At its most basic, rear projection is composed of four components: a projector, a screen, foreground subjects, and a camera. process photography) was the primary special effects composite technology in Hollywood from the mid-1930s to the early 1970s. The result, when photographed, is an in-camera composite. Here’s everything you’ve ever wanted to know about how rear projection works, where it came from, and where it’s going: How’d they do that? Long story short:īy projecting an image onto a screen from behind and then staging foreground action against its backdrop. So here we are, almost a century later, and despite all odds, rear projection is making a comeback. While rear projection as it was originally conceived may have fallen out of fashion, good ideas always find a way to adapt and survive. Bill wandering the streets at night in Eyes Wide Shut. Others have employed rear projection’s “off-ness” to convey a sense of unreality and unease, as with Neo’s first trip into The Matrix or Dr. Over time, traditional rear projection morphed from a practical necessity to an expressive tool, a technique employed by stylish directors to revere or ridicule the past. These days, rear projection has a reputation for being distracting and dated - an antiquated special effect that spoils the suspension of disbelief and never looks quite right. When there’s rear projection on the screen, it’s hard to overlook. Despite being the standard compositing technique for decades, with a few exceptions, rear projection never achieved a level of perfection such that its presence could go unnoticed. Rear projection is, against its technicians’ best efforts, far from an invisible effect. And yet, while rear projection’s in-camera process effectively streamlined production workflows, it regularly failed to achieve any sense of naturalism. It gave filmmakers more control, consistency, and creative freedom to shoot what they wanted where they wanted. The concept is simple: Can’t shoot on real locations? No problem! Want to record on-set dialogue while your actors outrun the cops in a noisy convertible? Don’t worry! It’s as easy (in theory) as a sound stage and a projector.Īt its advent in the 1930s, rear projection was a game-changing technology. And if you’ve seen a film from before the 1970s with two people talking in a moving car, there’s a one-hundred-percent chance you’ve already encountered rear projection. If you’ve seen a film from before the 1970s, there’s a very good chance you’ve already encountered rear projection. This entry looks into how rear projection works. Welcome to How’d They Do That? - a bi-monthly column that unpacks moments of movie magic and celebrates the technical wizards who pulled them off.
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