History Main / DepthDeception

Not to be confused with DepthPerplexion, which is about illogical displays in video game graphics. Compare and contrast DepthOfField.

Not to be confused with DepthPerplexion, which is about illogical displays in video game graphics.

* Played with in Music/{{Squeeze}}'s "Hourglass", involving such things as a row of doorways that get progressively smaller and a phone with a really big receiver.

* ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague''

* ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]'': In "Fearful Symmetry", Professor Hamilton opens a door to reveal the torture device in Supergirl's dreams, a huge tank-like KillerRobot! It trundles towards her and is revealed to be a surgical robot that only comes up to her knees. This is used to show that Supergirl's nightmares are apparently just a stress reaction to having been injured and operated on in a previous episode. [[ProperlyParanoid The truth, however, is quite different.]]

* In an episode of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'', what Team Rocket thought was Ash's Pikachu wandering towards them turned out to be a gigantic robotic Pikachu that was approaching from farther away. "It's Big-achu!"

Not to be confused with DepthPerplexion.

** The episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E9Flatline Flatline]]" plays with this, featuring two-dimensional aliens able to suck three-dimensional beings into the 2D plane. They then disfigure their victims, causing them to be distorted so that one guy is stretched out like spaghetti. While another guy gets diced, but looks like he's 3D from one angle.

* In good visibility conditions, the coast of France is visible from the nearest landfall in England, around Dover and Folkestone on the Kent coast. Looking out over twenty-one miles of sea offers no visual cues and even large ships at sea appear closer than they are. This might explain why long-distance endurance swimmers might have got the idea -- "Hey, I could swim that!"

-->"A thing can sometimes be too close to be seen, as, for instance, a man cannot see himself. There was a man who had a fly in his eye when he looked through the telescope, and he discovered that there was a most incredible dragon in the moon."

%%* [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081226 This is not the moon]] in ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'', and is much much closer than it first seems.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/ThePinkPanther'', the Panther plays a trick on his human foil (who is an astronomer this time) with a puppet show at the end of his telescope that convinces the guy he has discovered aliens on the moon.

* The moon is about 1/400th the diameter of the sun, but is around 400 times closer to earth. As a result, the two appear to be similar sizes. However, the moon is still far enough away that you could fit ''every other planet in our system'' between it and the Earth and still have room to spare. And yet, humans have always believed it was just hanging up there in our sky.

* The Apollo astronauts had trouble judging the sizes of distant objects because of the way light works in space. While binocular vision is great at short distances, it's relatively useless farther away. For farther objects, we take visual cues from the way air gradually absorbs and disperses light, making distant things look fainter. With no air on the moon, that effect doesn't exist. There is footage of Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke bounding off to an apparently small nearby rock. And they keep hopping. And keep hopping. Until they're dwarfed by the gigantic rock that they're standing beside.

* Played with in [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/8p19/ this]] page of ''[[Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja Dr. McNinja]]'' where the Doc says that armoured space suits were originally created to fight space monsters observed through telescopes. Of course, it turned out that they had gotten the scale wrong, and the space monsters are actually planet sized. We pray they continue not to notice us.

* WebVideo/Jerma985 and [[WebVideo/{{STAR}} STAR_]] used forced perspective for comedic effect in the beginning of [[this video https://youtu.be/pDHyR7LwrFI]]. Jerma positioned the camera so that it initially appears that he and STAR_ are sitting on a staircase. It's then revealed that they're actually in an invisible car which proceeds to rapidly accelerate down the street.

* WebVideo/Jerma985 and WebVideo/{{STAR}} used this trope in the beginning of '[=GTA4=]Invisibility Buttheads + More Nonsense' where Jerma positioned the camera so that it initially appeared that STAR_ and Jerma was sitting on a stoop [[spoiler: till STAR_ stepped on the gas pedal of the invisible boatmobile that they were sitting in all along and sent themselves flying about the streets.]]

!!Examples

* In chapter 24 of ''Manga/MonsterMusume'', the harem believes main character Kimihito is doomed to die because of a dullahan's predictions. The final threat is a truck shown in extreme closeup, including the standard "Corner of a vehicle speeds into the frame before a collision" shot. It's actually a remote-controlled toy that comes up to his knee, and the dullahan is just a young girl with an overactive imagination and a taste for melodrama.
* In one episode of ''Anime/LupinIIITheItalianAdventure'', Lupin draws a distorted portrait of himself on the floor of his jail cell that looks like a normal sleeping figure when viewed from a slit in the door. Naturally, it's part of an escape plan.

* Used as a gag in the movie ''Film/TopSecret''. A ringing phone seems to be really close to the camera, until a man picks up the three-foot receiver. The scene evokes classic Hitchcock, who was a fan of this trope but for less comedic reasons.

* There is an Olsen Twins film where they parody this when they visit a little person house, at first when they see it and mention how little it looks, the guy with them says that the house is actually far away.

* In ''Film/RobinHoodPrinceOfThieves'', Azeem the Moor shows Robin the approaching riders through his telescope. Unfamiliar with this technology, Robin starts swinging his sword at the suddenly-close enemies.
-->'''Azeem:''' How did your uneducated kind ever take Jerusalem?

* Used as a gag in ''Film/{{Deadpool|2016}}'', where the title character is apparently just about to run over one of [[BigBad Ajax's]] injured henchmen with a Zamboni:
-->'''Deadpool:''' TELL ME WHERE YOUR FUCKING BOSS IS OR YOU'RE GONNA DIE!\\
''[Camera angle switches, showing that the Zamboni is on the other side of the rink '''slowly''' catching up]''\\
'''Deadpool:''' ...IN FIVE MINUTES!
* In ''Film/ThisIsSpinalTap'', after manager Ian Faith gets the Stonehenge monument for the band and discovers it's 18 ''inches'' high, not 18 ''feet'' high, due to Nigel Tufnel mixing the symbols for feet and inches on the napkin where he draws the design of the monument. When the band performs, and finally the monument appears, as Nigel narrates, the monument appears to remade as the right 18-foot monument and David St. Hubbins is supposedly in awe of it. However, it cuts to show it's actually ''18-inch'' Stonehenge, having never been replaced even after Ian Faith told the designer it's the wrong size. And David was really shocked by how small it was. A little later, just as a confused Nigel sees the monument smaller than the dwarf dancers in the act of the song, he gives a "What the hell" look at Ian and [[YokoOhNo Jeanine]], and David fumes at the debacle.
* In ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2'', Rocket claims the [[spoiler:Sovereign fleet was destroyed by a guy "about (this) big." Gamora says, "One-inch tall?" Rocket replies, "He may be bigger up close."]]

** Some of the uses of the Cutout mechanic in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'' work in this way. One example is in Port Prisma, where at a certain angle, a window awning, the top of a storefront sign, the flat top of a tree, and an otherwise inaccessible second-floor walkway line up to form a stair shape--Mario can then use Cutout to use those objects as if they're a set of stairs to get to that second-floor walkway. It and other examples can be found [[https://www.mariowiki.com/Cutout here]].

%%* [[http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=6756117 You will never look at]] [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Gardevoir]] the same way.

%%* [[http://vimeo.com/6782769 Chop Cup]]. Do not adjust your mind, there is a fault in reality.

* ''WebVideo/{{Techmoan}}'' briefly pulls this trick in his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhoYRo1vRuI review of the Sega Toys Grand Pianist]]. He starts by talking about how he has always found player pianos fascinating, and dreamt of owning one, before showing what appears to be a full-size grand piano playing in his living room... until he cuts away to reveal it's a 1:6 scale toy piano (albeit a very sophisticated electronic toy piano) with a picture of his living room behind it as a backdrop.

%%* [[AbbeyRoadCrossing Abbey Road's iconic cover]] was remade on Perspective 3D Street art with ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' characters at [[http://www.thehighdefinite.com/2012/01/abbey-road-x-peanuts/ Universal Studios Japan]].

* In the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulfrich_effect Pulfrich Effect]], viewing a scene moving horizontally with one eye covered with a dark lens causes that eye to lag. The amount of lag is enough that other eye sees a different enough perspective to trick the brain into seeing depth.

* The city of Grand Rapids. Going downtown, it looks like a fairly large city with a few huge buildings. Then, one goes through it and realizes the buildings are a quarter as large as they appeared to be, and that it doesn't take more than 10 minutes to walk through the entire downtown district.

-->-- '''Marzipan''', ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner''

* In an issue of ''[[ComicBook/RobinSeries Robin]]'', where Robin, Catwoman and the Psyba Rats are all investigating a house built by a rich practical joker, the Psyba Rats notice something odd about one hallway:

* In the Creator/DonRosa story ''"Guardians of the Lost Library"'', Scrooge and the nephews set out to search for the Lost Library of Alexander. Cut to them standing in front of a magnificent view of the lost library.
-->'''Scrooge:''' There it is! The Ancient Library of Alexandria in all it's glory! \\

-->'''Azeem:''' [[WhatAnIdiot How did your uneducated kind ever take Jerusalem?]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/LupinIIITheItalianAdventure'', Lupin draws a distorted portrait of himself on the floor of his jail cell that looks like a normal sleeping figure when viewed from a slit in the door. Naturally, it's part of an escape plan.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'': Scuttle sees Ariel through a spyglass from the wrong end, and shouts to her as if she were far away, even though she is actually a few inches in front of him. When she moves the spyglass away, Scuttle exclaims, [[ComicallyMissingThePoint "Whoa, what a swim!"]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

(''Mountain lion roars and pounces'')\\

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'': Scuttle sees Ariel through a spyglass from the wrong end, and shouts to her as if she were far away, even though she is actually a few inches in front of him. When she moves the spyglass away, Scuttle exclaims, "Whoa, what a swim!"

* The trick is played on the reader in this [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0188.html strip]] of ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''. Played with later on, when it turns out that the tiny piece of starmetal actually ''is'' huge, relatively speaking; the swordsmith says he's never seen a chunk anywhere near that big before.

* In chapter 24 of ''Manga/DailyLifeWithMonsterGirl'', the harem believes main character Kimihito is doomed to die because of a dullahan's predictions. The final threat is a truck shown in extreme closeup, including the standard "Corner of a vehicle speeds into the frame before a collision" shot. It's actually a remote-controlled toy that comes up to his knee, and the dullahan is just a young girl with an overactive imagination and a taste for melodrama.

* Blunt Trauma is attacking Comicbook/{{Empowered}}! No, it was just his action figure Ninjette threw into the air to train Emp.

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl: The Subspace Emissary'': In the cutscene introducing [[{{VideoGame/Pikmin}} Captain Olimar]] and [[VideoGame/FZero Captain Falcon]], the ROB Olimar is fighting made to be huge so that it seems the Captain and his Pikmin are still only an inch tall. Then Captain Falcon shows up then punches out the giant robot.