I do so love Fred Astaire. The dance starts at 1:56 so jump ahead to that.
Now… if you want to see how he did that.
The Ceiling Dance by Fred Astaire
5 thoughts on “The Ceiling Dance by Fred Astaire”
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I do so love Fred Astaire. The dance starts at 1:56 so jump ahead to that.
Now… if you want to see how he did that.
Comments are closed.
How did they do the hat, coat, and chair, I wonder? We see him set his coat and hat down, and dance with the chair before he goes topsey-turvey, indicating that none of them were sewn or bolted-down. Are there really good hidden transitions in there where they swapped those out or attached them?
After he does the spin with the chair, they cut. From there the dance is in two long takes. I assume they screwed the chair to floor. I haven’t tracked the picture, but if I were designing the effect, I would use magnets to attach it.
Multiple takes and decent cuts. As Mary said, the chair was probably screwed or bolted to the floor, and the picture was most likely magnets. If you were going to discard the audio track, or just cut that portion by having him not sing when picking up the picture, you could also use hook and loop fabric (Velcro, but that’s a brand name) or double-sided tape. I would be inclined to want to attach the chair via electromagnet and ferrous legs (have the actor not hang from it) and not use a coat, so the entire scene could be one uninterrupted take. But I don’t like cuts in reality-warping scenes.
‘Can’t sing, dances a little.’
This is wonderful!
I was telling my daughter about this just the other night. I only wish the rest of the movie were nearly as memorable.