Contact Mirror Shot Explained & Remade │ Ep.8

Today we explain and recreate the contact mirror shot
... because every normal person stores his Gaffer Tape in a medicine cabinet ;)

Salute to Carl Sagan, Lundsgaard, Zemeckis and Burgess !

Social Media:

Music by: Maximilian H. (Embit)

[PracticalEffectsGuy]

Hey Everybody!
I´m planning to recreate some more famous Movie FX in the Future. What would you like to see me doing ???

[theonlyreviewthatmatters]

You forgot to mention a genius part of the shot in the movie. They reversed/flipped the entire set (as in rebuilt it) for the mirror shot.

[Dodgelayne]

It's even more mindblowing to know that this shot was so simple.

[juansuarez]

Finally, a video that explains it. Thanks. It was driving me crazy

[wolowok]

It’s a shame people with quality content like this get lost in the YouTube video limbo

[BeingaDaddy]

How do you not have tens of thousands of subscribers? Your content, production, and execution are such high quality. Best wishes!

[Helldog]

My mind had been blown by this shot for years (not a director or super into cinematography so I never really looked into it) but who knew it was so relatively easy for such an iconic shot.


Kudos, subbed.

[lorenzomoneta]

117 people can't understand the trick even after this great tutorial.

[ironmanjakarta]

Bob Dylan: "Life isn't about finding yourself or finding anything, life is about creating yourself."

[midnight_bee]

Thanks for that closing remark.
"You just have to stay curious and find out how things work. And get creative yourself."

[mukiex]

The one thing I think might be off is that "mirror shadow". I don't think a mirror surface, unless it has a LOT of dirt or dust atop it, is gonna have a visible drop shadow.

[grumpypoetry]

Are we just going to ignore that cliffhanger ending? Am I the only one worried about that light?

[FlatEarthMath]

This was just awesome! I love that movie so much. Two minor quibbles. There's no spilled popcorn in your gaffer tape scene. :-P And you can't cast a shadow on a decent mirror. That's not how mirrors work, LOL. When I was much younger, say, 27 years ago, I tried to figure out how this shot could be made with 100% practical effects. What I came up with is a rig where the medicine cabinet was float-mounted to the front of the camera at a 45º angle, and the whole running scene is filmed through the mirror. Upon reaching the bathroom there's a magnetic mount where the mirror sticks to the bathroom wall (releasing the camera mount), and the actress can open it. Of course, in _Contact, _ the angle isn't 45º but it would be a cool shot to do anyway. Cheers!

[BrosBrothersLP]

amazing video. and not forced to be the almighty 10 min.
can i guess you guys are german? based on the accent and the beatiful "NEIN" when the light fell? =)

[stanislavvederskyi]

Thank you. Rewatching Contact now and was pazzled by this scene and you explaidened it.

[CiakSiParla]

Great breakdown man! Just one question, why are u mentioning the pan to emulate the opening of the mirror? I don't see that shot in the final scene 😂

[silverback]

I was watching Contact and paused it to FINALLY figure out how this was back to the movie.

[BartleyTroyan]

Wow, this was a mindblowing shot in 1996. The entire theater was silent for this and the opening zoom out.

Thank you for explaining it.

[deankumar]

thank you. finally a video that actually explains properly how this was shot

[MarcSelman]

This can also be done without video editing using a camera dolly with cabinet built on the dolly and the camera pointed at the glass.