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Hi All
In Stanley Kubrick’s, Eyes Wide Shut, there’s a scene where Nicole Kidman’s character is staring at a mirror before she opens the mirror and retrieves a small bag of weed hidden inside the compartment. While she does this, the mirror swings open and we should see the camera but we don’t!
How did Stanley and his team hide the camera from the moving reflection, CGI wasn’t available back then, are there double mirrors involved?
I’ve attached a video of the scene for reference. Note that I’m not referring to the use of spiral composition that is mentioned in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWcKo2IyLU
Thank you all!
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”Eyes wide shut”
Yes, you can see the cut out where the lens is.
it’s only a fraction of a second, I wonder if that was necessary as most people would not have noticed the Matt box. Stanley was a perfectionist and wasn’t worried about expenditure so he thought why not!
Have a look at Rogers “Skyfall” when Javier is inside the glass cage. The principle is the same as the above scene. I understand, the camera was covered in Black wrap or cloth also also Javiar’s body was blocking the cameras reflection. There are many other examples to block reflection.
Stanley would turn in his grave if somebody suggested CGI. He preferred to achieve effects in camera if possible also high speed computers then were slow compared to today.
I don’t think Kubrick had a negative attitude towards digital effects.
It’s just that he had the time and budget to solve some technical problems on set rather than fix them in post. Building a set with a camera port like that just requires planning, something that Kubrick had time to do. Even if this shot was conceived during a rehearsal, he had time to have his art department change the set and then come back to it in a day or two to shoot the mirror shot. Truth is that a camera port like that might have been conceived in a morning rehearsal and built during a lunch break or even faster. If the production designer allows it, I’ve had my key grip come out with a power saw and cut a hole in a set wall within a few minutes then asked the on-set dresser to hide the hole with something.
In Rober Kolker & Nathan Abrams’ book on the making of Eyes Wide Shut (screen capture attached to this comment) it’s mentioned that Kubrick was looking into digital scanning for the film. Kubrick also went into pre-production on A.I. when he saw what was possible with digital effects in Jurassic Park, and he had extensive conversations with people at Industrial Light & Magic.
That’s a cool picture Mike! It never occured to me that scene/shot would need to hide a reflection, and I’ve watched the film close to three times.
In fact, Stanley and his team used rear projection to film Tom Cruise’s character walking down the streets in Greenwich Village within a soundstage. Expertly done. Wouldn’t have guessed it without seeing the behind the scenes clip.
I’ve attached the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0MP5zlIFYM
Thats a very effective sequence but Tom Cruise is walking past illuminated shops and would have thought that Stanley didn’t light it that way. It is a very good effect but does look artificial to me, only my opinion of course, unusual for Stanley to accept that.
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