It's amazing how well the creature effects on Predator (and Aliens) have aged. Some of the other effects (the camouflage, the opening shot of the spaceship*) are obviously very 80s, but the creature itself still holds up.

*promote one of my all time favourite movies and a true legend in his field; Stan Winston.

* shouldn't have been in the movie!

Just..so..bad. Why is it so hard to write a good script? A story board? A director who has seen a movie or two? Lets CinimaSins this bitch;

1. opening shot is two shots at very wrong focal lengths, or that hole is actually very small.

2. One would think pre rendered special effects would not have issues with limited fill rates, but this comet clearly looks like its using a smoke trail from a video game on minimum graphic settings. You can count the number of particles on one hand.

3. For a desert nomad in a sand storm, she has an amazingly clean face, also, hoods that pull forward?

4. nomad is pointing at the clear as day impact landing of meteor as if it NEEDED to be pointed out.

5. a fairly large amount of simulated camera shake despite flames being so thin they don't smoke.

6. A horribly done transition shot where the boy is surrounded by smoke, fire, and lava, all except in the direction the camera is pointing.

7. Large tank army that no one notices until it passes them.

8. Physics, or lack of. the entire scene. Those 2 bypeds look like they were motioned captured by a two year old playing with his toys.

9. The expression on the boys face of surprise makes no sense for a robot of some sort who has crashed to the surface of a planet of which he had full intention of kicking ass in. The scowl afterwards makes it even more awkward.

10. what then proceeds is what can best be described as live gameplay from a random indie game from the steam store that utilizes a mostly black color pallet to hide the fact that nothing is texture mapped, low polygon models, and something that only slightly passes as a physics engine.

This is the opening shot of the GOP's 2020 campaign.

I love the opening shot of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" -- the long tracking shot down the hall, followed by "Isn't this where we came in?"

Your video, Top 10 Opening Shots of All Time, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

No - you can clearly see that the plane of sharpness and the depth of field give the illusion away (and confirm that the video is not fake) - especially for the baseball at 0:50-1:00 - it is clear that this is an image and not a 3D object. Just like you clearly can see if the glasses are real or not in the final shot.
Quite obvious that the shots with the changing focus aren't faked, especially if you're used to low DoF photography with fast lenses. The plane of sharpness do not follow the 3D shapes when focusing back and forth - the plane follows the still image on the table.

And of course they adjusted the exposure during the shot! They go back and forth from large apertures to small apertures - they had to change the shutter time and/or ISO.

You can also tell that the deepest shadows on the images never get quite dark enough - look at the shadow underneath the globe in the opening shot, versus the deeper blacks on the typewriter and sunglasses. This is easily seen in all the shots, if you know what to look for.
And, stuff like the edges of the papers under the glasses in the final shot - real objects do not have chromatic aberration with a red tint towards the corner of the image and a blue tint towards the centre of the image.

Nope - real.
Of course it isn't one take, but they did not use editing trickery - they do not swap out 3D objects for 2D ones or vice versa.

*dead
The "Hotel Rooftop to Pool" is the opening shot of the movie. The one we see here is the funeral of the revolutionary student, which is happening way later, around 3/4th into the movie. So the 'fix' apparently linked to a different sequence than the original one.

>> ^Quboid:

>> ^ant:
Citizen Kane put me to sleep, Godfather was decent but not my type of flick, Star Wars movie was good, etc.

Citizen Kane was a chore, I only watched it because, well, people like this guy. I didn't notice anything special about it at all. I can only assume that the clever, innovative stuff it did has been repeated in every other movie I've seen so I'm accustomed to it. Maybe if I'd only seen pre-Kane movies before seeing it, it would blow my mind.


You've got it exactly right, after Citizen Kane movies were changed forever. The non-linear way the story was told had never been tried, and the camera and lighting were used in completely innovative ways. Hell, in one scene when Welles couldn't get the camera angle that he wanted he grabbed a pickaxe and shovel and dug a deep hole in the middle of the set in which to place the camera!

Truth is though, my favorite Orson Welles movie is "Touch of Evil" with Janet Leigh, Charlton Heston and Welles himself playing one of the most disgusting villains ever portrayed on film. The opening shot alone is a masterpiece, an uncut tracking and crane shot that goes for more than 3 minutes. Fantastic stuff.

Check out the opening scene here... http://videosift.com/video/Opening-shot-to-Touch-of-Evil

No director has ever surpassed this scene... Altman made a great effort in "The Player" and Scorsese came close in "Goodfellas", but still not quite.

>> ^lucky760:

I know I'm probably the only one who is bothered by it, but the continuity issues are distracting. The curtain is open, then closed, then open, then closed. Obviously it's because there wasn't really a window on that set and it's just a short Internet video, but come on. And a guy has huge binoculars right outside the curtained window but the girls inside still look like they're a mile away? Yeesh.
unabletosuspenddisbeliefonthisone
Still, funny.


I thought the same thing, but the window with the closed shade is above the bed's headboard...there's another window as well on the wall to the left in the opening shot, which is the one the dudes are watching through.

Upvoted the opening shot. *Wow*.

I had to wait two whole weeks to see this as well, but I finally got to see it on Sunday in IMAX 3D.

I hate to say it, I actually laughed out loud at the "ENCHANCE!" part because I thought it (in the movie) was so out of place making myself seem completely stupid out of a packed theater. Well maybe I can give it a break since the movie does take place in 2154 after all.

Either way, it kicked ass. No need for details, it had me within the first 30 seconds and the awesome opening shot that reminded me of what real sci-fi was about.

hey todd, go wash your feet. i don't need to see that in the opening shot.

Very interesting, especially the way they use ice to support the tube while they bend it. I suppose that's the original "U-Tube".

Note though that the 'bone is assembled incorrectly in the opening shot--the slide is rotated 180 degrees from where it should be (and the mouth piece is missing).

I just wish we could undo some NSFW tags. Like these:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Opening-shot-from-A-Clockwork-Orange
http://www.videosift.com/video/12-Year-Old-Boy-Scouts-Volunteer-To-Give-Women-Breast-Exams
http://www.videosift.com/video/Mike-Myers-on-the-Daily-show
Incredibly disturbing, but not NSFW http://www.videosift.com/video/WTF-No-words
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Ancient-Art-of-Kung-Pu

And most pointless NSFW ever: Pixelated blood.
http://www.videosift.com/video/Bowsers-Minions

After what Bush has done, i think we can safely say he's given up his right to an uninterrupted meeting.

Fuck him quoting the ideals of the founding fathers.

The only american thing that can happen here is Bush gets hounded off every stage in the land until he has to resign due to an upcoming trial for crimes against humanity.

Oh, you don't think he's guilty? You don't think dropping bombs on a country that hasn't attacked you, killing civilians (not military targets) with your opening shots, and then invading with ground troops and taking over the oil ministry... you don't think that's the TEXTBOOK DEFINITION OF WAR CRIMES? That's not ENOUGH for you?

Fuck you if you stand up for Bush's "right" to speak uninterrupted. He's had his fucking chance. Being a babykiller SHOULD get you hounded off the fucking stage.

UGH. now i need a shower.