Is CONTACT a great movie?

Cafe Society
61

I’m not sure if this is right but, I think what they did is something like this:

(1) Film the whole scene of her running as viewed from in front of her.

(2) Cover a medicine cabinet mirror with a blue screen, so that they can digitally make the footage of her running appear on the face of the mirror.

(3) Film the blue screened medicine cabinet, initially zoomed in so you just see the mirror (with the scene digitally added to play within it), then at the right moment zoom out to see the frame around the mirror as well as the mirror, and film her (from behind) opening the cabinet door. All the while, the digitally added “front view” continues to play on the mirror’s surface.

62

I found this at Society of Camera Operators (OC is the interviewer and KR is Ken Ralston, who at the time was senior visual effects supervisor for the film):

OC: There’s One shot in Contact that a lot of people are discussing. On American Online’s Cinematography Board, everyone was talking about the shot where the young girl runs up the stairs. She turns a corner, goes into a bathroom and when she reaches for a mirrored medicine cabinet, you realize that you’ve been watching this whole scene take place as a reflection in the cabinet’s mirror. There’s a lot of speculation on how that was done. I assume there was a blue screen process there, but since you’re the horse’s mouth, it would be fun to hear how that shot was done.

KR: There’re a lot of other things I am that’s on a horse. But really, the toughest thing about that shot originally was when Bob Zemeckis first threw it at me, it was just trying to get it in my head, exactly what it was I was seeing and try to imagine it and then start to break it down into sections. First of all, I try to approach every thing with “What’s the simplest possible way to shoot the raw material I need to make this work later so it takes less time on the set?” So I knew I had to get this running shot of her starting on the first floor. She gets up and runs up the stairs. We’re following her with the Steadicam and we also have Bob, who can’t pile enough things into a shot. He also has the speed control unit hooked up to the Steadicam, so while she’s running, suddenly it ramps up so she’s in slow motion. She runs up, she has to open the cabinet and you realize that you are seeing her reflection- you have been traveling through this reflection throughout the whole shot.

The first thing we shot was her running because that would give me the key to what I had to do for the over the shoulder shot of her. So we spent a good part of the day with Greg Lundsgaard, (SOC), the Steadicam operator. He had quite a work out, he was basically running backwards up a bunch of stairs with this thing, trying to keep her in frame. The guys were doing the speed control shift at a very specific spot, and Bob knows exactly the second where he wants that to happen. She ran up towards us, and I knew I wanted to shoot her a little wide towards the end of the shot because I could move in a little on her to re position her later. So she reached her hand up and pantomimed, grabbing at a point in space I gave her (the knob on the mirror), and pulled it open. So as I was watching the takes, I wanted to make sure that how she positioned herself, how she positioned her hand and where it was, the look she was giving, and the believability of the “pull open” all made sense to me.

So once we got that piece, and we had it on video, and I don’t think we shot the other piece for a few weeks. The back end shot had a mirror with a blue screen in it, and had no glass or mirror what so ever. We started with full blue in frame, and on the dolly, pulled back, and out of the bluescreen. During this move she reached up, (shooting over her left shoulder,) she grabbed the real knob and pulled the mirror open. She grabbed the medicine and left, and someone slowly, just by hand, close the mirror back, just at the right speed, and that was that element. Then we shot an element of the wall, which had the photograph of the father and daughter on it, and placed it on the blue screen area on the return of the mirror to its closed position. We also added dirt and a beveled edge on the mirror.

It took a lot of work to match the hands up because when she reached up in both shots, they really weren’t exactly right. So we did a lot of cutting and pasting on her arm, removing fingers, shifting fingers, and changing the speed of her reach so it would all make sense.

OC: When she actually did her pantomimed reach to the invisible medicine cabinet knob in the first element, what actually was there?

KR: For a while I had a C-Stand arm there for her to reach to, and removed it later. We also had to have crew removal in the shot because the shot was so complicated and the lens was so wide. There was a point where someone was bobbing up and down in the bottom of frame, so we had to paint him out. So, you cameramen out there, you better work out a little more and run a little faster.

Looks like tim314 pretty much got it.

63

That is hilarious! I had heard that about Zemeckis before.

64

I loved the novel, but it’s been 15+ years since I read it, so I won’t comment on that.

As for the movie, the single most unrealistic part was the conceit that you could have a duplicate Machine built in Japan and remain a secret from everyone, even Dr. Arroway. For starters, even the world’s richest tycoon couldn’t afford something like that without conducting a major liquidation of his assets, which would pitch the world’s financial markets (not to mention his own portfolio) into turmoil. It just smacks of movie [sham] economics and politics, mixed with a dollop of old-fashioned Asian inscrutability and a newer stereotype, that of Japanese tech wizardry (need to pull an engineering rabbit out of the hat? Just chalk it up to the Japanese… they can do anything!), to boot.

OTOH, the most distracting element is William Fichtner’s blind radio astrophysicist (or whatever he is) character. Distracting, as in finding myself daydreaming about the naughty, naughty things I’d like to do to and with that guy… Oh, I’d give him some “structure,” alright. :smiley:

65

This — the acceptance of the idea that the signal originated with a rogue satellite launched by Hadden — bothered me far more than the amount of static, which could be covered by the NSA impounding the recorder for “national security” reasons (never mind the international nature of the project). I’m neither an astronomer nor an astrophysicist, and I suck at math, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that a signal from an earth-orbiting satellite could appear to be coming from Vega in both New Mexico and Australia.

66

Outstanding linkage, Liberal.

I saw the film at the pictures when it came out and was wowed by that shot. A few years later when I bought the movie that was the first thing I forwarded to. Still couldn’t figure it out, like.

It reminds me of the scene in Jaws where the camera does a weird focus thing on Chief Brody sitting on the beach - it’s hard to describe - but I saw a documentary with Spielberg explaining how he and the cameraman got the shot. It impressed me. I’m not much of a cineaste though.

67

Yeah- the shot where Brody seems to be pulled forward towards the viewer while the background beach shot seems to stretch back- awesome shot.

68

Dolly zoom.

The mirror shot in Contact seems a bit gimmicky to me, because it’s only at the last moment that you notice that something’s up. Like OK, ha ha, the whole scene was inside the mirror, whatever that is supposed to mean. It doesn’t add anything to the scene. I can’t shake the feeling that Zemeckis did it simply because he could.

As for the film as a whole, I thought it was an entertaining potboiler, nothing more. I really liked the book at the time, but the film probably helped me realise that it wasn’t much of a book either.

69

Thanks!

That’s possible. But it actually did add meaning for me. It relates to the ambiguity at the end, when she really couldn’t be sure whether there had actually been an event or whether she had internalized everything. I thought the looking glass was a sort of foreshadowing of that.

70

Ralston and Rosenbaum discuss the mirror shot briefly in their commentary on the DVD, noting that *“A lot of people don’t notice that shot, because it’s one of the most beautiful, subtle shots in the movie.”
*
Another commentary nugget: The final scene of Ellie facing th investigative panel was shot on Jodie’s birthday. After she finished the take of her emotional testimony, all of the actors and extras stood and sung “Happy Birthday” to her.

71

I thought it was a pretty snappy line to deliver to the group of kids she was speaking to; it’s certainly more likely to get their young minds interested in looking at the stars than “You know, there probably isn’t anything out there other than, uh, some rocks and stars and stuff.”

72

I loved both the book and the movie. Normally I would be disappointed if a movie adaption left out something like Contact did with the number pi at the end, but for some reason it didn’t bother me here. They took the same basic story but emphasized different themes. The deciphering the signal and the meeting the aliens were the best parts of both. The movie played the science vs religion theme a little too broadly, but I don’t mind watching movies that are written for people less well read than myself.

73

It makes sense from both perspectives. Obviously from a belief in god perspective, it seems pointless to create such a large universe for such a small livable habitat - that works on the intentional level. But it also works on an atheistic probability level - it’s a metaphor for the fact that life is so fragile that it seems very unlikely that it would be so rare in such a large place as the universe.

74

What **jackdavinci **and **choie **have said. The movie has some great scenes. The first signal scene sends a shiver up my spine every time. The actual contact bit is a bit weak.

I don’t think that the ending with the length of static scene is a plot hole at all. I think those who criticise it as such firstly are looking for everything to be simplistically tied off in a neat bow, and secondly are displaying ignorance of science history. The history of science is full of instances of politics and/or the establishment throwing hurdles in its path, or of mistakes and bad luck scrambling neat linear progress. Further, it is not at all unlikely that a scientist may experience something but initially have no objective evidence and consequently initially be disbelieved, only to be vindicated later. The movie doesn’t stop at the end of the world, and there is nothing to say that the whole business of the apparent contact will be buried forever.

75

Loved the book, loved the movie up until the horrible, execrable final 5 minutes when the entire thing goes off message and, instead of challenging the audience, sucks up to them instead.

Eleanor Arroway was looking for evidence of Gods existence and never would’ve said, no matter how smarmily, “Well, I guess you gotta take me on faith, hyuck-hyuck!”

The ending of the movie is so philosophically different from the book that Sagan is still likely spinning in his grave. Here is Wiki’s summation of it:

She didn’t say “Take me on faith”. She didn’t need to - she was told that the evidence was out there, was given hints as to how to find it, and when she did, she had her proof.

76

JohnT, did you read my post? #28? Just wondering.

77

Oh, yeah. But ranting at Contact is one of my favorite activities. :smiley: