Quick Cuts on the Dome?
Quick cuts on the dome? Within a scene? MTV style!? Heeeeeellll no. Are you crazy?
Right?
Well, that seems to be the current golden rule of dome production. Quick cuts or moving from a wide to medium to close shot would kill the immersiveness of the dome environment. It would also be too jarring for the viewer. So everything lumbers along slowly and epic-ly. Don’t get me wrong, I like the epic reveal of the sun cresting above the earth as much as the next person. We’re actually doing a couple of those shots in our current production.
But are we locked into this medium-shot, slow camera pan or push with all of our scenes? It’s visually tedious. Coming from the flat screen world, we want to cut. Cutting allows the viewer of a flat screen to see the entire environment – something that’s not necessary with a dome. But it also creates tension, builds emotion and gives some much needed visual variety.
Has anyone experimented with this? Are there any good examples out there of why it absolutely doesn’t work?