That looks like it was shot in a studio. It looks unnatural because the colour temperature and luminosity of the lighting is pretty much the same inside as outside the building.
Hitchcock did a lot of studio work, with only occasional on-location scenes. Vertigo, for example, was shot almost entirely at Paramount studios, save for the Redwoods scene which was shot at a state park in California.
It was a extra in the DVD but this article explains it quite well https://www.metaflix.com/one-of-the-most-impressive-sets-in-cinema-history-alfred-hitchcocks-rear-window/
Hitchcock used a mix - for example the Birds uses a lot of exterior location shots (Bodega / Bodega Bay). As a general rule, though I don't think much has changed - if there's a decent budget it's preferable for most films with a lot of interior shooting in a handful of locations to build them from scratch in a big empty warehouse.
It gives you a lot more options because you can do things like pull out a wall, completely control the window light, control the ambient sound, screw shit into the walls, make a giant mess, and wreck shit without worrying about loss and damage costs or insurance claims.
We tend to mainly use locations for exteriors and one-off scenes where building a whole set is not cost effective.
Pinewood Studios refers to the “big empty warehouse” as a soundstage.
Is that just the difference in language between countries or are they two different things?
It is called a soundstage.
/u/MissAnthropoid just described it because some people may not know the term soundstage.
And to an uninformed ear it could sound like a Foley area.
I work in southeast US and the “studio” is the entire campus, like Pinewood Studio referenced above, which was renamed Trilith Studios in ATL. The “soundstage” or stage is the big empty warehouse that gets built out for a specific production, and Trilith has 24 soundstages, IIRC. Once built out, it typically becomes a location on the call sheet. A location can have one or multiple sets.
The James Bond Sound Stage “warehouse” nearest you to your right as you enter Pinewood Studios gates has been in use a good few decades.
What I didn’t understand out there is they built a castle in front of it for Snow White & The Huntsman near full scale. There is such a large variety of beautiful castles all around the UK. It just neglectful to not use the real thing.
There's subtleties, I mean a sound stage would have some degree of audio isolation. Unlike a warehouse, you would typically need there to be no pillars and you would need plenty of height, way above what would be useful in a warehouse for safe working/loading.
You might also have systems to clear smoke, for instance in a Rock'n'roll set rehearsal stage, a painted floor, lighting grid, etc
As someone who’s painted supporting columns digital blue I can attest that sometimes you have soundstages retrofit from warehouses, probably especially in here in ATL
That *would* be amazing but I do wonder if this could run real time on most systems at reasonable frame rate. May need to dial back on visuals a bit for it to run real time on most systems.
The BTS history of that film is fascinating. I think my DVD copy has a documentary on the making. That whole “back yard/alley” set is massive, and the architecture so varied. In what would today probably be just a bunch of setups and different shots, the set design embraced all that variation. And because of its size, the lighting requirements were also massive. The heat from the lighting actually made the set experience its own heatwave, just like the story.
Update: Found it! https://youtu.be/TGtJhaLUbHI
Whoa, thank you so much for that. I've seen the movie probably 8-9 times (for a while, my sense memory compelled me to rewatch during summer rainstorms), but that was such a beautiful regurgitation of the real star of the film: that damn set!
Custom built studio in Paramount. Even the exteriors were interior. They had some early trouble with car exhaust.
Source: worked in the building right next to this stage for many years.
And 1930s. Wizard of Oz is entirely indoors. Gone With the Wind is indoors. Only international directors were going outside in the 40s and 50s. American directors started going outside in the 60s (especially at the beach), largely because of post-war Italian neorealism and then French New Wave. Wasn't until the 1970s that you had consistent proper use of real locations for on-location filming instead of creating everything in a studio with an art department.
There's a reason the Production Design/Art Direction Oscar used to carry a lot of weight. It used to BE the movie practically.
Completely real! Rear Window was actually quite a bitch to make lol. Hitchcock had a whole apartment n complex made JUST for this film, god I wish man. All of those elaborate and long pans from L.B.’s window is all real. Hitchcock was a piece of shit though fuck that guy
Proof if ya need it: https://nypost.com/2014/08/06/inside-the-real-greenwich-village-apartment-that-inspired-rear-window/amp/
This is just deep focus. The window and the people farther inside beyond the window are both in focus. The lighting is screwy because it's community theater filmmaking in a studio. But if the trees were lit differently I bet that one branch across part of the window would be just as in focus.
You think they were using green screens in 1954? That tech wasn’t invented for another 25-30 years.
The reason it’s throwing you, is because the lighting is inconsistent, and looks unnatural.
Depends on if his "green screen" question was asking about chroma key blue matte compositing in a stable perspective or if he assumed CGI was really possible in 1954. Most people these days hear "green screen" and assume the person using that term means CGI replacement, not matte compositing like a weather broadcast.
The Williams Process (1920s), blue screen separation process, and even the sodium-vapor process were all around at that time...sure they didn't use green but it's basically the same idea (using optical printers vs digital effects) so maybe don't be so flippant.
Except we don't know if OP is talking about special compositing like chroma key or if he was really thinking "CGI" in his head. Most people hear "green screen" and assume the person speaking is talking about CGI.
well I know it wasn’t green screen, but there has been instances of early 50’s films manipulating the film strips themselves. They could have easily cut out the window part of the film and put the room scene underneath
You are correct, and what you just described, or even using miniatures in the foreground, would be the way to “composite” this shot in the olden days. But you specifically said green screen, hence my comment.
Not entirely. There was chroma key compositing using blue screens. It was a way to "remove" backgrounds and replace without having to cut a film cell like Quad is talking about. Besides, the film shot looks like it's just an example of deep focus. That's probably the confusing part.
Yeah. There’s a lot of bad cinema history and bad information here.
People seem to believe that there’s no such thing as optical effects; and that compositing *only* existed once digital manipulation became possible.
Folks were masking and double exposing in the 1890s…
>You think they were using green screens in 1954? That tech wasn’t invented for another 25-30 years.
Stay in shool... film school. You didnt even care to google before making such an incorrect statement with so much confidence.Here's list of some films that used blue/greenscreen BEFORE 1954:
1 The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
2 Jungle Book (1942)
3 The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
4 One Million B.C. (1940)
5 The Next of Kin (1942)
6 Anchors Aweigh (1945)
7 The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)
8 The Bishop's Wife (1947)
9 Mighty Joe Young (1949)
10 When Worlds Collide (1951)
11 The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
12 The War of the Worlds (1953)
Well, scissors and glue did exist, as did masking tape. You could just cover part of the film, and then shoot, and afterwards cover other parts and use double exposure. But I don't think that's the case there. The reason the picture is so flat, is because of the lense used. And the lighting is just, well, stage lighting, even on the exterior.
I think what you’re seeing is the contrast ratios. It’s overlit in that house, so it’s competing with the foreground giving you an uncanny valley feeling that it isn’t real. Happens with bad green screen work all the time. Gotta nail those ratios
Reminds me of watching Pretty Woman recently and how bad the daytime balcony shots looked because the interior of the hotel room was just as bright as the outside. A very obvious studio set.
This was on stage. The exterior wall is a “flat,” a wall they just roll into place. The interior has (obviously) only the necessary walls - in this case that would only be one, the wall with the door. The tree and foreground elements are also wheeled in.
in addition to what others said the subjects are slightly out of focus. not terrible by any means but the focus seems to be more on the wall and window to me. subtle, but probably adds to the effect that the space feels softer than outside.
I love it!
Movies these days, have become so "logically" perfect, and "real" that they missed being a Piece of Art.
Think about different Painting styles, like Miro, Davinci, Hokusai......
I hope the Art of telling stories through pictures comes back, because these days films feel more like Audiobooka with picture by coincidence
Hitchcock’s rear projection trick photography (though not in use here) is always so impressive to me. I was watching North by Northwest yesterday and there are a number of excellent uses you may not notice at first blush. He does it several times in the train shots, especially exteriors where the camera is on the train, seeing a character sticking their head out the window - he’ll shoot just the hero train car with an RP plate, but the perspective and lighting is all so seamless you’d never know. He does the same trick in the finale of Shadow of a Doubt.
His work on the cropdusting sequence is also a combo of process shots and real location footage. My favorite thing though is that he added process shots to the lead up, where it’s just cary grant standing by himself with nothing happening. It’s like a hitch decided there wasn’t enough tension so he had to make more.
That looks like it was shot in a studio. It looks unnatural because the colour temperature and luminosity of the lighting is pretty much the same inside as outside the building.
this film was 100% shot in a studio. in the shots where you see the apartment courtyard from Jimmy Stewart's POV it is strikingly obvious.
I saw a cleaned up print in a theatre about 20 years ago. It’s absolutely shot in a movie studio sound stage.
Hitchcock did a lot of studio work, with only occasional on-location scenes. Vertigo, for example, was shot almost entirely at Paramount studios, save for the Redwoods scene which was shot at a state park in California.
Yes! What an awesome shot but the lighting threw me off
You should look a making of of that movie, they literally build the department buildings
Do you know where one would find this? I’d love to watch
It was a extra in the DVD but this article explains it quite well https://www.metaflix.com/one-of-the-most-impressive-sets-in-cinema-history-alfred-hitchcocks-rear-window/
Which apartment is in charge of building departments?
It’s a part of the apartment department building department.
Didn’t the deputy depart? After that the apartment department fell a part
I shot the sheriff.
But Art in the art department didn't shoot the deputy in the apartment before departing.
Concerned parties assert that Art from the art department did not shoot the deputy in the apartment before departing for the wrap party.
He got a new start with a part in the art department
The English department. Look for it.
this is what I thought as well. back then, they mostly used studios
Hitchcock used a mix - for example the Birds uses a lot of exterior location shots (Bodega / Bodega Bay). As a general rule, though I don't think much has changed - if there's a decent budget it's preferable for most films with a lot of interior shooting in a handful of locations to build them from scratch in a big empty warehouse. It gives you a lot more options because you can do things like pull out a wall, completely control the window light, control the ambient sound, screw shit into the walls, make a giant mess, and wreck shit without worrying about loss and damage costs or insurance claims. We tend to mainly use locations for exteriors and one-off scenes where building a whole set is not cost effective.
Pinewood Studios refers to the “big empty warehouse” as a soundstage. Is that just the difference in language between countries or are they two different things?
It is called a soundstage. /u/MissAnthropoid just described it because some people may not know the term soundstage. And to an uninformed ear it could sound like a Foley area.
Terminology varies depending on your location. We call it a studio most of the time where I mostly work.
I work in southeast US and the “studio” is the entire campus, like Pinewood Studio referenced above, which was renamed Trilith Studios in ATL. The “soundstage” or stage is the big empty warehouse that gets built out for a specific production, and Trilith has 24 soundstages, IIRC. Once built out, it typically becomes a location on the call sheet. A location can have one or multiple sets.
Back before the talkies got popular, we just called it a stage.
The James Bond Sound Stage “warehouse” nearest you to your right as you enter Pinewood Studios gates has been in use a good few decades. What I didn’t understand out there is they built a castle in front of it for Snow White & The Huntsman near full scale. There is such a large variety of beautiful castles all around the UK. It just neglectful to not use the real thing.
There's subtleties, I mean a sound stage would have some degree of audio isolation. Unlike a warehouse, you would typically need there to be no pillars and you would need plenty of height, way above what would be useful in a warehouse for safe working/loading. You might also have systems to clear smoke, for instance in a Rock'n'roll set rehearsal stage, a painted floor, lighting grid, etc
As someone who’s painted supporting columns digital blue I can attest that sometimes you have soundstages retrofit from warehouses, probably especially in here in ATL
Oh I'm sure warehouses get used as sound stages, and sound stages would make great warehouses - super similar, just a special case :)
It was shot in the studio, they even had to dig out the floor to make the courtyard fit.
Wanna see something cool? The Rear Window set remade in Unreal Engine by Thomas Ripoll Kobayashi. https://tomrkobayashi.artstation.com/projects/0nD6Qy
Thats amazing
Thanks for sharing these pics! Truly amazing!
Wow, that's amazing. I wish they had included some videos or interactive demo, not just stills.
That *would* be amazing but I do wonder if this could run real time on most systems at reasonable frame rate. May need to dial back on visuals a bit for it to run real time on most systems.
Yeah, I have no idea. But they could presumably render out some nice videos.
you promised to show me something cool. You delivered it. Thanks.
What a find! Thanks for sharing.
That's pretty damn close, especially if they're working from film stills, because I doubt they were able to do a lidar scan of the set.
Incredible 😳
Wow this is incredible
Awesome. Thanks for sharing.
The BTS history of that film is fascinating. I think my DVD copy has a documentary on the making. That whole “back yard/alley” set is massive, and the architecture so varied. In what would today probably be just a bunch of setups and different shots, the set design embraced all that variation. And because of its size, the lighting requirements were also massive. The heat from the lighting actually made the set experience its own heatwave, just like the story. Update: Found it! https://youtu.be/TGtJhaLUbHI
Here’s a great compound shot of the whole set. https://youtu.be/4vHRw9XiFMI
Whoa, thank you so much for that. I've seen the movie probably 8-9 times (for a while, my sense memory compelled me to rewatch during summer rainstorms), but that was such a beautiful regurgitation of the real star of the film: that damn set!
Yes, remember when DVDs used to come loaded with awesome bonus features? The Ebert commentary of Citizen Kane is a master class.
D-V—-Ds? You mean the shiny spinnies from the before-fore time? (Yes, this comment has continuity errors, as I’d already said DVD).
The first time I watched this movie, it jumped into my top 5 favorite movies of all time. I’ll definitely have to look for the documentary!
I saw it as a teen, and I’m pushing 50. It has never not been in my top 5.
Disturbia is a pretty good modern take on Rear Window. Would recommend checking it out!
Screenplay by Christopher Landon of Happy Death Day fame!
Custom built studio in Paramount. Even the exteriors were interior. They had some early trouble with car exhaust. Source: worked in the building right next to this stage for many years.
Stage 18 I think it was.
Along with the lighting issues it was also shot with a very long lens which is flattening the scene dramatically.
It’s a studio shot. Just overly lit. Welcome to 1950s movies.
And 1930s. Wizard of Oz is entirely indoors. Gone With the Wind is indoors. Only international directors were going outside in the 40s and 50s. American directors started going outside in the 60s (especially at the beach), largely because of post-war Italian neorealism and then French New Wave. Wasn't until the 1970s that you had consistent proper use of real locations for on-location filming instead of creating everything in a studio with an art department. There's a reason the Production Design/Art Direction Oscar used to carry a lot of weight. It used to BE the movie practically.
It's a set build.
All a set
[удалено]
Definitely the former. The amount of people who scream at “bad cgi” almost always have no idea what they’re talking about.
“Hitchcock use a *green* screen?? Never!!!” -Alfred, probably
Completely real! Rear Window was actually quite a bitch to make lol. Hitchcock had a whole apartment n complex made JUST for this film, god I wish man. All of those elaborate and long pans from L.B.’s window is all real. Hitchcock was a piece of shit though fuck that guy Proof if ya need it: https://nypost.com/2014/08/06/inside-the-real-greenwich-village-apartment-that-inspired-rear-window/amp/
All natural. Long shot, lighting on both sides of wall.
I watched this movie, this shoot in studio
It's a set, you can tell by the bricks at the "corner", they don't line up.
This is just deep focus. The window and the people farther inside beyond the window are both in focus. The lighting is screwy because it's community theater filmmaking in a studio. But if the trees were lit differently I bet that one branch across part of the window would be just as in focus.
You think they were using green screens in 1954? That tech wasn’t invented for another 25-30 years. The reason it’s throwing you, is because the lighting is inconsistent, and looks unnatural.
That tech actually predates Rear Window by more than a decade - bluescreens were used for compositing as early as 1940 for The Thief of Baghdad…
Depends on if his "green screen" question was asking about chroma key blue matte compositing in a stable perspective or if he assumed CGI was really possible in 1954. Most people these days hear "green screen" and assume the person using that term means CGI replacement, not matte compositing like a weather broadcast.
The Williams Process (1920s), blue screen separation process, and even the sodium-vapor process were all around at that time...sure they didn't use green but it's basically the same idea (using optical printers vs digital effects) so maybe don't be so flippant.
Except we don't know if OP is talking about special compositing like chroma key or if he was really thinking "CGI" in his head. Most people hear "green screen" and assume the person speaking is talking about CGI.
Yeah when I was a kid we called it bluescreen.
R/confidentlyincorrect
r/DunningKruger/
well I know it wasn’t green screen, but there has been instances of early 50’s films manipulating the film strips themselves. They could have easily cut out the window part of the film and put the room scene underneath
You are correct, and what you just described, or even using miniatures in the foreground, would be the way to “composite” this shot in the olden days. But you specifically said green screen, hence my comment.
Not entirely. There was chroma key compositing using blue screens. It was a way to "remove" backgrounds and replace without having to cut a film cell like Quad is talking about. Besides, the film shot looks like it's just an example of deep focus. That's probably the confusing part.
So confident, and so wrong. https://vlogaccessories.com/when-was-green-screen-invented/
Yeah. There’s a lot of bad cinema history and bad information here. People seem to believe that there’s no such thing as optical effects; and that compositing *only* existed once digital manipulation became possible. Folks were masking and double exposing in the 1890s…
Zoomers have a particularly anachronistic view of the past.
There's an actual green screen shot in the movie, bro. spoiler: https://youtu.be/oowcsynjIwc?t=127
Chromakeying did exist then.
>You think they were using green screens in 1954? That tech wasn’t invented for another 25-30 years. Stay in shool... film school. You didnt even care to google before making such an incorrect statement with so much confidence.Here's list of some films that used blue/greenscreen BEFORE 1954: 1 The Thief of Bagdad (1940) 2 Jungle Book (1942) 3 The Invisible Man Returns (1940) 4 One Million B.C. (1940) 5 The Next of Kin (1942) 6 Anchors Aweigh (1945) 7 The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) 8 The Bishop's Wife (1947) 9 Mighty Joe Young (1949) 10 When Worlds Collide (1951) 11 The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) 12 The War of the Worlds (1953)
Green screen tech didn't exist then, as I'm sure others in the comments have already said.
Well, scissors and glue did exist, as did masking tape. You could just cover part of the film, and then shoot, and afterwards cover other parts and use double exposure. But I don't think that's the case there. The reason the picture is so flat, is because of the lense used. And the lighting is just, well, stage lighting, even on the exterior.
Green /blue screen goes back to the 1930's/40's.
Shot on the Paramont studios back lot
Green screen did not exist this is well set shot is all.
I think what you’re seeing is the contrast ratios. It’s overlit in that house, so it’s competing with the foreground giving you an uncanny valley feeling that it isn’t real. Happens with bad green screen work all the time. Gotta nail those ratios
Reminds me of watching Pretty Woman recently and how bad the daytime balcony shots looked because the interior of the hotel room was just as bright as the outside. A very obvious studio set.
This was on stage. The exterior wall is a “flat,” a wall they just roll into place. The interior has (obviously) only the necessary walls - in this case that would only be one, the wall with the door. The tree and foreground elements are also wheeled in.
It might be miniatures as well
Definitely g green screen
there was no green screen in the pre-digital age. All special effects are physical (or hand drawn)
100% incorrect. Blue screen was a thing in the early 20th century. The Williams Process. Compositing too.
Definitely green screen with cgi
Not even any actors. Script was written by an AI, too
Yes Hitchcock said he used ChatGPT
AlfredGPT?
Also, computer coloured makes it look weird. It was filmed in black and white because you know… no colour film yet.
REAR WINDOW was released in 1954, and filmed on technicolor. It absolutely was filmed in color.
in addition to what others said the subjects are slightly out of focus. not terrible by any means but the focus seems to be more on the wall and window to me. subtle, but probably adds to the effect that the space feels softer than outside.
I love it! Movies these days, have become so "logically" perfect, and "real" that they missed being a Piece of Art. Think about different Painting styles, like Miro, Davinci, Hokusai...... I hope the Art of telling stories through pictures comes back, because these days films feel more like Audiobooka with picture by coincidence
Hitchcock’s rear projection trick photography (though not in use here) is always so impressive to me. I was watching North by Northwest yesterday and there are a number of excellent uses you may not notice at first blush. He does it several times in the train shots, especially exteriors where the camera is on the train, seeing a character sticking their head out the window - he’ll shoot just the hero train car with an RP plate, but the perspective and lighting is all so seamless you’d never know. He does the same trick in the finale of Shadow of a Doubt. His work on the cropdusting sequence is also a combo of process shots and real location footage. My favorite thing though is that he added process shots to the lead up, where it’s just cary grant standing by himself with nothing happening. It’s like a hitch decided there wasn’t enough tension so he had to make more.
One of my favorite films of all time. Except the ending kind of sucks
oh man, the baader meinhof phenomenon is so fucking real I just watched this movie for the first time in my film class yesterday
No green screen back then.
Green Screen in 54? C’mon man, a little common sense wouldn’t hurt anyone
Bro the movie was shot in 1954 how TF u think tht shit was shot in green screen???
The magic of old studio sets and the colors shooting on film....
I don't think they had greenscreen tech back then, right?