Not Thriving: Zoom

Zoom is defined as a change in the Focal Length of the lens during a shot. The page has no on-page examples in spite of being 16 years old. For this reason, you might expect it to be categorized as No On-Page Examples, but it isn't. I suspect that the reason there are no on-page examples is that Zoom is ironically an Omnipresent Trope. In nearly every film, the camera will zoom in or out at least once. Thus, it might not be possible or desirable to create a comprehensive list of every film that contains a zoom.

To determine whether the page needs crosswicking as opposed to a TRS thread, I did a Wick Check, checking all 50 wicks. It turns out that there are only 12 examples of Zoom in trope lists, and none of them have full context. (If you're more forgiving and say that there's full context as long as an example can't be confused for something like Super-Speed, there are still only 4 examples of Zoom with full context.)

One solution could be to make this page a Definition-Only Page, due to being too common. However, in my wick check, nobody gave a full definition of what "zoom" means, except for where that served the purpose of the page itself. At best, they said it was something that could be done "in" or "out" with a camera. This suggests that everybody knows (or at least thinks they know) what the word "zoom" means, so there wouldn't be much demand for a definition-only page.

Another option could be to put this page on No On-Page Examples, due to being too common. This would allow people to write examples of Zoom on work pages. However, I'd still want to remove all the examples of Zoom that are currently on work pages, due to the lack of context.

A third option could be to cut Zoom and send it to the Trope Idea Salvage Yard. This would allow someone to make a TLP draft if they can come up with enough examples. However, if you agree that Zoom is an Omnipresent Trope, this could be a bad idea.

Alternatively, the Zoom page could simply be cut. Anyone who doesn't know what the word "zoom" means could consult a dictionary instead.

1. Arsène Lupin (2004) (actually an example of Epic Tracking Shot; doesn't necessarily mean that the focal length of the camera changed)

• Zoom: There's a big one right after the Time Skip, moving closer from a view of the cruise ship at a distance on the sea all the way to Arsène's neck in the middle of a party onboard, including through a porthole.

2. The Gifted S2E14 "calaMity" (actually an example of Epic Tracking Shot; doesn't necessarily mean that the focal length of the camera changed)

• Zoom: After Caitlin shoots a few rounds at the cops, the camera zooms through one of the gunshot holes through the windshield to show her face as she readies herself to ram through the police car barricade.

3. Particle Fiction (webcomics aren't filmed, so there couldn't be a camera zooming in)

• Zoom / Eye Open: The opening of Issue #5 mixes this with Flash Back and Dream Sequence, eventually zooming in onto the opening eyes of Gray after decades of sleep.

1. The Damned (1969)

• Zooms: The film is full of them, purportedly to lend an uneasy and frantic air to the proceedings.

2. Time of the Apes

• Zoom: Done to an absurd degree in numerous scenes.

3. Mystery Science Theater 3000 S11 E09: Yongary

• Zoom:
  Crow: Hmm, the camera's saying this is exciting, but what's on-screen is clearly not.

1. Supernatural S 02 E 20 What Is And What Should Never Be

• Zoom: When Dean is talking to the professor, the camera zooms in quickly on four illustrations of djinn accompanied by a swooshing sound. Each image becomes desaturated to the point of almost being completely white before disappearing. The images include a figure wearing a yellow hat with red wings that is in the sky surrounded by yellow swirls, a sketch of a being wearing a turban surrounded by notes in Arabic, a bearded character wearing a helmet who has four wings, and a painting of six males in turbans around a lamp surrounded by blue flames.

1. SCTV

• Zoom: Their method of creating cheap "3D" effects for their movies, or rather simply just thrusting and pulling away objects from the camera.

2. SCTV

• Zoom In Zoom Out: A method of simulating "3-D" effects on the cheap. Averted by the makers of the "Dr. Tongue" series, who were apparently too cheap or incompetent even for that. Instead, the actors simply thrust objects toward the camera, then pulled them back again, to the tune of zoom-in-zoom-out music.

1. Skiedude

• Zoom: Skiedude has this ability to zoom his vision in when he plays Minecraft.
  • Can also be considered his Enhance Button.

2. Supernatural S 08 E 04 Bitten

• Zoom: For unclear reasons, when Kate uses her zoom lens to get a better shot of Dean talking to the coroner, she can not only see them better but can hear them better as well.
  • It might be a stylistic choice on Kate's part to increase the volume as the shot zooms in.

3. Hitman 3

• Photo Mode: The game has a camera item that only exists to function as a photo mode from 47's first-person view (case in point, the last level strips you of all items except for the camera). It has color filter options, a Depth of Field effect to blur the background, and up to 4x zoom. It can also be used to scope out areas you haven't visited yet, functioning like a sniper scope.

1. The '70s

• In addition, while Saturday Morning Cartoons, increasingly artistically shackled by pressure from parents' groups, were practically the only choices for kids on American commercial TV, PBS had its glory years with classic kids educational shows like Sesame Street, Zoom and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

1. Astronomic Zoom
Subtrope of Epic Tracking Shot and Zoom.
2. Depth of Field

• Hitman 3: There's a camera item that serves as a first-person view Photo Mode necessary for passing the last level. It includes a depth-of-field filter to blur the background that can get as shallow as a 4x zoom.

3. Kabuki Sounds
Sounds meant to evoke Japanese traditional performances:

• Yoo~ooh. A call to announce a character, often accompanied by a dramatic zoom or "Super Sentai" Stance.

4. Murder-Suicide

• Exaggerated Trope for laughs: At the end of Penn and Teller Get Killed, Teller accidentally kills Penn, then shoots himself. A guy who was just an actor, hired by Penn to play a trick on Teller to make it look like someone was trying to kill Penn, realizes that What With One Thing And Another there was no proof that it wasn't him, so he kills himself. Then his friend and a friend of his show up, whom he had invited to party with P&T after the planned Reveal to Teller. They kill themselves because there was nothing to prove that they didn't do it. Then the cops come in, see the situation, and off themselves too. A long Zoom Out occurs, as more and more people come in, discover all the dead bodies, and shoot themselves. We hear these rather than see them. The End.

5. You Got HaruhiRolled!

• Fujiwara and Kuyou have a conversation in Ubbi Dubbi at one point.

6. High Plains Drifter

• Wham Shot: While it doesn't exactly clear up the mystery of who The Stranger is, the dolly shot and zoom in the final scene showing Marshal Jim Duncan's name on the gravestone Mordecai just finished engraving after The Stranger tells him that he does in fact know The Stranger's name establishes at the very least that The Stranger did indeed come to Lago to avenge Duncan's death.

7. Mystery Science Theater 3000 S09 E05: The Deadly Bees

• Previously on…: The first pre-movie segment thoroughly parodies this trope, through multiple genres and stock Cliffhanger scenarios. "Previously on the Satellite of Love..."
  Mike: (pointing a gun offscreen, Dramatic Wind whipping his trenchcoat back) Don't make me shoot you... (dramatic zoom) CROOOOOWWWWW!!!!

8. Low In On Page Examples Pre 2010 Tropes

• Zoom: 29 wicks

9. The Afterparty

• Genre Roulette: The show is overall a mystery, but each testimony is framed as a different genre.
  • Season 2:
    • Vivian: An 80's Telenovela, replete with constant zooming, about her, Ulysses, and Feng's meeting under the weeping willow.

10. Tropes T to Z

• Zoom

1. Dolly
Replaced in almost all video production by the smooth-operating power zoom lens.
2. False Camera Effects

• The new Battlestar Galactica has this by the truckloads. Nearly every scene "shot" in space has at least one shot with fake camera effects added to make it seem as though a real cameraman was trying to keep up with the action. Cue the Shaky Cam, Lens Flare, focus adjustments, and various zooming levels as though scanning for objects to pay attention to.

3. In-Camera Effects
In-Camera effects include using filters like the Gaussian Girl effect, mattes, or lighting artifacts, like lens flares; Camera Tricks like zooms, pans, Forced Perspective, and dolly shots; time/speed effects like time-lapse, slow- or fast-motion, reverse motion, stop-tricks or speed ramping; or specialty films like infrared or negative image.
4. Motion Parallax
Compare Squigglevision, giving the illusion of movement through exaggerated Line Boil, and Kinestasis, the panning and zooming of the camera over a still image to add some motion.
5. Multi-Take Cut

• Strong Bad Email: Wildly-changing cuts, zoom-ins, and camera angles are heavily abused in the Cheat's attempt at "Youth Through Editing" in "Looking Old".

6. Plummet Perspective

• Once inverted in Goblins (see here): We start with a monster eating up a red liquid. Some Zoom outs, and we see the "big monster" is just a bug (albeit a big one, it seems). More zoom outs, and we see more of the red liquid drop down. Another zoom out, and we see it's indeed blood. Another one, it's coming from a dead goblin on a ledge several meters high, who apparently fell to death. Another zoom out, and the goblin has become a tiny figure. Another one, and he's barely visible. Another one, and even the trees on the ground are barely visible. And that's not the last one: All in all, this strip had twelve(!) panels, and each one zooms out.

7. Staggered Zoom Instead of a standard zoom, use three or more shots, varying in distance but focused on the same point, cut together rapidly. 8. Supernatural Gold Eyes

• As the various news groups gather for a melee in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, Mac Tannon shows up and turns into a "were-hyena". The first clue he's about to transform is the camera zooming in on his eyes as they turn mostly yellow.

9. The Musical

• Film can zoom in and pan out to control the audience's focus.

10. Vertigo Effect 11. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

• Running Gag: A visual one: every time his Motor Mouth tendencies take over (pretty much every speech of more than two sentences), the game camera will begin a slow Zoom towards him.

12. Road to Perdition

• Kubrick Stare: Connor gets a very unsettling one after the "apology" scene, complete with a slow zoom-in and a Rack Focus to bring his face into detail.

13. Kung Pow! Enter the Fist

• The absurd amount of zoom-ins and zoom-outs at the beginning when Chosen One faces a masked bad guy and his minions.

14. Total War: Warhammer II

• Zoom-in towards a city with low public order and you'll hear voices (presumably the people of the city) complaining about their conditions.

15. The Ken Burns Effect
Panning and zooming the camera over a still image to add some motion.
16. Corner Gas S 1 E 05 Grad 68

• Motion Parallax: The "at the top of the water tower" background is produced by a motion parallax layer between the tower proper and the scenery behind it. It's a tad uncoordinated with the zoom, though.

17. Strong Bad Email E 164 Looking Old

• Multi-Take Cut: Wildly-changing cuts, zoom-ins, and camera angles are heavily abused in the Cheat's attempt at "Youth Through Editing".

18. Supernatural S 02 E 08 Crossroad Blues

• Natural Spotlight: The light shines on the golden cross of the woman holding Robert Johnson as he dies. This is combined with a zoom in on the cross. This may suggest the salvation denied to him, or it could signify the crossroad.

19. Supernatural S02 E21 “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One”

• Chekhov's Gun: After Ash hangs up the phone, a nervous Ash wipes his face and then looks at his watch. The camera zooms in on Ash's Nixon Super Hero watch, which we will see again... to ID his corpse.

20. TETOCUS 1 E 7 The Costly Conundrum Of The Calamitous Claylossus

• Shout-Out: Earlier in the episode, it's shown that Mr. Krupp has a shark in his fish tank. Then during Miss Anthrope's usual interruption, she tells him his shark has disappeared, leading to a familiar Oh, Crap! reaction, complete with Dolly Zoom.

21. Cheap Seats
The show featured several recurring segments:
* "Do You Care?", used in every single episode, in which the brothers provide obscure facts about the show's subject or participants — in extreme facial close-up, preceded by a dizzyingly fast zoom-in.

• "The Cheapies", in which awards are granted for outrageous categories, like "Least Valuable Celebrity" and "Weakest Drop".
• "What to Look For" and "What Got Cut", which show clips that the Sklar brothers find ironic or funny. "Look For" acted as a preview for the show, and "Cut" highlighted things that got clipped for time.

22. Corner Gas

• Motion Parallax: The "at the top of the water tower" background in "Grad 68" is produced by a motion parallax layer between the tower proper and the scenery behind. It's a tad uncoordinated with the zoom, though.

23. English Country Tune

• Skybox: An interesting take. Since the world/level select screens are composed of interconnected orbs floating around a center point and selecting one orb zooms the camera into it, the orb now serves as a background for the puzzle.

24. Corner Gas

• Special Effect Failure:
  • In “Grad ‘68”, the Chroma Key effect used in the scene with Karen and Davis on top of the water tower is rather cheap-looking and unconvincing. The matte lines are noticeably wobbly and the parallax with the background is off when the camera zooms out.

1. Camera Tricks

• Zoom: Changing the Focal Length of the camera.

2. ZOOM
The trope: Changing the Focal Length of the camera.
3. Focal Length
The degree of magnification in a camera lens. If it is adjustable, then the lens can zoom.