In a great many films and TV shows for the last twenty–thirty shows there has been a scene where a character suddenly has a terrible revelation: they realize, say, that they just let the bad guy escape, or that they’ve been cheated, or that they left something vital behind. There is a cut to an overhead camera looking down on the character as he or she thrusts hands in the air, looks up, and yells “Noooo!”
I have it in mind this may have originally been used to great effect in one film in particular and then gone on to become a cliché.
Can anyone suggest where this technique was first used, or at least where it first made a big impact?
IIRC, TV Tropes says the “Big No” evolved from Streetcar’s “Stella,” with lots of prolonged shouts of various names and words. Most people think the “no” became common after Luke’s “big no” in TESB. Lucas made it hereditary by taking on Vader’s “big no” at the end of the second trilogy.
The overhead pullback shot is a called a dolly zoom, and I think originated with Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.”
A dolly zoom is rarely used for these kinds of shots. Just plain overhead zooms aren’t all that common either and they can be either in or out. Zoom ins usually being done for comedic effect.