A zoom called dolly – Chap. 4, Act 2, Strip 24

Good old dolly zoom, a.k.a. trombone shot. I already used it once in the second chapter, although of course I had to fake it back then, since the scene had a drawn background. But with the rendered backgrounds, I can actually do it for real! Which is, of course, not the same as saying I should do it, but I just didn’t think that far at that moment, and when my thinking had caught up, I had already done it. Story of my life.

Good thing Mopey found a practical application for the dolly zoom, as well – moving the background closer so that our friends don’t have that much open ground to cover. You know, because of all the cameras and guards that could possibly have been in that room…which, of course, would still be there even if the room was becoming smaller. Which it isn’t actually doing, just appearing to do. So it wouldn’t really change anything about the guards and cameras…but then, they haven’t really worried about the guards and cameras before so…uh…it all somehow solves itself and makes sense. If you squint your eyes and hold your head like this.

In order to induce the dolly zoom, it’s usually enough to make some kind of shocking relevation to one of the characters, something that’ll cause a sudden burst of enstrangement from their surrounding in them. The dolly zoom will materialize to visually parallel the emotion. It’s practical and has the added boon that Mopey really enjoys inducing enstrangement in others, particularly Snuka and Biff…but it’s not easy to do with Biff, since he tends to experience reality through a cushioning fog of limited perception, anyway. So Snuka it is…making a shocking relevation to Snuka is pretty easy, of course, since he’s adopted. And learning that you’re adopted is always a huge shock in movies, so the chances for inducing a dolly zoom are pretty good. Yeah, I know…Snuka knows that he is adopted, because he was already in his mid-teens when it happened. That doesn’t really cushion the blow of the (re-)discovery, though – because it’s not just the fact itself, it’s the delivery that counts. And, boy, can Mopey deliver on something like that.

Speaking of stock phrases, Biff delivers one of his own: “How about attacking in three columns?” It’s the sum total of his understanding of strategy and tactics, even after all the ROTC courses. There is historical precedent for it.

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