A Technical Question From The Final Duel Scene

[Rudra]

Hello,

I have a question about the way, a sequence is shot during the final duel between Harmonica and Frank. I would like to how the "close up" was done for Harmonica? During the first sequence, they zoom in to do a face "close up". In the second sequence, they do a "close up" of the eyes. Was it a simple lens "zoom in"? Or, was it a dolly assisted "close up"? Please clarify?

[drinkanddestroy]

Hello,

I have a question about the way, a sequence is shot during the final duel between Harmonica and Frank. I would like to how the "close up" was done for Harmonica? During the first sequence, they zoom in to do a face "close up". In the second sequence, they do a "close up" of the eyes. Was it a simple lens "zoom in"? Or, was it a dolly assisted "close up"? Please clarify?

In his book, Frayling has a picture of Leone, Fonda, and a camera, with a caption that says something like "Leone lining up a closeup of Henry Fonda," so I'd guess that the closeups were shot separately. In fact, I recall someone saying (it may have been Eastwood, not sure), that while most directors shot the closeups after all other shooting was done, later in the day even if light wasn't so good, Leone always shot his closeups at the same time as the other scenes while the light was good, cuz the closeups were very important to him.

Based on this, I'd guess that Leone indeed lines up the closeups separately, rather than simply having a camera zoom in on the actors' eyes while a scene was shot.

[Cusser]

Occasionally directors will focus on a close up and then zoom out, and reverse the film to make it look the opposite.  They did this for the zoom in on McGarrett in the opening of the original Hawaii 5-0.

[noodles_leone]

It isn't a dolly, it's an optical zoom, that's for sure. Now it looks like 2 different zooms to me:

1) The first CU shot stops zooming before they cut... And the second CU stays still for a few frames before zooming in. Since manually zooming (as they PROBABLY did at the time) is notoriously hard to do/ Remember this shot:

You have to keep the same speed, which is more or less impossible. Add to that the fact than when you start/stop zooming, the begining of the move of your hand is very shaky. Hence, even if they tried to to both shots in once, I'm almost 100% certain they used 2 differents takes, since it's virtually impossible to get both shots right.

2) If both shots are done in one take... then they need a huge zoom lens.

3) Try zooming in on a DSLR (for instance) for as much time as they did. After a while, you have to release the lens to start again the same zoom (oooooor you're a contortionist).