Irmin Roberts

Biography

Irmin E. Roberts, ASC, was a camerman and visual effects expert.

Roberts is often credited with creating the "Hitchcock zoom" for Vertigo, an unsettling in-camera effect where the camera is pulled back whilst simultaneously zooming in. This effect has a number of names, including "dolly zoom", "dolly out/zoom in" and "trombone shot", and was originally conceived by director Alfred Hitchcock as a way of representing dizziness:

I always remember one night at the Chelsea Arts Ball at Albert Hall in London when I got terribly drunk and I had the sensation that everything was going far away from me. I tried to get that into Rebecca, but they couldn't do it. The viewpoint must be fixed, you see, while the perspective is changed as it stretches lengthwise.
—Alfred Hitchcock

Filmography

With Hitchcock...

• Rear Window (1954) - Special Visual Effects (uncredited)
• Vertigo (1958) - Director of Photography, second unit (uncredited)

See Also...

• articles about Irmin Roberts

Links

• Internet Movie Database
• Wikipedia: Dolly zoom

Notes & References

born 30/Jun/1904 California, USA died 26/Oct/1978 Riverside, California, USA