History Main / CircularDrive

* ''Film/{{Airplane}}'': Played for laughs, of course: The circle is obvious, the film is sped up, and as it goes on more and more incongruous vehicles (including a beer truck, a wiener mobile and a farm tractor) [[ThrowItIn get added in]].

* The famous long dolly shot that opens Creator/AkiraKurosawa's ''Film/{{Rashomon}}'' was filmed by having the actor walk a figure eight path that crossed the dolly tracks twice. Clever framing makes it look like the camera is following the woodcutter through the forest but he's actually walking around it.

* An in-Universe example from ''Series/DadsArmy'' where the platoon was on guard at a local Italian POW camp and had to conceal the fact that most of the prisoners had temporarily escaped (they were working for Private Walker and would be back before dawn). They got the remaining ones to jog through their hut over and over again while the authorities did a headcount.

[[folder:Film]]

* Used twice in the opening credit sequence of ''Series/HogansHeroes'' with running prisoners and guards falling out for a midnight rollcall. The camera is aimed at their feet to hide the fact that it's the same men both times.

* In ''Animation/SpaceThunderKids'', a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voaK8wL3vz4 footage of the tanks]] is blatantly the same couple of frames recycled for over a minute.

* ''Film/{{Flyboys}}'': The same generic, red CGI Fokker Dr.1 triplane appears muliple times, often within the same scene.

* An similar example occurs in an episode of Series/HogansHeroes where the prisoners loop into a truck they are being loaded into in order to convince their guard, the loveable but hapless Sergeant Schultz that he is bringing full numbers home to the camp. Though Schultz does think he has seen some of the prisoners before, he is easily convinced otherwise.

* Parodied in the Literature/{{Discworld}} novel ''Discworld/MovingPictures''.

Alien Invasion. Natural Disaster. Kaiju attack. Big catastrophes naturally require a big response, and what better way to depict a big response then to show them mobilizing an entire army? There's only one problem: you can only afford twenty extras, two jeeps and three trucks... and [[MyCarHatesMe one of those won't start.]]

Pretty much a DeadHorseTrope these days unless deliberately played for laughs. The modern equivalent is repeating the same airplane, boat or whatever multiple times using CGI. For a similar technique used in animation, see WraparoundBackground.

* Used in the infamously bad ''Animation/SpaceThunderKids'' where the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voaK8wL3vz4 footage of the tanks]] is blatantly the same couple of frames recycled for over a minute.

[[folder: Film ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* Speaking of rats, in his first novel Literature/TheStainlessSteelRat has apparently escaped a police dragnet and is hiding in a freighting company warehouse, when he suddenly realises that a truck he just saw entering the warehouse is the same one he saw exiting a short time before. [[OhCrap This can only mean the police have the warehouse sealed off]] and are redirecting the trucks back inside [[LuredIntoATrap keep up the illusion that business is going on as usual]].

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' uses this during shots where citizens are seen from afar, such as on the monitors in Kleiner's lab: the stream of citizens walking on the security cameras are actually the same low-resolution model that respawns back at the start point as soon as it walks off-screen.

[[folder: Western Animation]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* This was a huge part of the traditional Victory Day military parade in the Soviet Union. Planes, for example, would fly over Red Square, fly out of the Moscow airspace, and then loop around for another flyover. Furthermore, there was a very large unit of the Soviet military devoted solely to parading on important national days. This lead to [[RedScare exaggerated assessments of Soviet strength]] that weren't corrected until the U2 spyplane was put into use.

* Circular Drive-style deceptions were popular with the western Allies in WWII, originating with the British in the Western Desert and later embraced wholeheartedly by the U.S. Army and climaxing in an entire false invasion force off of Calais on D-Day. Literal {{Circular Drive}}s were a popular part of these deceptions, with trucks full of mannequins and fake insignia. Since allied trucks typically had tarps over their cargo beds two soldiers sitting next to the tailgate would often be enough to convince most observers who'd naturally assume that truck was full. Why send a whole truck just to carry two men?

* This was a huge part of the traditional Victory Day military parade in the Soviet Union. Planes, for example, would fly over Red Square, fly out of the Moscow airspace, and then loop around for another flyover. Furthermore, there was a very large unit of the Soviet military devoted solely to parading on important national days.

* The Battle of Detroit in August 1812 famously resulted in an American surrender because of this technique. The American defenders of the fort outnumbered the British and their native allies by 2,500 to 1,300, and had 30 guns compared to the 10 the British had brought. Isaac Brock had his militia units wear discarded uniforms of his regular troops, convincing the Americans there were more regulars than there were and had his troops very visibly march into entrenchments around the fort, only to sneak away out of sight and march back in taking up different positions, repeatedly. During meals, in view of the American garrison, troops would line up to receive a bowl of beans, move back into the camp out of sight, dump the beans in another pot, and rejoin the line. Tecumseh likewise paraded his entire force of roughly 600 warriors multiple times through a gap in the trees where the Americans inside the fort could see them, convincing the defenders they were facing thousands of Native warriors in addition to thousands of British regulars. General Hull, the American commander, and his troops were so thoroughly conned that minutes into a British bombardment, Hull surrendered Detroit. Total casualties of the battle were 7 killed on the American side and 2,493 captured, while the British had 2 wounded.

* Circular Drive-style deceptions were popular with the western Allies in WWII, originating with the British in the Western Desert and later embraced wholeheartedly by the U.S. Army and climaxing in an entire false invasion force off of Calais on D-Day. Literal {{Circular Drive}}s were a popular part of these deceptions, with trucks full of mannequins and fake insignia. Since allied trucks typically had tarps over their cargo beds two soldiers sitting next to the tailgate would often be enough to convince most observers who'd naturally assume that truck was full. Why send a whole truck just to carry two men?.

* In-movie variation in ''{{Help}}'' - in the Bahamas, the police chief welcomes the Scotland Yard detective and presents a squad of policemen for inspection - the squad consists of only four men, the last in the row ducking and heading to the front of the row as the other two pass by.

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