Notable Examples
The most notable uses of dolly zoom, as previously stated, are its presence in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and Steven Spielberg's Jaws.
Spielberg used the technique again in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Poltergeist, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The effect was also used in Michael Jackson's Thriller video, just as the zombies are gathering. It was originally used within the reimagined Battlestar Galactica to depict the feeling experienced by characters when the ship engages in faster-than-light travel. However, the technique was not used again until the fourth season.
A relatively slow and more subtle dolly zoom was also used in Martin Scorsese's 1990 film Goodfellas in the conversation scene between Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and James 'Jimmy' Conway (Robert De Niro) set in a diner, with a view of the street forming the background of the shot.
Mathieu Kassovitz's French film, La Haine, on the other hand, features an especially apparent 16 second dolly zoom.
The Lion King, an animated film, simulated a zoom shot in the scene where young Simba realizes the sound in the canyon is a wildebeest stampede. It is not a standard dolly zoom shot, as the "camera" zooms in on Simba, but the background does pull away dramatically, providing a similar effect.
In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the effect is used without a foreground subject. The purpose of the shot is to emphasize the sense of unreality and fear Frodo feels as the Nazgûl approach, on the road to Bree. The shot is used similarly, with no foreground subject, in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, as Frodo is about to enter the cave of Shelob.
Many of the car reviews on the BBC television program Top Gear use a dolly zoom shot of the front of the car at speed.
Read more about this topic: Dolly Zoom
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