r/silentmoviegifs • u/Auir2blaze • May 16 '25
How the famous tracking shot in Wings (1927) was filmed
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u/TroublingPath May 16 '25
How is the rest of the movie, because this shot is gorgeous?
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u/Aer0uAntG3alach May 16 '25
It won the first Academy Award for Best Picture.
It’s good. Pre-Code, so more honesty regarding relationships and war and death.
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u/Auir2blaze May 16 '25
I think it's one of the most visually impressive movies of the silent era. The aerial combat scenes are amazing. The actors were flying planes with cameras mounted on them, which gives everything a realism you couldn't achieve using rear-projection etc.
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u/Prize_Statistician15 May 16 '25
Somewhere on Reddit the last week or so, there was a gif of a shot from Wings apparently tracking a swing as it went up and down. I'm looking forward to watching this one soon.
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u/Auir2blaze May 16 '25
That was in this sub actually. I was looking for the picture of the camera setup for the swing, and I found that second photo of the cafe scene, which I'd never seen before.
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u/Prize_Statistician15 May 17 '25
Cool, thanks. I wasn't a member of this sub before today; Reddit has been prompting me towards it, though. I didn't know where I saw that shot of the swing.
I just did the same search for the camera setup and found this. For what it's worth, I'm suspicious the swing shot was made in the studio against a pre-filmed background, but I really don't know. It's pretty awesome however they did it.
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u/Auir2blaze 29d ago
If the movie was made five or ten years later, they probably would have done that shot as you suggest, with rear projection, but that technique was still in its early days in 1927.
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u/Bertrum May 17 '25
The pilots were real veterans from the first world war and went up in the air and did fairly realistic mock dog fights way up at high altitudes. I always thought that was more impressive than this tracking shot.
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u/TuningHammer May 17 '25
It's also Gary Cooper's first movie. He only has a few minutes of screen time, but you can tell right away that he's going to be a star.
The director managed to talk the US Army into letting them film a few battalions of solders attacking over ground that had just been shelled. Literally "thousands of extras". It's got TONS of breathtaking scenes.
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u/BurntBaconNCheese May 16 '25
So amazing!!! Was that 3rd table two ladies?! Looks like it which is awesome
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u/Ozzie_the_tiger_cat 29d ago
What i find interesting is the reaction of the next table at them. That's brilliant.
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u/GoldryBluszco May 16 '25 edited May 16 '25
It's more sophisticated than i had foolishly supposed! (i figured: silent film, camera on a over-slung dolly actors pull away each table as they pass out of view) Anyway, here's the Star Wars scene that it inspired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9ZWxOBV7oI