What's the effect called where theyre driving in the car and they show prefilmed driving footage throu the windows? It's used extensively in this film like when Harper and the girl are driving throu the hills his movements on the steering wheel have no correlation to the direction he's driving.
I'm guessing it died by the early 70's?
rear view projection.
shareThey're also called process shots, and yeah, they're not the greatest in this film.
sharei commented elsewhere about this before i saw this post.
called 'poor-man's process'...done quite extensively and difficult to pull effectively.
there were so many driving scenes in this movie, I'm surprised they didn't do a better job.
of course, back in the day...audiences were not so aware as today scenes such as these really look contrived.
My guess is rear view projection didn't look as fake when seen on the big screen as compared to seeing it on TV.
shareAudiences today are no more aware, in fact they're dumb as bricks. A stationary car in front of a rear projection screen would be as obvious in it's artificiality during the 60's as today. It's just that a current day audience have come to expect live/location shots in everything. Or soundstage shots augmented by an almost seamless use of CGI at least. Which is a direct result of the shift in moviemaking from the heavy use of indoor sets, to location shoots.
"We used to stack fu#ks like you five feet high in Korea, use ya for sandbags."
"of course, back in the day...audiences were not so aware as today scenes such as these really look contrived."
Back in 1966 audiences were every bit as aware as they are today. Everybody seeing "Harper" during its initial theatrical release recognized the rear projection shots just as easily as viewers do now. Fifty years from now, people will say "those simple, unsophisticated rubes back in the early part of the 21st century couldn't see how fake those CGI animals and airplanes looked." But you do spot the fake-looking CGI all the time, don't you?
As a whole the film still looks very fresh and vivid even today, some 50 years after it was first filmed. But yeah, those rear projection shots when they're driving are glaringly obvious, and mar an otherwise nicely filmed movie.
Don't mess with me, man! I know karate, judo, ju-jitsu..... and several other Japanese words.