Sunday

There is one sequence from a film that has always puzzled and intrigued me - and I was reminded of it by the extract from David Mamet's book published in today's paper. It's from the movie Contact: a girl runs towards the camera, and the camera pulls away at an equal speed. She ascends some stairs, sprints down a corridor and then appears to reach past the camera. The picture of the girl then appears to open outwards - we realise we are looking at a reflection of her from the mirror of a bathroom cabinet. We (or the camera) are now behind the girl seeing her reach into the cabinet for some medicines. Perhaps I haven't described it well - you can try to find a clip online, I couldn't - but you should get a sense of the impossibility of it. Wherever they can, filmmakers try to avoid mirrors. So how did they do it? Apparently the mirror was a blue-screen. They filmed the running sequence, then played it onto the blue-screen in post-production. The one problem with this amazing effect, however, is that it isn't entirely relevant to the film. It seems to have been done just because they could, not because it revealed or emphasised the tone or message of the movie. Maybe I'm wrong, but it is still astounding every time I see it. A good filmmaker is also a magician.