I never noticed it myself, but according to IMDb: “Near the beginning of [“The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”] as the camera flies towards Rohan you can see the smoke pouring back into the chimneys rather than out of them.”
My guess is that at the time “Pride” was released, everyone (for a reasonable definition of “everyone”) knew Gehrig was a lefty and a discrepancy like that would have left off the screen. By the time “Field” was made, not so much.
How do they account for them in every other scene? (I kid because I love.)
This is the one I came in here to mention. In addition to the chimney smoke, you can tell by the flapping of the flags (ripples traveling toward the poles), and IIRC there is a quick shot of Eowyn with her hair blowing in the wind in reverse. It’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it.
IIRC the intestines leaping out of a corpse to strangle someone in Reanimator were done by wrapping them around the target, then winding them back into the torso (which just happens to be leaning up against a wall) and then running it in reverse.
On Voyage to The Bottom of the Sea, the scene where the giant octopus grabs hold of the Seaview, the shot is made by postioning the octopus on the Seaview, and filming the octous swiming away. Reverse the film and voila.
In Truffaut’s adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, the scene where Montag suits up for the book burning near the start of the film is the exact same as the scene where Montag finishes the burning and removes the suit, just shown backward (complete with the flame thrower’s flames burning backward).
This is a fairly common film technique, although not always as noticable as smoke or water flowing backwards. 'Twas oft used in the pre-CGI days, for difficult stunts.
Example: In RED RIVER, there’s a scene where John Wayne is wrestling with an Indian in a river, and Walter Brennan throws Wayne a knife, which Wayne neatly catches and stabs the Indian. The scene was filmed backwards: both Wayne and Indian actor emerge from water, Wayne un-stabs (stabbing motion backwards) and tosses the knife to Brennan. It’s smooth as silk.
In The 13th Warrior, a shot was originally filmed with the camera zooming into Antonio Banderas, but was reversed for better effect. The rain drop rolling down his face was carefully edited out.
Evil Dead (I or II or maybe both, I forget) uses footage of some gas creeping through the forest running in reverse, to show the beastie of the film retreating in sun light.
I appeared in such a sequence in a movie, in which I was hit by a car. I leaned over the hood, the car sped away in reverse, I straightened, turned casually, and walked backwards to the side of the road. I haven’t seen it yet myself, so I can’t vouch for how it turned out.
That’s the one I came in to mention, because far from being “easy to miss” it’s so obvious to me that it (briefly) takes me out of the story every time I see it. YMMV.
