 2006. Please note: the clip and discussion below contain spoilers for the film. Skip to the "Ratatouille" section if you haven't yet seen "MI3."


Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), just as we saw in the amazing and disorientating prologue to the film, has a gun to Julia's head (Michelle Monaghan). Agent Hunt (Tom Cruise) is doing all he can to convince Davian not to pull the trigger, while tied to a chair across from them. At a certain point, he realizes that Davian cannot be won over. Hunt's tone immediately changes from frenetic and panicked into an almost calm, solemness, as if he is resigned that her fate has already been sealed. "No," he whispers. "No." Davian finishes his countdown, "Ten," and pulls the trigger.

The look of resignation and Hunt's sad, whispered "No," speaks volumes. We get to feel the complex emotions going on inside Hunt, where all optimism is lost, and, even before the shot is fired, Hunt is already mourning the loss of his wife. Not only is this a good example of intelligent writing, but also of an extraordinarily nuanced performance by Cruise.

The camera lingers on Hunt's face of disbelief after Davian pulls the trigger. He's thinking, 'why is this happening? I just retrieved the Rabbit's Foot for Davian... why was he asking me where it is?' But without a word, he simply stares off. Behind him, Davian retreats to another room, talking with a mysterious person. The camera remains on Hunt, but we see the men in the background and we hear whispers. The mystery man enters the room. We cut to Hunt's near-POV, a closeup of his dead 'wife.' Then, Agent Musgrave (Billy Crudup) interrupts his gaze - for a moment, he's out of focus (since we were focused on Hunt's wife), but he slowly becomes sharp, and we realize that Musgrave has been working with Davian the whole time. He stares at us, we're staring at him... Hunt says nothing, but we're all thinking, "How could this be? How could this be?!"

Answering an unasked question, Musgrave finally says, "It's complicated."

We really didn't need to hear Hunt ask, "Why?" or "How?" It was implied, and instead of a completely predictable dialog between characters, we get the almost jolting answer to a question we were all thinking.

And, if the reader may indulge me, watch how carefully this scene is crafted. Director Abrams doesn't just cut to Musgrave sitting down, quickly rack focusing on him, and have him say his line. This is a big moment in the movie, and the timing needs to be just right to convey the magnitude of this moment-- the reveal of the big betrayal.

For one, offscreen, Musgrave throws a chair down, then calmly sits, blocking our view. For several beats, he's out of focus, visually mimicking Hunt's disorientation. Slowly we come to realize that it's Musgrave, and slowly he becomes in focus. Allowing this moment to soak in, another few beats pass before he says his line. This is about drawing out the suspense, putting the audience in Hunt's shoes. ("MI3" is, essentially, a film that follows Hunt's point-of-view for the duration of the entire film. I'll hopefully be writing about POV films at a future time.)

But the nice touch that I most appreciate about this scene is in regards to the camera movement. Just after Davian fires, we have a wide two-shot of Hunt and his wife, where the camera is to Hunt's left. We cut to an extreme closeup of Hunt's bewildered face, while the camera slowly dollys right to left, including a moment where Hunt's wife's head blocks the entire view of the camera. We continue dollying to reveal the men behind Hunt. As the camera settles, we realize that Hunt's view of the world is changing, and his disorientation and befuddlement is going to take another hit, when Musgrave is revealed to be a traitor. The rest of the scene between Hunt and Musgrave occurs with a shot-reverse-shot sequence with the camera stationed on Hunt's right side.

What happened here? The camera crossed the 180 degree line. To establish a sense of orientation and understanding of a scene, particularly a scene with two characters talking to each other, the camera needs to stay on one side of the imaginary line that is created between the two characters. The camera, even within shot-reverse-shot sequences, needs to stay consistently on a single side, so that the scene is grounded for the viewer. The result: the audience is constantly oriented and understands the action.

If the camera moves to the other side of that line, especially in a cut, the audience is immediately disoriented. "Our hero has just spent the entire scene talking to a character to the left... and now our hero is on the right? Wait, what happened?" This can be used for dramatic effect (for example, Ang Lee's "Hulk" used this device often, frequently cutting to cameras on either side of the 180 degree line, to create a constant sense of uneasiness), but in traditional Hollywood narrative filmmaking, this practice is frowned upon.

However, if you literally show the camera breaking the line in an uninterrupted shot, you can set up a new orientation of the scene properly. Plus, emotionally, the break of the line causes the viewer to realize that something is changing, something is different, something is disorienting, which is exactly the kind of emotion director Abrams was trying to evoke for this scene in "MI3." In our case, the camera slowly dollys across the 180 degree line in an uninterrupted shot, subtly giving the audience an extra, almost subconscious level of disorientation.

Here is a good illustration of the 180 degree rule, in a YouTube video created by Moviemaking Techniques:


And here's another YouTube video, explaining the same concepts in a different way.

Let's get back to writing. Here's a clip from Brad Bird's "Ratatouille," and look for two things: a moment where the camera answers a question that a character asks, and a moment where a character doesn't get to finish his thought.


Emile doesn't need to complete his entire thought - long before the lightning struck, we knew what he was going to say. But the gag comes from the fact that the setup is really subtle. Remy is obsessing about cooking his cheese and mushroom, while Emile looks around nervously. In the deep background, we barely see flashes of lightning, with some eventual soft thunder behind it. The joke is that the storm arrived at their location so quickly, Emile couldn't even finish his thought. It's a quick, basic physical gag of the movie, and screenwriter/director Brad Bird takes what he can get out of it, then quickly moves on.

Imagine how, say, the lazy screenwriters of any Dreamworks animated film would have staged this type of scene. First a wide shot of the deliberately approaching storm. Then, some pop-culture-laced riffs between two animated characters who look exactly like their celebrity voice counterparts. One of them says, "Hey, maybe we should get off this roof, dawg! Let's go shopping at Old Wavy while sipping a Coral Cola! " And then ZAP! they get struck by lightning, and 'hilarity' ensues.

The "Casino Royale," "MI3" and "Ratatouille" clips are examples of intelligent screenwriters playing with the expectations of a clever audience. Of course, this technique of toying with cliches and turning them into something more interesting only works in the hands of truly innovative filmmakers. Here's an example of the technique falling flat, from Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns."


Yeah... it doesn't really work here. In a film filled with land mines, this is a small firecracker. The entire film is so hopelessly lost and devoid of purpose or heart, and this scene is illustrative of that fact. The ploy of illustrating Luthor's expectation of Lane's line "Superman will never let you get away with this!" is overplayed, and hammed up to such an extent that its power is lost.

Are there any other cinematic examples of this phenomenon that you can think of? Where filmmakers assume the audience knows a line or cliche that is coming, and then they turn that cliche on its head and deliver something more interesting?

The Teaser to "Wall•E"

My wife's new movie now has a teaser. And you should check it out.

It's called "Wall•E," directed by Andrew Stanton ("Finding Nemo"), and it will be in theaters in the summer of 2008. This teaser will also be shown in theaters attached to "Ratatouille," which comes out June 29.

• Watch the teaser to "Wall•E" in High Definition
  

"Ratatouille" and Moving the Camera

updated: article now includes a YouTube clip, clearly marking "Shot A" and "Shot B." -tv
I'm a real stickler for camera movement. I want the movement of the camera to feel logical, and be motivated by the context of the shot. I strongly believe that executing ridiculous, over-the-top, flashy camera moves without motivation is one way to quickly turn off an audience.

This is why I call Brad Bird a genius with the camera.

I had the distinct honor of seeing "Ratatouille" last weekend, and the delightful film is another example of Brad Bird's genius with action choreography. Just as he did for the animated films "The Iron Giant" and "The Incredibles," Bird once again treats us to a beautiful animated world whose camera movement is wholly organic and never flashy.

This is just a preview of a much larger article, soon to appear on FXRant; I wanted to write that larger article first, but after seeing "Ratatouille," I became so excited about this topic that I had to just get some ideas out on digital paper, so bear with me.

I despise unmotivated, out-of-context camera moves; camera moves that are, in and of themselves, all flash and no substance. The camera moves of "Spider-Man" and its two sequels, Stephen Sommers' "Van Helsing," and just about any Dreamworks animated film all fail a basic rule of camera movement: never let your camera move be more flamboyant than your content. If you're using the camera for flash, then you're using the immense power of the camera move as a creative crutch, and not as a way of truly illustrating the action. (That was much harder to summarize than you can possibly imagine. Like I said, a larger article is forthcoming... sit tight.)

Bird's "Ratatouille" follows the adventures of Remy, a Parisian rat who wants to be a gourmet chef. The very nature of Remy gives the camera an opportunity to follow him through places that only a mouse could go.
There are some elaborate sequences in "Ratatouille" which are exhilarating and exciting, partially due to the exquisite and precise use of camera movement and editing. Watch this nine minute nine minute sequence from the film and come back.
Notice how the camera moves seem effortless. They're not specifically flashy-- but, logically, they're defying the laws of physics. The action moves seamlessly from one area to the next, and the edits are absolutely precise and, most importantly, invisible. One of the most important tenants of classic Hollywood narrative filmmaking is the necessity for editing and camera movement to be as invisible as possible; they need to be seamless and wholly appropriate for the type of film you're making. These action-filled scenes from "Ratatouille" (with a wonderful score by Michael Giacchino) illustrate this concept perfectly.

Watch the scene again, starting at 2:20, where Remy climbs out of the kitchen sink. Notice how the aggregate of all of those shots gives us a very clear indication of the geography of the scene, the relative scale of our hero with his world, and the danger involved. The audience is completely rooting for our hero; although it is a chaotic scene, the action is very clear and the audience is right along with Remy, instead of fighting to keep up. When necessary to set up important spatial relationships, Bird makes sure to not break the 180 degree line of action. When chaos and action are not dependent on spatial relationships, he ignores it with abandon.

Then, watch this clever little bit of filmmaking, starting at 3:02 of the Quicktime movie. Or just view this YouTube video below:



We'll call this Shot A. Remy enters the right side of the frame, revealing Linguini (the human) on the left side of frame. Wishing not to get caught, Remy hides behind a jar...
...the camera dollies to the right, and as Remy darts forward, the camera actually follows him forward.
After only a few steps, we cut to Shot B (below), with Remy appearing from behind the jars, moving right to left, entering frame. The camera is dollying right to left as we cut into the shot.
What just happened there? Why, in Shot A, did we actually follow Remy for a beat before cutting to Shot B? If this is an animated feature, why would that action be initiated, only to cut out of it? Doesn't that seem like a wasted effort? Here's why that little extra camera move exists: it perceptually helps bridge the gap between the shots, because our eyes and minds are led forward beyond the cut. Shot A initiates the action (the movement forward) and Shot B continues that action (Remy entering frame, while dollying right to left).

Bird, editor Darren Holmes, and director of photography (layout) Robert Anderson 'covered' the scene like a live-action film, expertly creating blends between shots that soften the transition from one shot to the next, even when it means creating a seemingly needless camera move (at the tail of Shot A). This is obviously a complicated process, and one that needs to be carefully constructed in the layout and previsualization process.

The more complicated and frenetic your camera moves are, the more you need to pay attention to the movement of the camera and the hookups between shots. Otherwise, you risk losing your audience and alienating them at a time you should be exhilarating them. That's why audiences are mesmerized and entranced by complicated action films like "The Incredibles," "Terminator 2," and are regularly turned off by action films by Michael Bay and Stephen Sommers.

Look forward to a much larger article on camera movement, especially within the context of films like the "Spider-Man" series, Michael Bay, "Children of Men," "The Incredibles," "Van Helsing," and "Terminator 2."

• Nine minute preview to Disney/Pixar's "Ratatouille"
• Nine minute preview to Disney/Pixar's "Ratatouille" alternative site
  

Wonder Takes Time

A nice little New York Times article about marketing an original summer movie amidst a sea of sequels.

“Wonder takes time,” said Brad Bird, the movie's director. “You don’t rush wonder. You have to coax the audience toward you a little bit.”

For a summer whose blockbuster films include:

• Spider-Man 3 (sequel)
  
• Pirates 3 (sequel)
• Shrek 3 (sequel)
• Die Hard 4 (sequel)
• Harry Potter 5 (sequel)
• 28 Weeks Later (sequel)
• Fantastic Four 2 (sequel)
• Rush Hour 3 (sequel)
• Ocean's Thirteen (sequel)
• Evan Almighty (sequel)
• Hostel 2 (sequel)
• Transformers (based on toy/tv show)
• The Simpsons Movie (based on tv show)
• Halloween (remake)

... releasing an original movie like "Ratatouille" seems positively quaint. Article includes a blurb from Bob Gale, co-writer of one of the most original blockbusters of the last 30 years, "Back To The Future."

“It’s tragic,” the screenwriter Bob Gale said of what he sees as Hollywood’s lost inventiveness.

article:
It’s Not a Sequel, but It Might Seem Like One After the Ads
By Michael Cieply, The New York Times