26 ms·

The 'impossible' crane shot from Soy Cuba (1964) [video]

512 points by tehnub 5y ago

austinpow 5y ago
Personal anecdote: This was the first film I ever projected in 35mm. Our university theater obtained a print from the national film archive of Venezuela; it was a copy of the 1995 restoration. Incredibly striking, lush visuals, and partially responsible for my continued personal and professional interest in screening archival film. Six years later, I still remember the joy of projecting this exact sequence. I'm glad the film survives.
yuturs 5y ago
this was kind of a let down i watched until the end and was expecting something more.
- tehnub 5y ago
  The first part that shocked me was when they went over the metal thing around 0:51, and then again when they went into the building. The effect they produced here without any CGI or drones is pretty amazing in my opinion.
- hungryforcodes 5y ago
  Yeah, I know what you mean -- I guess its for film geeks.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    It's 1964. No CGI. No drones. No lightweight cameras. And yet, today, such a shot is still as impossible and very rarely done.
    - eXpl0it3r 5y ago
      Why is it so impossible? I get that cinema cameras are a bit heavier to handle, but the trickiest part seem to be the hand-offs between walking backwards, pulling the camera up and receiving the camera on the upper floor. It's a complex shot and there isn't really that big of pay off beyond having done the shot, but it's by no means "impossible", or am I missing something here?
      - dmitriid 5y ago
        > Why is it so impossible Because it requires imagination. And then careful planning. And then execution. In the shot, there is a crowd in the streets, there are people on balconies and in the rooms acting in concert with the camera etc. These days this is offloaded to overworked underpaid CGI artists at a second production unit.
    - MikusR 5y ago
      Movie was filmed on lightweight handheld camera.
    - kkiinnpptt 5y ago
      And the coordination with the huge crowd.
  - kwhitefoot 5y ago
    You surely don't have to be a film buff to appreciate the skill and artistry that went into that shot. I'm not at all a film buff but to me it is a work of art on par with other works of art regardless of medium.
- nickkell 5y ago
  It felt like my soul was leaving my body at the end! Maybe it’s just because I don’t handle heights that well though
rsync 5y ago
Another "impossible" shot that I have always been impressed by: https://filmschoolrejects.com/contact-mirror-scene/ https://filmschoolrejects.com/contact-mirror-scene/ "How They Shot the Impossible Mirror Scene in ‘Contact’"
- albert_e 5y ago
  Is it just me or the "seamless transition" in this much acclaimed, dissected and discussed shot is actually very un-natural movement of hands and legs by the actor -- and not "seamless" in that sense. I guess it must have been a result of conscious body movements by the actor or a many-retake attempt to get to a particular "target" pose at a particular point in the run to make the "seamless" transition of shots possible in post. Feels unnatural and forced to me -- and distracts from what could have been a minor mind bending effect as we watch the movie.
scrumper 5y ago
This entire thread contains some beautiful shots, I've really enjoyed watching them all this morning! I can add the battlefield traversal scene from Children of Men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjFHqohaHYU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjFHqohaHYU which certainly doesn't share Soy Cuba's beauty but makes up for it in other ways.
linster 5y ago
Johnny LaRue was onto something with getting a crane shot into Polynesian Town.
greenyoda 5y ago
About the movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Cuba
- seibelj 5y ago
  > The third story describes the suppression of rebellious students led by a character named Enrique at Havana University (featuring one of the longest camera shots). Enrique is frustrated with the small efforts of the group and wants to do something drastic. He goes off on his own planning on assassinating the chief of police, however when he gets him in his sights, he sees that the police chief is surrounded by his young children, and Enrique cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. While he is away, his fellow revolutionaries are printing flyers. They are infiltrated by police officers who arrest them. One of the revolutionaries begins throwing flyers out to the crowd below only to be shot by one of the police officers. Later on, Enrique is leading a protest at the university. More police are there to break up the crowd with fire hoses. Enrique is shot after the demonstration becomes a riot. At the end, his body is carried through the streets; he has become a martyr to his cause. Uhh... wouldn't Cuba arrest and / or execute a capitalist university student protesting the communist government? Doesn't seem very accurate
  - KarlKemp 5y ago
    Well... where to begin? * it's a 1964 movie * it's set in pre-revolutionary times * the students are arrested and/or shot, respectively * the students aren't capitalists * there were widespread protests, just a few months ago, and not everyone was arrested
    - jhbadger 5y ago
      And it was made by Mikhail Kalatozov, the famous Soviet director. Obviously the point of the movie was to support Castro's regime (the USSR's ally) by showing the oppression of the pre-revolutionary times.
      - seibelj 5y ago
22c 5y ago
Not a cinematography buff but these shots are still impressive when you try to wrap your head around them. I wish there were a breakdown as to how these kinds of shots were done using the technology they had at the time. Edit: This tweet[1] suggests that the camera was being passed around. [1]: https://twitter.com/indiarama/status/1451251934879387651 https://twitter.com/indiarama/status/1451251934879387651
- wellthisisgreat 5y ago
  they were using wires (source: heard from people who worked with authors of the movie)
  - TylerE 5y ago
    You can literally see the wires in the final section.
- superfrank 5y ago
  That would be my guess. Camera man #1 is on the ground. They attach the camera to some sort of pulley which pulls it up the wall. Camera man #2 is on the roof and walks to the room where they're all sewing and then attaches to a second pulley that is suspended from cables running between the buildings (you can see them at the top of the shot).
  - riffraff 5y ago
    Wikipédia says it was just a single cameraman with a hooked vest, it was being attached and detached to cranes as he went https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Cuba https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Cuba
  - derekjdanserl 5y ago
    Ex 2nd camera assist here. Handing off a camera mid-shot just asking for failure. Almost any cost to avoid that is going to be worthwhile. There are some maneuvers that can work, like one person to some mounts. 2 people to a mount is usually even better actually. I am being pretty abstract here because these situations are very rare, unique, and I only ever saw them on indie sets because it’s just too expensive to even try this sort of thing otherwise. But the main point here is that a human + camera is an incredible combination and you want to take every measure possible to never come between them. As for how they executed this shot, there are a lot of possibilities, but I doubt there was a hand off, probably from a person to a cable if so, but in that case they had a poor plan with very good luck. Never come between a man and his camera!
js2 5y ago
I will definitely have to watch this! The opening of Touch of Evil (1959) is a long tracking shot that is beautifully choreographed: https://youtu.be/mBAtcI_t-Z8 https://youtu.be/mBAtcI_t-Z8 But probably the most amazing tracking shot I’ve ever seen is the 59 minute continuous shot at the end of Long Day's Journey into Night (2018) which is in 3D, but I’ve only seen the 2D version.
- hardwaregeek 5y ago
  And the opening shot of The Player, which references Touch of Evil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEk-QGNQ3OM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEk-QGNQ3OM
  - js2 5y ago
    Ah… I probably haven’t watched The Player since it was released and I definitely hadn’t seen Touch of Evil then. Earlier this year I watched Femme Fatale and the opening has * Double Indemnity* playing on TV which by funny coincidence I had just watched the night before.
  - wyldfire 5y ago
    I remember this movie was a gold mine but, man, seeing Buck Henry play himself pitching a sequel to "The Graduate" is hilarious.
Animats 5y ago
"“We used a special cable device which I built in Moscow before going to Cuba. We planned to fly the camera between two big buildings in a major street. Because of security and insurance problems we used it in a little street. We used two cables and a small cart with eight wheels and a fork underneath where the camera was placed at the [end] of a handheld move. The secret of how we attached the camera to the cart was a magnet, part of which was in the cart and part of which was built on the camera. From the window the camera moved out about 100 feet."[1] The camera was an Éclair CM3 Camiflex, which is a beautiful little camera first built in 1945. There are still some for sale.[2] [1] https://ascmag.com/articles/flashback-soy-cuba https://ascmag.com/articles/flashback-soy-cuba [2] http://www.visualproducts.com/storeProductDetail02.asp?productID=254&Cat=3&Cat2=49 http://www.visualproducts.com/storeProductDetail02.asp?produ...
- com2kid 5y ago
  Also from the first article you linked: > Very soon after we came back to Russia, more than half of our crew died. I survived because I was very young. The entire article is amazing, it talks about ingenious mechanical solutions created on the spot, hacks to get desired effects, and a team relentlessly perusing their dream. Incredible and well worth reading in its entirety.
  - kakuri 5y ago
    I went to the article hoping for more context, but it just leaves that statement about more than half of the crew dying without any explanation.
  - eps 5y ago
    > Very soon after we came back to Russia, more than half of our crew died. I survived because I was very young. This is misquoted, mistranslated or just plain made up. It is attributed to "Calzatti", one of camermen. There are two Calzatti (Кольцатый in Russian) - father (Arkadi), born in 1905, and son (Alexander). IMDB lists the latter as a cameraman, but Russian wikipedia page on file list the father as one. Film credits have it at "A. Кольцатый", which can be either. The film is not listed in filmography of the father, so most likely it was indeed the son who was the cameraman. Then things get muddy. They both appear to have immigrated to the US shortly after and adopted Calzetti as the last name. Then, [1] talks about "Italian camera operator Alexander Calzetti" being the part of the film's great recipe. But a 2004 documentary on creation of Soy Cuba credits Aleksandr Kaltsatyj as himself. So that's a mess in itself. Then there's also an interview with the principal cameraman [2] where he speaks about his work, explaining in detail how the shot was made, and he doesn't mention Calzetti even once and repeating that most of the shooting was done by the director and himself. To top it off the only mention of the mysterious crew plague is that sentence in the GP's acsmag article, derived from a brief interview given to that magazine by Calzetti. Long story short, I think it's safe to assume that nothing horrible actually happened to the crew upon their return home. 1. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-12-08-9512080285-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-12-08-951208... 2. http://screenstage.ru/?p=13380 http://screenstage.ru/?p=13380
coolandsmartrr 5y ago
Soy Cuba contains lush and gorgeous B&W cinematography. The film opens up with the camera flying over the waters of Cuba; the reflection of the water is glistening in a way unlike other films. I believe they used an X-ray film strip to achieve this shot. Mikhail Kalatozov has included another impressive shot at the end of his previous work, "The Cranes Are Flying." (Palme d'Or at Cannes 1958) The camera follows the protagonist, then gets seamlessly lifted up by a crane to depict the entire street parading. While Soviet-era films does not have much exposure in the English-speaking world, there are so many gems, critically and technically. The filmmakers were acutely aware of great filming techniques. Also check out: Walking the Streets of Moscow (1964) - B-roll scenery contains another lush reflection of the Moscow waters Ivan the Terrible (1944/1958) - Eisenstein is an ardent practitioner of the montage, and prefers to static camera shots. However, his compositions are very imaginative, and there is no shot you want to miss. His film also briefly experiments with color, and he exploits colored lighting to emphasize the characters' psyche. Anything by Andrei Tarkovsky - Tarkovsky is indisputably a master of Russian cinema after Eisenstein. He often shoots in nature, but no director shoots with such rich texture of the mud. His long shots emphasizes the bleakness inherent in the Russian psyche. The Ascent (1977) - Set in WWII, the film shows the resistance escaping the Nazis covered in snow and panting in the cold. Great snow photography. Hard to Be a God (2013) - A sci-fi story on the immigration of humans to a different planet, the colonizers inhabit the inhospitable environment. Like Tarkovsky, the slow dragging in the mud conveys the dreary lives. These are recommendations I came up off the top of my head relating to cinematography, but there are definitely many more to appreciate.
- rusanu 5y ago
  This scene from Cranes are Flying? https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/oqqgcl/this_amazing_shot_from_the_1957_soviet_war_film/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/oqqgcl/this_amazi...
- justinator 5y ago
  X-Ray or infra-red?
  - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
metabagel 5y ago
“Russian Ark” from 2002 was composed of a single 96-minute shot. https://filmschoolrejects.com/russian-ark-long-take/ https://filmschoolrejects.com/russian-ark-long-take/
- pantalaimon 5y ago
  Victoria (2015) also did it in a single shot
  - wiz21c 5y ago
    Elephant by Gus Van Sant too : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQjTAbt_e58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQjTAbt_e58 (ah, my mistake, only the first minutes...)
    - pfortuny 5y ago
      The thing with Elephant is that many takes are just repetitions of others from the point of view of different characters.
wiseowise 5y ago
What an amazing architecture. Shows just how ugly and deplorable modern architecture is.
dmcginty 5y ago
Does anybody know if it's possible to watch the entire movie anywhere? It looks like Milestone Films did a 4k restoration in 2019 but the link to watch it doesn't seem to work any more and their web page indicates that physical copies are "not currently available for home use".
- yurish 5y ago
  In what language? You can watch it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0 It is in Russian but there are subtitles.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
The thing I have trouble figuring out - is Soy Cuba under copyright?
prawn 5y ago
1917 had some interesting shots where the camera was transferred from foot to wire to bike/car, etc. You can see a bit of it here: https://youtu.be/bW22bmSWKXU?t=209 https://youtu.be/bW22bmSWKXU?t=209 I worked on a shoot two days ago as a drone operator where we couldn't get a drone permit in the conservation park location (raptors nesting at this time of year), even for a few shots 2-5 metres off the ground. The client had a particular shot in mind and literally brought a ladder which we carried a couple hundred metres for the photographer and camera operator to climb.
- wiz21c 5y ago
  It makes me happy that at some point, someone says "environment first; non negotiable".
  - prawn 5y ago
    It is definitely much stricter here than other states of Australia. If there is a known sea eagle nest for example, there will be an exclusion zone with a 2km radius. In this case, the raptors on the cliffs meant that we couldn’t use even a micro drone supervised by a ranger several kilometres away. (The project here was for a guided coastal walk.)
    - TooSmugToFail 5y ago
      What a metric ton of performative bullshit that is. It’s a hard no to fly a micro drone under a supervision of a ranger, but it’s perfectly legal to pour hundreds of tons of ecosystem-killing chemicals in the ocean for years.
  - mcculley 5y ago
    I am involved in a project that is on hold right now because a sea turtle laid eggs on a beach. We are doing the right thing in some narrow areas.
    - prawn 5y ago
      Reminds me - I was filming for a cruise in a remote area a few months ago. There was a baby turtle that was struggling to get out of the hole from where its siblings had escaped that morning. The guest lecturer ended up in a feisty debate with a guest (who happened to be some sort of environmental researcher) about whether it was appropriate to even-just-slightly help the turtle out of the hole or leave it to struggle and be picked off by birds. All in front of 10-20 other guests who were all pretty keen to see the turtle bolt for the ocean. The lecturer wanted to prevent it being helped but eventually gave in. (The turtle wasn't particularly weak, just got a bad break with the shell or caved face of the hole it seemed.)
griffinkelly 5y ago
I have an original movie poster from Soy Cuba, its a beautiful piece of art, along with all Cuban movie posters. They speak to the creativity and vibrancy of the culture. I suggest a quick google of 'cuban movie posters;' from what I've been told typically the artist had not seen the movie or a limited amount of it, then was tasked to make an original poster. They often have no similarity to their western movie poster
narrator 5y ago
My favorite unbroken take from a modern movie is from the opening scene of Spectre, a James Bond Film: https://youtu.be/cbqv1kbsNUY https://youtu.be/cbqv1kbsNUY
rdtsc 5y ago
It is really a beautiful movie. Highly recommended for anyone who loves cinematography. However, as a movie it flopped at the time despite the great technical work. The Soviets completely misread and misunderstood the Cubans and turned into a melancholic poetic piece, that had zero appeal, except maybe for the Soviet team who made it. I mean stuff like the address to "Mr. Columbus" in the intro on how the ships "took away all the sugar and left only tears". It's true figuratively on a level, but it just isn't how Cubans would have put it. There is a documentary that was made where they interviewed Cubans and the Russians who worked on the film. It's quite fascinating, but I can't seem to find it anymore to provide a link to it.
joostshao 5y ago
great camera, i saw it in shanghai , 我是古巴， it is amazing film with fire in my heart, thank to the 4k fixed version.
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
Thanks for changing the absolutely insufferable title of the tweet!
mahoro 5y ago
This film is absolute must see. But be aware you’ll get both a visual pleasure and a shot of communism right into your heart :)
lqet 5y ago
Ah, no discussion about "impossible" shots is complete without mentioning the penultimate scene of Antonioni's masterpiece "Professione: Reporter" ("The Passenger"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvbqy8FZq8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvbqy8FZq8Y I read somewhere that this is the film Jack Nicholson is most proud of. > In a DVD commentary, decades later, Nicholson said Antonioni built the entire hotel so as to get this shot. > Since the shot was continuous, it was not possible to adjust the lens aperture as the camera left the room and went into the square. Hence the footage had to be taken in the very late afternoon near dusk, in order to minimise the lighting contrast between the brightness outside and that in the room. > The camera ran on a ceiling track in the hotel room and when it came outside the window, was meant to be picked up by a hook suspended from a giant crane nearly 30 metres high. A system of gyroscopes was fitted on the camera to steady it during the switch from this smooth indoor track to the crane outside. Meanwhile, the bars on the window had been given hinges. When the camera reached the window and the bars were no longer in the field of view, they were swung away to either side. At this time the camera's forward movement had to stop for a few seconds as the crane's hook grabbed it and took over from the track. To hide this, the lens was slowly and smoothly zoomed until the crane could pull the camera forward.[Note 1] Then the cameraman walked the camera in a circle around the square, giving the crew time to shut the window bars before the camera returned to look through the window from the outside this time. Antonioni directed the scene from a van by means of monitors and microphones, talking to assistants who communicated his instructions to the actors and operators. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passenger_(1975_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passenger_(1975_film)
- guenthert 5y ago
  Yeah, very impressive, but uh, 240p.
justshowpost 5y ago
Two soyjaks (Fidel&Ernesto) pointing at starving Russians who are making free(!) propaganda flick for them.
- artem247 5y ago
  Ehh, starving in 1964? Maybe not living extra lavish, but hardly starving.
GameOfKnowing 5y ago
Without any context, this makes for a pretty epic article title
willmacdonald 5y ago
Le Haine (95) had a great flying camera scene: https://youtu.be/4qo3EwozH0Y https://youtu.be/4qo3EwozH0Y (about half way through) Great Film too!
- squarefoot 5y ago
  Thanks! That Soy Cuba scene brought to mind one in La Haine to me too, but I couldn't locate it. Here's La Haine, complete with English subtitles; the famous scene starts at about 40:20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKppkmlB5HQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKppkmlB5HQ
- lm28469 5y ago
  Other interesting scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFkHadvj4DI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFkHadvj4DI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSfciVMm5IM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSfciVMm5IM Fun fact: la Haine was filmed in color because the coproductors didn't believe a b&w movie would be a hit
Giorgi 5y ago
Fun fact: Kalatozov was actually Georgian, born as Kalatozishvili. His family belonged to a noble Georgian Amirejibi house that traces its history back to the 13th century. One of Mikhail's uncles served as a General in the Imperial Russian Army, while Georgia was annexed by Russia. Another one was among the founders of the Tbilisi State University.
cecilpl2 5y ago
One of my favorite "impossible" shots is the mirror scene from Contact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0_5HFMPIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0_5HFMPIg
rudedogg 5y ago
If you enjoyed this check out the 6 minute shot with no cuts in True Detective. It's really something in HD, but I couldn't find a video. Here's the full thing but at lower resolution (the audio is muffled and it looks washed out to me), also [NSFW]: https://vimeo.com/172079250 https://vimeo.com/172079250
dredmorbius 5y ago
https://nitter.kavin.rocks/nickdale/status/1450617359375343617 https://nitter.kavin.rocks/nickdale/status/14506173593753436...
axiomdata316 5y ago
Is this available to stream online anywhere?
- stareatgoats 5y ago
  Mentioned elsewhere in the comments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0 , in Russian but with English subtexts
bane 5y ago
Wow, the music is also very striking. Does anybody know if there's a modern recording of it?
RattleyCooper 5y ago
Looks like the legit just used a camera on a rope lol. Definitely "impossible" smh
m3at 5y ago
The entire film can be found here (in 4k even): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0
mxxx 5y ago
Waaaay more lo-fi but this is one of my favourites from The Raid 2. I remember seeing the film and just thinking WTF how did that shot just work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxb9xzAaYjM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxb9xzAaYjM
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512 points by tehnub 5y ago

Personal anecdote: This was the first film I ever projected in 35mm. Our university theater obtained a print from the national film archive of Venezuela; it was a copy of the 1995 restoration. Incredibly striking, lush visuals, and partially responsible for my continued personal and professional interest in screening archival film. Six years later, I still remember the joy of projecting this exact sequence. I'm glad the film survives.

yuturs 5y ago

this was kind of a let down i watched until the end and was expecting something more.

tehnub 5y ago
The first part that shocked me was when they went over the metal thing around 0:51, and then again when they went into the building. The effect they produced here without any CGI or drones is pretty amazing in my opinion.
hungryforcodes 5y ago
Yeah, I know what you mean -- I guess its for film geeks.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  It's 1964. No CGI. No drones. No lightweight cameras. And yet, today, such a shot is still as impossible and very rarely done.
  - eXpl0it3r 5y ago
    Why is it so impossible? I get that cinema cameras are a bit heavier to handle, but the trickiest part seem to be the hand-offs between walking backwards, pulling the camera up and receiving the camera on the upper floor. It's a complex shot and there isn't really that big of pay off beyond having done the shot, but it's by no means "impossible", or am I missing something here?
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      > Why is it so impossible Because it requires imagination. And then careful planning. And then execution. In the shot, there is a crowd in the streets, there are people on balconies and in the rooms acting in concert with the camera etc. These days this is offloaded to overworked underpaid CGI artists at a second production unit.
  - MikusR 5y ago
    Movie was filmed on lightweight handheld camera.
  - kkiinnpptt 5y ago
    And the coordination with the huge crowd.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  You surely don't have to be a film buff to appreciate the skill and artistry that went into that shot. I'm not at all a film buff but to me it is a work of art on par with other works of art regardless of medium.
nickkell 5y ago
It felt like my soul was leaving my body at the end! Maybe it’s just because I don’t handle heights that well though

rsync 5y ago

Another "impossible" shot that I have always been impressed by: https://filmschoolrejects.com/contact-mirror-scene/ https://filmschoolrejects.com/contact-mirror-scene/ "How They Shot the Impossible Mirror Scene in ‘Contact’"

albert_e 5y ago
Is it just me or the "seamless transition" in this much acclaimed, dissected and discussed shot is actually very un-natural movement of hands and legs by the actor -- and not "seamless" in that sense. I guess it must have been a result of conscious body movements by the actor or a many-retake attempt to get to a particular "target" pose at a particular point in the run to make the "seamless" transition of shots possible in post. Feels unnatural and forced to me -- and distracts from what could have been a minor mind bending effect as we watch the movie.

scrumper 5y ago

This entire thread contains some beautiful shots, I've really enjoyed watching them all this morning! I can add the battlefield traversal scene from Children of Men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjFHqohaHYU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjFHqohaHYU which certainly doesn't share Soy Cuba's beauty but makes up for it in other ways.

linster 5y ago

Johnny LaRue was onto something with getting a crane shot into Polynesian Town.

greenyoda 5y ago

About the movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Cuba

seibelj 5y ago
> The third story describes the suppression of rebellious students led by a character named Enrique at Havana University (featuring one of the longest camera shots). Enrique is frustrated with the small efforts of the group and wants to do something drastic. He goes off on his own planning on assassinating the chief of police, however when he gets him in his sights, he sees that the police chief is surrounded by his young children, and Enrique cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. While he is away, his fellow revolutionaries are printing flyers. They are infiltrated by police officers who arrest them. One of the revolutionaries begins throwing flyers out to the crowd below only to be shot by one of the police officers. Later on, Enrique is leading a protest at the university. More police are there to break up the crowd with fire hoses. Enrique is shot after the demonstration becomes a riot. At the end, his body is carried through the streets; he has become a martyr to his cause. Uhh... wouldn't Cuba arrest and / or execute a capitalist university student protesting the communist government? Doesn't seem very accurate
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  Well... where to begin? * it's a 1964 movie * it's set in pre-revolutionary times * the students are arrested and/or shot, respectively * the students aren't capitalists * there were widespread protests, just a few months ago, and not everyone was arrested
  - jhbadger 5y ago
    And it was made by Mikhail Kalatozov, the famous Soviet director. Obviously the point of the movie was to support Castro's regime (the USSR's ally) by showing the oppression of the pre-revolutionary times.
    - seibelj 5y ago

22c 5y ago

Not a cinematography buff but these shots are still impressive when you try to wrap your head around them. I wish there were a breakdown as to how these kinds of shots were done using the technology they had at the time. Edit: This tweet[1] suggests that the camera was being passed around. [1]: https://twitter.com/indiarama/status/1451251934879387651 https://twitter.com/indiarama/status/1451251934879387651

wellthisisgreat 5y ago
they were using wires (source: heard from people who worked with authors of the movie)
- TylerE 5y ago
  You can literally see the wires in the final section.
superfrank 5y ago
That would be my guess. Camera man #1 is on the ground. They attach the camera to some sort of pulley which pulls it up the wall. Camera man #2 is on the roof and walks to the room where they're all sewing and then attaches to a second pulley that is suspended from cables running between the buildings (you can see them at the top of the shot).
- riffraff 5y ago
  Wikipédia says it was just a single cameraman with a hooked vest, it was being attached and detached to cranes as he went https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Cuba https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Cuba
- derekjdanserl 5y ago
  Ex 2nd camera assist here. Handing off a camera mid-shot just asking for failure. Almost any cost to avoid that is going to be worthwhile. There are some maneuvers that can work, like one person to some mounts. 2 people to a mount is usually even better actually. I am being pretty abstract here because these situations are very rare, unique, and I only ever saw them on indie sets because it’s just too expensive to even try this sort of thing otherwise. But the main point here is that a human + camera is an incredible combination and you want to take every measure possible to never come between them. As for how they executed this shot, there are a lot of possibilities, but I doubt there was a hand off, probably from a person to a cable if so, but in that case they had a poor plan with very good luck. Never come between a man and his camera!

js2 5y ago

I will definitely have to watch this! The opening of Touch of Evil (1959) is a long tracking shot that is beautifully choreographed: https://youtu.be/mBAtcI_t-Z8 https://youtu.be/mBAtcI_t-Z8 But probably the most amazing tracking shot I’ve ever seen is the 59 minute continuous shot at the end of Long Day's Journey into Night (2018) which is in 3D, but I’ve only seen the 2D version.

hardwaregeek 5y ago
And the opening shot of The Player, which references Touch of Evil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEk-QGNQ3OM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEk-QGNQ3OM
- js2 5y ago
  Ah… I probably haven’t watched The Player since it was released and I definitely hadn’t seen Touch of Evil then. Earlier this year I watched Femme Fatale and the opening has * Double Indemnity* playing on TV which by funny coincidence I had just watched the night before.
- wyldfire 5y ago
  I remember this movie was a gold mine but, man, seeing Buck Henry play himself pitching a sequel to "The Graduate" is hilarious.

Animats 5y ago

"“We used a special cable device which I built in Moscow before going to Cuba. We planned to fly the camera between two big buildings in a major street. Because of security and insurance problems we used it in a little street. We used two cables and a small cart with eight wheels and a fork underneath where the camera was placed at the [end] of a handheld move. The secret of how we attached the camera to the cart was a magnet, part of which was in the cart and part of which was built on the camera. From the window the camera moved out about 100 feet."[1] The camera was an Éclair CM3 Camiflex, which is a beautiful little camera first built in 1945. There are still some for sale.[2] [1] https://ascmag.com/articles/flashback-soy-cuba https://ascmag.com/articles/flashback-soy-cuba [2] http://www.visualproducts.com/storeProductDetail02.asp?productID=254&Cat=3&Cat2=49 http://www.visualproducts.com/storeProductDetail02.asp?produ...

com2kid 5y ago
Also from the first article you linked: > Very soon after we came back to Russia, more than half of our crew died. I survived because I was very young. The entire article is amazing, it talks about ingenious mechanical solutions created on the spot, hacks to get desired effects, and a team relentlessly perusing their dream. Incredible and well worth reading in its entirety.
- kakuri 5y ago
  I went to the article hoping for more context, but it just leaves that statement about more than half of the crew dying without any explanation.
- eps 5y ago
  > Very soon after we came back to Russia, more than half of our crew died. I survived because I was very young. This is misquoted, mistranslated or just plain made up. It is attributed to "Calzatti", one of camermen. There are two Calzatti (Кольцатый in Russian) - father (Arkadi), born in 1905, and son (Alexander). IMDB lists the latter as a cameraman, but Russian wikipedia page on file list the father as one. Film credits have it at "A. Кольцатый", which can be either. The film is not listed in filmography of the father, so most likely it was indeed the son who was the cameraman. Then things get muddy. They both appear to have immigrated to the US shortly after and adopted Calzetti as the last name. Then, [1] talks about "Italian camera operator Alexander Calzetti" being the part of the film's great recipe. But a 2004 documentary on creation of Soy Cuba credits Aleksandr Kaltsatyj as himself. So that's a mess in itself. Then there's also an interview with the principal cameraman [2] where he speaks about his work, explaining in detail how the shot was made, and he doesn't mention Calzetti even once and repeating that most of the shooting was done by the director and himself. To top it off the only mention of the mysterious crew plague is that sentence in the GP's acsmag article, derived from a brief interview given to that magazine by Calzetti. Long story short, I think it's safe to assume that nothing horrible actually happened to the crew upon their return home. 1. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-12-08-9512080285-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-12-08-951208... 2. http://screenstage.ru/?p=13380 http://screenstage.ru/?p=13380

coolandsmartrr 5y ago

Soy Cuba contains lush and gorgeous B&W cinematography. The film opens up with the camera flying over the waters of Cuba; the reflection of the water is glistening in a way unlike other films. I believe they used an X-ray film strip to achieve this shot. Mikhail Kalatozov has included another impressive shot at the end of his previous work, "The Cranes Are Flying." (Palme d'Or at Cannes 1958) The camera follows the protagonist, then gets seamlessly lifted up by a crane to depict the entire street parading. While Soviet-era films does not have much exposure in the English-speaking world, there are so many gems, critically and technically. The filmmakers were acutely aware of great filming techniques. Also check out: Walking the Streets of Moscow (1964) - B-roll scenery contains another lush reflection of the Moscow waters Ivan the Terrible (1944/1958) - Eisenstein is an ardent practitioner of the montage, and prefers to static camera shots. However, his compositions are very imaginative, and there is no shot you want to miss. His film also briefly experiments with color, and he exploits colored lighting to emphasize the characters' psyche. Anything by Andrei Tarkovsky - Tarkovsky is indisputably a master of Russian cinema after Eisenstein. He often shoots in nature, but no director shoots with such rich texture of the mud. His long shots emphasizes the bleakness inherent in the Russian psyche. The Ascent (1977) - Set in WWII, the film shows the resistance escaping the Nazis covered in snow and panting in the cold. Great snow photography. Hard to Be a God (2013) - A sci-fi story on the immigration of humans to a different planet, the colonizers inhabit the inhospitable environment. Like Tarkovsky, the slow dragging in the mud conveys the dreary lives. These are recommendations I came up off the top of my head relating to cinematography, but there are definitely many more to appreciate.

rusanu 5y ago
This scene from Cranes are Flying? https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/oqqgcl/this_amazing_shot_from_the_1957_soviet_war_film/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/oqqgcl/this_amazi...
justinator 5y ago
X-Ray or infra-red?
- 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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metabagel 5y ago

“Russian Ark” from 2002 was composed of a single 96-minute shot. https://filmschoolrejects.com/russian-ark-long-take/ https://filmschoolrejects.com/russian-ark-long-take/

pantalaimon 5y ago
Victoria (2015) also did it in a single shot
- wiz21c 5y ago
  Elephant by Gus Van Sant too : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQjTAbt_e58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQjTAbt_e58 (ah, my mistake, only the first minutes...)
  - pfortuny 5y ago
    The thing with Elephant is that many takes are just repetitions of others from the point of view of different characters.

wiseowise 5y ago

What an amazing architecture. Shows just how ugly and deplorable modern architecture is.

dmcginty 5y ago

Does anybody know if it's possible to watch the entire movie anywhere? It looks like Milestone Films did a 4k restoration in 2019 but the link to watch it doesn't seem to work any more and their web page indicates that physical copies are "not currently available for home use".

yurish 5y ago
In what language? You can watch it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0 It is in Russian but there are subtitles.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

The thing I have trouble figuring out - is Soy Cuba under copyright?

prawn 5y ago

1917 had some interesting shots where the camera was transferred from foot to wire to bike/car, etc. You can see a bit of it here: https://youtu.be/bW22bmSWKXU?t=209 https://youtu.be/bW22bmSWKXU?t=209 I worked on a shoot two days ago as a drone operator where we couldn't get a drone permit in the conservation park location (raptors nesting at this time of year), even for a few shots 2-5 metres off the ground. The client had a particular shot in mind and literally brought a ladder which we carried a couple hundred metres for the photographer and camera operator to climb.

wiz21c 5y ago
It makes me happy that at some point, someone says "environment first; non negotiable".
- prawn 5y ago
  It is definitely much stricter here than other states of Australia. If there is a known sea eagle nest for example, there will be an exclusion zone with a 2km radius. In this case, the raptors on the cliffs meant that we couldn’t use even a micro drone supervised by a ranger several kilometres away. (The project here was for a guided coastal walk.)
  - TooSmugToFail 5y ago
    What a metric ton of performative bullshit that is. It’s a hard no to fly a micro drone under a supervision of a ranger, but it’s perfectly legal to pour hundreds of tons of ecosystem-killing chemicals in the ocean for years.
- mcculley 5y ago
  I am involved in a project that is on hold right now because a sea turtle laid eggs on a beach. We are doing the right thing in some narrow areas.
  - prawn 5y ago
    Reminds me - I was filming for a cruise in a remote area a few months ago. There was a baby turtle that was struggling to get out of the hole from where its siblings had escaped that morning. The guest lecturer ended up in a feisty debate with a guest (who happened to be some sort of environmental researcher) about whether it was appropriate to even-just-slightly help the turtle out of the hole or leave it to struggle and be picked off by birds. All in front of 10-20 other guests who were all pretty keen to see the turtle bolt for the ocean. The lecturer wanted to prevent it being helped but eventually gave in. (The turtle wasn't particularly weak, just got a bad break with the shell or caved face of the hole it seemed.)

griffinkelly 5y ago

I have an original movie poster from Soy Cuba, its a beautiful piece of art, along with all Cuban movie posters. They speak to the creativity and vibrancy of the culture. I suggest a quick google of 'cuban movie posters;' from what I've been told typically the artist had not seen the movie or a limited amount of it, then was tasked to make an original poster. They often have no similarity to their western movie poster

narrator 5y ago

My favorite unbroken take from a modern movie is from the opening scene of Spectre, a James Bond Film: https://youtu.be/cbqv1kbsNUY https://youtu.be/cbqv1kbsNUY

rdtsc 5y ago

It is really a beautiful movie. Highly recommended for anyone who loves cinematography. However, as a movie it flopped at the time despite the great technical work. The Soviets completely misread and misunderstood the Cubans and turned into a melancholic poetic piece, that had zero appeal, except maybe for the Soviet team who made it. I mean stuff like the address to "Mr. Columbus" in the intro on how the ships "took away all the sugar and left only tears". It's true figuratively on a level, but it just isn't how Cubans would have put it. There is a documentary that was made where they interviewed Cubans and the Russians who worked on the film. It's quite fascinating, but I can't seem to find it anymore to provide a link to it.

joostshao 5y ago

great camera, i saw it in shanghai , 我是古巴， it is amazing film with fire in my heart, thank to the 4k fixed version.

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago

Thanks for changing the absolutely insufferable title of the tweet!

mahoro 5y ago

This film is absolute must see. But be aware you’ll get both a visual pleasure and a shot of communism right into your heart :)

lqet 5y ago

Ah, no discussion about "impossible" shots is complete without mentioning the penultimate scene of Antonioni's masterpiece "Professione: Reporter" ("The Passenger"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvbqy8FZq8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvbqy8FZq8Y I read somewhere that this is the film Jack Nicholson is most proud of. > In a DVD commentary, decades later, Nicholson said Antonioni built the entire hotel so as to get this shot. > Since the shot was continuous, it was not possible to adjust the lens aperture as the camera left the room and went into the square. Hence the footage had to be taken in the very late afternoon near dusk, in order to minimise the lighting contrast between the brightness outside and that in the room. > The camera ran on a ceiling track in the hotel room and when it came outside the window, was meant to be picked up by a hook suspended from a giant crane nearly 30 metres high. A system of gyroscopes was fitted on the camera to steady it during the switch from this smooth indoor track to the crane outside. Meanwhile, the bars on the window had been given hinges. When the camera reached the window and the bars were no longer in the field of view, they were swung away to either side. At this time the camera's forward movement had to stop for a few seconds as the crane's hook grabbed it and took over from the track. To hide this, the lens was slowly and smoothly zoomed until the crane could pull the camera forward.[Note 1] Then the cameraman walked the camera in a circle around the square, giving the crew time to shut the window bars before the camera returned to look through the window from the outside this time. Antonioni directed the scene from a van by means of monitors and microphones, talking to assistants who communicated his instructions to the actors and operators. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passenger_(1975_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passenger_(1975_film)

guenthert 5y ago
Yeah, very impressive, but uh, 240p.

justshowpost 5y ago

Two soyjaks (Fidel&Ernesto) pointing at starving Russians who are making free(!) propaganda flick for them.

artem247 5y ago
Ehh, starving in 1964? Maybe not living extra lavish, but hardly starving.

GameOfKnowing 5y ago

Without any context, this makes for a pretty epic article title

willmacdonald 5y ago

Le Haine (95) had a great flying camera scene: https://youtu.be/4qo3EwozH0Y https://youtu.be/4qo3EwozH0Y (about half way through) Great Film too!

squarefoot 5y ago
Thanks! That Soy Cuba scene brought to mind one in La Haine to me too, but I couldn't locate it. Here's La Haine, complete with English subtitles; the famous scene starts at about 40:20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKppkmlB5HQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKppkmlB5HQ
lm28469 5y ago
Other interesting scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFkHadvj4DI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFkHadvj4DI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSfciVMm5IM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSfciVMm5IM Fun fact: la Haine was filmed in color because the coproductors didn't believe a b&w movie would be a hit

Giorgi 5y ago

Fun fact: Kalatozov was actually Georgian, born as Kalatozishvili. His family belonged to a noble Georgian Amirejibi house that traces its history back to the 13th century. One of Mikhail's uncles served as a General in the Imperial Russian Army, while Georgia was annexed by Russia. Another one was among the founders of the Tbilisi State University.

cecilpl2 5y ago

One of my favorite "impossible" shots is the mirror scene from Contact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0_5HFMPIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0_5HFMPIg

rudedogg 5y ago

If you enjoyed this check out the 6 minute shot with no cuts in True Detective. It's really something in HD, but I couldn't find a video. Here's the full thing but at lower resolution (the audio is muffled and it looks washed out to me), also [NSFW]: https://vimeo.com/172079250 https://vimeo.com/172079250

dredmorbius 5y ago

https://nitter.kavin.rocks/nickdale/status/1450617359375343617 https://nitter.kavin.rocks/nickdale/status/14506173593753436...

axiomdata316 5y ago

Is this available to stream online anywhere?

stareatgoats 5y ago
Mentioned elsewhere in the comments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0 , in Russian but with English subtexts

bane 5y ago

Wow, the music is also very striking. Does anybody know if there's a modern recording of it?

RattleyCooper 5y ago

Looks like the legit just used a camera on a rope lol. Definitely "impossible" smh

m3at 5y ago

The entire film can be found here (in 4k even): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-RbV8KiC0

mxxx 5y ago

Waaaay more lo-fi but this is one of my favourites from The Raid 2. I remember seeing the film and just thinking WTF how did that shot just work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxb9xzAaYjM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxb9xzAaYjM

claraviva 5y ago

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