That trick when the camera slowly zooms out and gives an aerial view of the setting, as though it had taken off. Usually a Hat-and-Coat Shot, although there are exceptions.
Compare Astronomic Zoom, "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending and Fly-at-the-Camera Ending. Contrast Ending by Ascending, when a character does this instead of a camera.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The last scene in When Marnie Was There before the credits is a zoom-out from the house into the sky (where Marnie lives).
- The Garden of Words has a zoom-out from the park into the sky before the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.
Comic Books
- The book version of Watchmen ends Chapter 1 exactly like this.
Fan Works
- Once Upon a Studio: Version 2.0 is an extended cut of the below mentioned OUAS, and features several compared to the existing film; first there's the epic zoomout from Mickey, which fades into an epic panning shot of 547 animated Disney characters singing the final verse of "When You Wish Upon a Star" as a gigantic chorus. This then fades into a closer shot of Mickey and gang, Cinderella, Belle, Moana, and their respective Princes and families. Cinderella and Prince Charming gently sing the opening line to "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" to the audience, before Rapunzel and Eugene sing the first line of the chorus to "I See The Light" with even more passion and gusto, and Aladdin and Jasmine do the same for "A Whole New World" before we get a second zoom-out, showing everyone triumphantly singing the final line one more time, as the photo is magically created.
Films — Animation
- Atlantis: The Lost Empire ends with a zoom-out from showing Milo and Kida as, respectively, the new King and Queen of Atlantis watching the stone face of Kida's dead father fly away to join the other stone king faces orbiting the Heart of Atlantis crystal, now moved to high above the city to showing the now resurrected Atlantis, with the various fish vehicles constantly flying around (and one of them flying towards the camera to end the movie before the credits start.) Fun fact: the ending scene is actually made up of a massive 1500-ft. drawing made up of thousands of smaller background drawings, with the main reason for all those fish vehicles flying around being to trick the viewers into thinking that this is all but a single background.
- Bambi II: Subverted at the end, which has the camera zoom out as Bambi and the Great Prince stand in the spot where he first met Bambi's mother, only to cut away to a shot of a small plant growing on their den.
- 101 Dalmatians ends with a shot of the camera panning back from the Radcliffes' flat while the dogs' barking wakes up the entire neighborhood.
- Once Upon a Studio: Used for the Group Picture Ending, starting on Jiminy Cricket standing in Mickey's hand, and then zooming to reveal 500+ Disney characters as they sing the last line of "When You Wish Upon a Star". Afterward, Tinker Bell flies up to the camera and waves her wand, transitioning to a shot of the photo hanging on the wall (most likely in the studio's main reception).
- Recess: School's Out: Inverted right after the prologue, we cut to an aerial view of the town the show takes place in (no name), and go down while the movie title shows up, ending at the school.
- This is played straight at the end as well, after the kids leave the school, the camera goes up to the sky before the cut to black and the Disney Acid Sequence credits, in a Book Ends way.
- Turning Red: Combined with an Orbital Shot during the red moon ritual scene.
Films — Live-Action
- At the end of Shara, the camera zooms out, pans the rooftops, and then the image segues to a view of the city from a helicopter flying higher and higher.
- Eureka by Aoyama Shinji.
- At the end of Live Free or Die Hard, with Creedence's "Fortunate Son" reprising itself in the background.
- Dirty Harry movies end like this.
- The end of The Teaser in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone zooms out to show a huge number of completely identical houses, reinforcing the mundanity of the Muggle world.
- Forrest Gump has this as bookend shots, following a Faux Symbolism feather.
- Chocolat ends with a zoom-out from the statue to an aerial shot of the whole village.
- Last Chance Harvey ends with a typical Flyaway Shot of the happy couple walking away as the camera rises.
- Field of Dreams has this at the end. It starts out with a shot of Ray and his dad playing catch, and zooms away to reveal that a long line of cars is driving towards the field to visit.
- Gangs of New York does this at the end of the fight scene at the beginning, showing all of 1840's New York.
- Men in Black zooms out from the streets of New York City, through the Earth's atmosphere and past the outer reaches of the Milky Way to show that our entire galaxy is being used as the shooter in a marbles game played by space aliens.
- The Skeleton Key ends with a zoom-out of the mansion.
- At the end of The Sound of Music the camera pulls back to give us panorama shot of the mountains.
- Dead Man's Shoes ends with the camera flying out like an angel going to heaven.
- This is the last shot in the British indie Rom Com Love And Other Disasters. As this is a film in part about the writing of a screenplay depicting the events shown in the film, the Flyaway Shot is accompanied by dialog lampshading the utility and inevitability of this filmmaking cliche.
- Pay It Forward ends with a Flyaway Shot, zooming out from the hero's home onto the nightly skyline of Las Vegas.
- The zoom-out shot from Zahra at the end of The Stoning of Soraya M. giving an aerial view of the setting.
- Played for laughs in the final scene
of the British detective story The House in Nightmare Park (1973). The only information the hero detective has about the lost diamonds is that they are buried on the meadow in front of the house. We see him grab a shovel and start digging. Then the camera flies away to give us an aerial shot of the location, revealing that the meadow is huge and the task to find the diamonds impossible.
- Another reversed zoom can be seen at the end of Time Bandits, while the camera's zooming out on Kevin. The remains of Kevin's parents billow smoke backwards.
- Solaris (1972) ends with the camera flying away from the house, giving us an aerial view of the location which turns out to be an isle on the planet Solaris instead of Earth.
- The Bourne Identity ends with the camera giving an aerial shot of the heroes' new location followed by a quick zoom-out before cutting to black.
- The last shot of Minority Report is a zoom out from the cottage of the three precogs to an bird-eye view of the island they are now living on.
Live-Action TV
- M*A*S*H ends with such a shot. Hawkeye is taking a helicopter away from the camp's final location at the end of the war, and we see it from his point of view in the helicopter along with stones spelling out "Goodbye" left by B.J.
- Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace: When Ruyi stands at the top of a building in episode twenty-seven the camera pans back to show most of the Forbidden City.
- This was the end credits sequence for The Big Breakfast, in itself the Title Sequence (a short-range Astronomic Zoom) played in reverse.
- In the Supernatural episode "What Is And What Should Never Be" (S02, Ep20), the camera rises above the cemetery to show the bare tree branches and a river as Dean walks away from his father's grave.
- The end credits of Family Matters zooms out from the Winslow house to show all of Chicago.
Music
- The closing shot of Björk's music video for "It's Oh So Quiet" has her fly away together with the camera.
Radio
- In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978), Fit the Sixth was supposed to end like this, despite radio being a non-visual medium. The Original Hitch-Hiker Radio Scripts tells the behind-the-scenes story:
Douglas was obsessed by the fact that the last scene should sound like a cinematic pull back from the figures of Ford and Arthur until they disappeared completely from view. He demonstrated this theory with much waving around of his arms and knocking over of teacups. Not having any actual cameras to pull back with we finally overcame the problem by bringing up the wind a bit.
