MovieChat Forums > North by Northwest (1959) Discussion > The blue screen FX look horrible in hi-d...

The blue screen FX look horrible in hi-def

posted 8 years ago by SuperDevilDoctor
19 replies | jump to latest

They really, really do.

I almost bailed on the film during the godawful drunk-driving sequence.

Glad I stuck with it, as all in all it's a rather fun "popcorn" film by Hitchcock. Loved James Mason as the urbane villain; the young Martin Landau is effortlessly sinister even when he has no dialog.

Those FX shots are (mostly) hideous, however, especially when viewed in high definition. I'm not really referring to the Mt. Rushmore stuff -- just everything else.

They really take you out of the movie.

Instantly. And irrevocably.

Yes, I fully realize that was the technology available at the time -- but in the end, that's no excuse.

One of the aspects I most dislike about Hitchcock's filmography is his completely unnecessary reliance on back-projection/"blue screen" effects, often for the most mundane of shots.

Man gets out of taxi, pays the driver, then turns to look up at a building... Shot in a studio, using rear-projection!!!

WHY??????

It looks so effing fake. It positively screams "THIS IS NOT REAL! YOU ARE WATCHING A MOVIE FILMED ON AN INTERIOR SET!"

Was Hitchcock just lazy? Didn't believe in location shooting?

Yes, cameras were bigger and bulkier then... Sound recording was not as precise. But other filmmakers of the same period -- typically operationg with a lot less money -- would actually bother to film their actors riding in an actual car instead of sitting them down in a studio with a blue screen behind them.

Sadly, the obvious "studio-bound" nature of many of Hitchcock's films are going to hurt their reputation in the long run. (I'm talking from now to the end of this century & beyond.)

Send her to the snakes!

[–] soulmaned21 8 years ago

What you have to understand is that HI-DEF makes all of these effects stand out as being more fake than watching in standard def. HI-DEF does way more harm to old as well as new films when it comes to using green/blue screen and other effects.

To refer to Hitchcock as being lazy is a bit of an eye roll when you don't stop to think that one of the greatest movies of all time wouldn't have been considered that if the effects were as hokey then as they appear now given the upscaling.

[–] wwestar 8 years ago

Back in 1959 most people would have seen this at 4k resolution. Maybe effects have got better over time.

[–] scotpens 8 years ago

Was Hitchcock just lazy? Didn't believe in location shooting?

Hitchcock was hardly "lazy." He disliked location shooting because he was a control freak. He preferred shooting as much as possible in the studio where everything -- lighting, sound, camera movement, backgrounds -- can be controlled, rather than filming on location where unpredictable things can happen.

All the universe or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?

[–] bananabry 8 years ago

The blue screen FX look horrible in hi-def

It is actually a process shot, not blue screen.

Take a listen to writer Earnest Lehman's commentary on the DVD. Even he thinks the scene is "too long." The process work doesn't really in any format: VHS, CED, DVD... Can't speak about blu-ray, but you are likely right.

Guessing those shots don't really work even on 35mm. The single spotlight, which illuminates both the front and rear views from the car's POV, the unlikely near misses on the road, even the "impossible" traction of the tires over thin air...

Yet, even Lehman admits -- it is supposed to be comedy, and that it might be a tad overdone. Also he implies it wasn't shot by Hitch himself. ☺

[–] StevenSmithNYC 8 years ago

I don't see how this can pull you out of the story and ruin it for you. Watch it on a normal TV and viewing for its time and stop trying to make it something it isn't. Your post is like someone taking a recording that was mono and complaining how it sounds in two channels stereo. The performance of the music was still great, and so is this film.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

In his time, Hitchcock was the most famous and successful movie director ever -- thanks as much to his TV show hosting duties as his movies, but his movies were a big part of it. Other directors were as rich if not richer, other directors won Oscars when Hitchcock did not.

But his movies looked and sounded and MOVED like none other, he was employing techniques that would influence Peckinpah, Spielberg, Scorsese, DePalma, Tarantino and Nolan even as "great directors" like William Wyler had been largely forgotten.

And somehow Hitchcock has been allowed to retain his great reputation EVEN AS his films certainly use a lot of process and blue screen and what was known at the time as "glass shots."

Here's why, I think:

ONE: Everybody had to use rear projection for car shots and other dialogue scenes. It was SOP. Audiences simply accepted it, and looked at the pretty actors faces and listened to the good dialogue.

TWO: Hitchcock's process shots usually looked better than other people's process shots. Best Picture All About Eve -- mde by Joseph Mankewicz, who didn't even know much about lenses -- has a scene with George Sanders WALKING DOWN THE STREET with process behind him, and its terrible.

THREE: Hitchcock made some great scenes(the Psycho shower scene) and great MOVIES (almost all of Rear Window) with no effects shots at all. Nobody is ever in a car in Rear Window; the only special effect shot is of the helicopter hovering over the apartment complex. Most of Frenzy(1972) is realistic in the manner of the day.

FOUR: SOME of Hitchcock's special effects shots WERE seamless for their time. The great Mount Rushmore sequence at the end of North by Northwest(that GREAT shot of Martin Landau and then his stunt double falling down the side of Lincoln's cheek is PERFECT.) The historic and monumental final shot of The Birds. Nobody did it better than Hitch...not even Disney at the time.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

FIVE: Which leaves: the NOTICEABLE process shots. Almost always of people in cars. Sometimes suddenly in the middle of "outdoor" scenes which required dialogue to be recorded. That's how it was. I find it no less off-putting than the more egregious CGI effects shots of today -- like all those pixel people walking on the deck of the Titanic(well, that's not "today," but 20 years is close enough!)

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I almost bailed on the film during the godawful drunk-driving sequence.

---

In 1959 -- 9 years before Bullitt gave us the first MAJOR(major) "on location car chase," that's how car chases were done.

And of course, its not a chase. It is one drunk man trying to control a car on a curving road, using Hitchcock's usual MO:

The man looks.
POV: what he sees.
How he reacts(funny/comedy/drunk.)

Hitchcock and screenwriter Ernest Lehman were never satisfied with this scene, and 17 years later, they got to "fix it":

For "Family Plot," there is a similar scene with Bruce Dern driving a car with no brakes and a stuck accealrator pedal(courtesy of an evil mechanic.) Dern's not drunk, and girlfriend Barbara Harris is at his side, comically panicking.

The "fix": no shot (as in NXNW) of the hood of the car in front of the view ahead. JUST the view ahead, filling the screen and making 1976 audiences dizzy; also no music, just the screech of brakeless brakes.

But, alas, still a process screen behind Dern and Harris. It was impossible otherwise, given how fast the car was supposed to be going down the mountain road.

I still like the car scene in NXNW as a "first opening action sequence" in a movie that has two more BIG ones ahead(the crop duster and Rushmore.) I also like the start with the matte shot of the cliffs, coastline and crashing waves of Glen Cove(non-existant in real life, these shots were filmed on the WEST Coast near Carmel, California and INSERTED here, quite nicely.) I like how Grant is SUPPOSED to drive over a cliff...but doesn't...the close up on the wheels straightening onto the road are like how a roller coaster ride starts.

in short, the drunk drive in NXNW is as "fantastical" as the rest of the adventure, a great launch.

But the runaway car scene in Familiy Plot is better.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

One of the aspects I most dislike about Hitchcock's filmography is his completely unnecessary reliance on back-projection/"blue screen" effects, often for the most mundane of shots.

Man gets out of taxi, pays the driver, then turns to look up at a building... Shot in a studio, using rear-projection!!!

WHY??????

---

Well there was a time -- the 30's through the early 50s -- where studios wouldn't foot the bill for much location filming. Came the 50's, a top director like Hitchcock could fly his cast and crew to Morocco, London, the French Riviera -- but not always for on-location dialogue shots. THOSE had to be done back at the studio.

If the man getting out of the taxi is Cary Grant - -MAYBE you can fly him to New York, maybe you can't. I recall Grant's taxi shots in NYC in NXNW being "shot on location" -- only switching to studio when he had to get into the taxi and talk to his secretary.

---

It looks so effing fake. It positively screams "THIS IS NOT REAL! YOU ARE WATCHING A MOVIE FILMED ON AN INTERIOR SET!"

---

Pretty standard for lots of producers and directors at the time.

---

Was Hitchcock just lazy? Didn't believe in location shooting?

--

Actually, as directors went, Hitchcock got studio backing to do a LOT of location shooting in his day. Even for cheap Warner Brothers -- they let him film in DC and New York for Strangers on a Train and Quebec for I Confess. Then back to NYC for The Wrong Man.

But often those were long shots and NOT with dialogue, which required more extensive technical work.

Paramount flew Hitchcock to the French Riviera(To Catch a Thief), Vermont(The Trouble With Harry), Morocco and London(The Man Who Knew Too Much) , San Francisco and environs(Vertigo.)

MGM went nuts on NXNW and let Hitchcock film in NYC, Chicago, and near Mount Rushmore (plus Bakersfield California filling in for Indiana in the crop duster scene.)

Location FILMING wasn't the problem. Location SOUND for dialogue was the problem.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Yes, cameras were bigger and bulkier then...

---

All the more reason Hitchcock was a "film God" at the time. He could direct his crews to move those bulky camera so that they could get those great "moving camera shots" up, over and down staircases in Psycho and Frenzy; he mastered lenses so a big camera could capture Janet Leigh's eyeball in death in Psycho. If he was told "you can't do that" (like making The Birds AT ALL) he said "Oh, yeah? -- you'll see.")

--Sound recording was not as precise.

--

Location sound usually had to be "re-dubbed" in the studio anyway, too many "outside sounds."

--

But other filmmakers of the same period -- typically operationg with a lot less money -- would actually bother to film their actors riding in an actual car instead of sitting them down in a studio with a blue screen behind them.

--

I have a strong opinion on this. REALLY GOOD process work -- say, Janet Leigh driving her car in Psycho -- BETTER captures what it is really like to be INSIDE a car and driving it -- your mental state while you drive. "On location work" with a camera mounted on the windshield filming people driving a car for REAL...gives the viewer the weird position of lying on the hood of a moving car, looking in. That's not REALLY real, at all. Janet Leigh driving in Psycho IS real -- even with process.

---
CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Sadly, the obvious "studio-bound" nature of many of Hitchcock's films are going to hurt their reputation in the long run. (I'm talking from now to the end of this century & beyond.)

---

I lived through Hitchcock in his heyday...seeing all his movies from The Birds at the theaters on first run(except Marnie), seeing all his other classics on TV in the 60s. And his TV show was a big deal , too. He faded as the Mike Nichols and Stanley Kubricks came in, but Psycho was as big on TV in 1967 as ANY movie in theaters that year.

And yet: all these years later, I figured, indeed, that Hitchcock would flame out and be forgotten.

He pretty much IS ...except...in film classes(high school and college) on cable/streaming TV, and now on the internet (in "reactor" videos)...it looks like the Old Boy is going to hang on.

I think people will take the process work with a grain of salt and notice (a) a lot of Hitchcocks best scenes and shots have NO process work (Rear Window, Frenzy) and (b) his process work holds up a lot(Rushmore, The Birds.)

[–] MaximRecoil (4139) 2 years ago

"say, Janet Leigh driving her car in Psycho -- BETTER captures what it is really like to be INSIDE a car and driving it -- your mental state while you drive. "On location work" with a camera mounted on the windshield filming people driving a car for REAL...gives the viewer the weird position of lying on the hood of a moving car, looking in. That's not REALLY real, at all. Janet Leigh driving in Psycho IS real -- even with process."

What are you talking about? How is this - https://i.imgur.com/eL8MSh0.jpg - not a view that someone lying on the hood of a moving car, looking in, would see? If you film someone driving a car, straight on through the front windshield, you're always going to get the same view that someone lying on the hood of a car, looking in, would have.

"That's not REALLY real, at all."

Many, if not most, movies have implausible views if you sit there and think about where you would have to be positioned to obtain such a view if the movie were real life and you were there to see the events live. More importantly, that exact same view of Janet Leigh "driving" that studio buck can be obtained by having her in a car that's actually traveling along streets and roads, which is why I'm wondering what you're talking about.

"Janet Leigh driving in Psycho IS real -- even with process."

No, it's not, obviously. That studio buck isn't even moving. For the record, you don't have to have the actor/actress actually drive a car to get a real-looking driving scene. You simply tow the car on a low, flat trailer (known as a "process trailer") and mount the camera on the towing vehicle (known as a "camera car"). See here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_trailer

And here:

http://www.actioncameracars.com/proc_hydr.html

And here:

http://www.actioncameracars.com/cameracars.html

The scenery seen through the car's windows inherently looks real when you do it that way because it is real. And the motion of the car as it goes over bumps and around turns and such also inherently looks real because it is real.

[–] MaximRecoil (4139) 2 years ago

"Watch it on a normal TV and viewing for its time and stop trying to make it something it isn't."

The normal viewing for its time wasn't on a TV of any kind, it was a 35mm film print projected onto a huge screen, which, by the way, is on par with the modern idea of "hi-def." Everything that can be seen in the North by Northwest Blu-ray could be seen in 1959 in theaters. Home viewings on TV, until relatively recent times, were always a drastic downgrade from a 35mm film print. A 35mm theatrical print is about the equivalent of 2K / 1080p resolution.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] petrilloi 8 years ago

This is all you people are worried about? The effects look worse in high definition? How dumb! The movie itself is much more sophisticated and entertaining than stuff made today with multi million dollar budgets for CGI,which is still crap aimed at a teenaged audience, who needs to see it five times in order for it to make any money!

[–] petrilloi 8 years ago

Very few filmmakers fifty years ago bothered to shoot scenes in an actual car rather than do process shots, or avoided very fake looking treadmill shots, which were cheaper and employed rear projection footage.Nobody much cared then. Concern for this now is pretty much not seeing the forest for the trees.

[–] timothy-jan-atkins 7 years ago

I think those scenes give the film a certain kind of 50s hitch cock feel that I really like. I especially enjoy the matte paintings, like the interior and exterior shots of the unit building (especially the top down view) and the plains after he gets off the train. It's gives it a nice other wordly parallel dimension feel, almost like the twilight zone.

[–] Quint (935) 3 years ago

It doesnt hurt anything. It is called art style. Like the horrible dark mooded movies done today mainly for depressed teens.

And yes, its obvious. Cause it was always meant to be obvious. Its a given agreement between creator and movie viewer. You see this horrible movie at the back window of the car? Thats the outside of the car! And noone ever thought about "Doesnt that look horrible?" beside some "smart" guys which didnt even get the simply fact of an agreement between the creator and the audience.

And this still works today. Most, if not all, of todays rendering effects are done with a small budget (the small budget is the reason why they exist at all, cause computer effects arent used cause they are so realistic (in many cases they cant compare with good practical effects). They are used cause they are way cheaper to do then practical effects) and therefor render way too less details and resolution. You have to be blind if you dont realize a rendering object when you see it on screen. But does this matter? Not at all. Cause thats todays agreement between the creators and the audience. "You see that thing flying around and looking like an Playstation intro. Yep, thats an airplane!".