Hitchcock Filming Techniques

Dolly zoom

 

 



The film effect used in Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958) is one that has many names, such as the dolly zoom, the Vertigo zoom and the Jaws zoom among others, as it is an effect that, although great when done correctly, is hard to do and also somewhat nauseating. The effect was first used in Vertigo to give audiences an insight into what James Stewart's character, John Ferguson, feels like upon reaching great heights and so we may feel just as ill. The effect has later been used in the likes of Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) and Goodfellas (Scorcese, 1990) to show the audience how the character is feeling, such as the use on Jaws shows that Brody's worst fears have dawned on him when a boy is attacked, and in Goodfellas when Henry Hill suddenly becomes worried that he may be known by the other gangsters that he's ratted people out to the police.





Rapid Cutting Rate

 

 

The use of rapid cutting within Psycho during the shower scene turned out to be one of the most memorable pieces of cinema history ever. Within the shower scene only two medium shots are used, at the beginning and at the end, and the rest of the shots are extreme close-ups (with 50 cuts in all). Many people believed this scene to be too violent when the film was first released, however it was pointed out to critics of the scene that at no point do we actually see the knife hit the flesh of Marion Crane, and it avoids the use of nudity. The effect works well because of this, as the montage from different angles gives the shot a more disturbing feel as we view the murder of someone from every different viewpoint possible.

 

Projected background

 

 

This effect is not one that was solely used by Hitchcock himself, but was used by most film studios of the time, such as MGM. However the use of a projected background is something that would have been used primarily for shots of characters in vehicles, as they did not have the technology or skill to the same shots on an actual road. Therefore the easiest thing to do was to take the footage of driving down a road, without any actors or vehicles, and then project this film onto a large screen with the actors now in front of the footage. Hitchcock then used this for the scene in which Arbogast is murdered by having a cinematographer film whilst walking down the stairs and then projecting this onto a screen, and having Martin Balsam sat in front of the screen, flailing his arms around whilst the camera also moved to make it look as if he were falling more violently.