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What do you think of these lens zooms?
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I couldn’t find the “Wayne’s World” Clip with the “excessive zoom!!!” lower third in it. These had to serve.
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Okay thanks, I understand by what you mean about the zoom looking unnatural but is that bad? A lot of times it was being used to zoom slowly into faces to convey emotions well into the 80s, and people didn’t have a problem with it back then. Is it wrong to adapt an old style, if it worked for back then with people?
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These fine gentlemen are trying to tell you that zooms, especially snap zooms, are perceived as cheesy and amateurish. There’s no way to “adapt” that. It’s associated with westerns, 70’s action movies , and Hong Kong martial arts films–cheesy stuff.
If you’re making something that needs that cheesy feeling, then go wild. But if you want your film to feel serious, avoid it. You can’t make it look serious.
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But lots of movies still use the occasional snap zoom and are not trying to be cheesy though. Rise Of The Planet of the Apes had a snap zoom in the scene with the SWAT officers assembling on the bridge. And that wasn’t going for cheese, was it?
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You shouldn’t use a snap zoom, or any zoom. Instead, you should concentrate on filming your scenes on tripod and not have the camera wavering.
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Another example is Paul Greengrass who uses quick zooms all the time in his movies, and his movies are not considered to be going for cheese either.
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The lens zooms were done on a tripod.
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But they ARE considered among the worst action scenes in Hollywood. Nobody likes shaky-cam action scenes–don’t try to emulate Paul Greengrass. Ugh.
You might see an occasional snap zoom in a scene trying to create a documentary-style feeling, cinema verité, that sort of thing. But you’ll find it’s very sparing, and has to fit in to an overall hand-held aesthetic. The Battlestar Galactica 2004 reboot series was shot this way, with the occasional short-distance snap zoom, and pulled it off because they shot the whole series in a handheld style–it was carefully crafted that way.
Trust us. There are more important things to learn. 99% of the time, you’re better off not using them. Focus on getting everything else right before you try to stylize your cinematography, because even Paul Greengrass isn’t doing it very well.
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[ryan elder] “The lens zooms were done on a tripod.”
Your tests, yes, however in your work samples there are a lot of shots that are unacceptably shakey. It doesn’t matter if you do all the tests in the world on a tripod, when it comes to producing your content, you must take the time to do it right.
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Oh okay. I am not going for a hand held look like Paul Greengrass at all. I just used him as an example cause of the zooms.
But Rise of the Planet of the Apes used at least one snap zoom and was not a hand held style at all. I actually only wanted to use the snap zoom once, and that was it. Not in the video you saw, I was just practicing the zoom there.
I was going to use it to a quick shocking reveal during a suspense scene, where a character walks into a room, is stunned at what he sees, and then we snap zoom back to a quick reveal, so we get the feeling of speed on his reaction.
That was the only time I was going to use a snap zoom, so would be it bad, if I were to just use it that one time?
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