MovieChat Forums > Gilda (1946) Discussion > Opening shot, big dice

Opening shot, big dice

posted 17 years ago by laxlon
3 replies | jump to latest

Fun Hollywood trickery in the very first shot. Dice are tossed at the camera and ultimately fill the screen in a huge close up. Then the camera pulls back, the dice go out of frame and then we see them tossed again.

When they filmed this scene, the first dice they threw toward the camera actually were huge, about 6 inches square achieving a nice effect that would have been a depth of field and focus problem with normal sized dice. When they go out of frame they switch to normal sized dice. Watch it, it's a fun trick.

I don't know who's idea this was but I just realized today that the cinematographer for this film, Rudolph Mate, later became a director. He directed, among other films, "DOA" the 1950 noir classic with Edmund O'Brien.

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] PorkPie007 15 years ago

Is that all there was to it? I recognised the sort of trickery that would've been required due to the limitations of the camera technology at the time, but I couldn't figure out what was outsized and what was normal. I got that the dice were extra large, but I assumed that the bills on the floor also were, and that the perspective was somehow 'forced' back towards the crowd along the floor between the dice/bills and the gamblers. Then, as you've mentioned, that part of the floor goes out of shot as the camera rises upwards, and I'd assumed some sort of switcheroo took place, much as you've described, but including the bills with the dice, perhaps even an entire section of the floor, then to be replaced with the authentic objects, everything to scale for when the camera pulls back.

Eh, I'm rambling. All I mean is, was it just outsized dice that accomplished that shot, and everything else was 'real'? In any case, it worked superbly!

[–] Beau_Buffet 8 years ago

Here is the shot: https://streamable.com/a40l