The Hitch-History

These days I am seen reading a lot of History. My interest started with a little bit of Indo-British past and then it slipped to Mughal Empire and finally to Cinema.
I read about Charlie Chaplin's life. One man who will always be remembered at all ages, as long as laughter exists. All he needed to make a comedy was a park, a policeman and a pretty girl. The master of comedy.

Then I moved on to the most inspiring, Alfred Hitchcock, the undisputed father of suspense movies. His long career saw the silent era, black and white, the colour and the 3D Cinema. The film maker who had the widest vocabulary of shots. He was the one who brought most of the commonly seen shots of today. He was the first to think that the Camera could move, in other words, to introduce moving shots. To move the heavy huge Cameras of that age would ve been a tough thing even to think. His movie 'Rope' is the best example of moving camera shots. Rope, in essence, is a series of eight ten-minute takes tied together at the ends to look like one continuous take.
Hitch had his own language of film making, the one which was unique and which produced a number of classics.

One of my personal favorite shots is the 'Zoom in pull back' shot, I always imagined this shot, and wondered what will be the visual impact of it. The camera lens zooms forward while, the camera mounted on a track, moves backward, thus creating a magical effect. The size of the frame will stay the same, the subject will be in focus and the background spreads wide or gets stretched.
Hitch has used this shot in the Movie 'Vertigo'. It just makes me realize I am yet to catch up with a hell lot of classics. I read this shot was later copied by Spielberg in his movie 'Jaws'. So this shot is also known as 'Spielberg shot'.

oh man, Hitch is so inspiring, is nt he!

Unfortunately he could not bag an Oscar. All though 'Rebecca' won the best picture award in 1940, he could not touch the Oscar as the award for the best picture goes to the producer.
He was awarded Life-time Achievement by The American Film Institute; He saw the occasion as a preliminary to his obituary. And in his Award speech he dedicated his award to "four people: a film editor, a script writer, the mother of my daughter and a talented cook. And their names are..." he revealed, "Alma Reville", his wife of over 50 years.

Oh gosh! he is a school of film making in himself, and his classics are the text books.
May be some 50 years down the lane, someone will be reading about me like this...hmm...:)
The Hitch-Effect, I guess.
hey did I say 50 years!!! na...
see, someone is already reading about me....
... I am talking about u dummy! so I am already famous, aint I!
lolz
Thanks for reading