Contact at 25: The most mind-blowing shot of all time, explained

Robert Zemeckis’ sci-fi classic Contact is 25 years old today, but its masterful mirror shot is timeless. Here’s how they pulled off the most mind-blowing shot of all time. 

Back To The Future, Forest Gump, Romancing The Stone. Just a few classics from filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, a director who seemingly experimented with every genre. Contact, released on July 11 in 1997, blew audiences away with its captivating storytelling and dazzling VFX.

One of the movie’s more outstanding moments has been talked about for decades. Here’s how they did it.

How Robert Zemeckis’ crew created the mirror shot in Contact

We’ve seen Robert Zemeckis amaze audiences with VFX before, like traveling through time in the DeLorean. However, in the case of Contact, you may be surprised to know that the legendary mirror shot is another example of VFX magic.

The shot in question seems fairly simple: a young Ellie (Jena Malone) runs up the stairs in her home, dashing to a medicine cabinet, which reveals we’ve been watching her reflection.

Considered a landmark achievement for blending VFX with immaculate cinematography, the movie’s visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston revealed to vfxblog the intricate details of creating the shot.

Ralston explained: “We were starting to pursue was a very, very early version of what is now called ‘bullet time’, shooting something with stills and using those, like in The Matrix.”

Though The Matrix would release two years later, Ralston and his team were determined to figure the shot out. “Our camera operator, who was also a great Steadicam operator, had to keep running up those stairs with her over and over, and he was dying. I forget how many takes we got of her running up,” Ralston said.

“We added bevels on the mirror, because there was no mirror, and it was just a blue screen stuck to a medicine cabinet mirror that should have been there.”

The movie’s editor, Carin-Anne Strohmaier elaborated on Ralston’s efforts too. Speaking with SteadiShots, she said they had a “Steadicam person with the Vista Vision camera strapped to his chest ran backwards in front of Young Ellie as he goes up the stairs and down the hallway, there was a speed change, we ramp from 24 to 48fps.”

Corridor Crew break down the ‘Mirror’ shot in Contact

In an episode of ‘VFX Artists React’, YouTuber VFX team Corridor Crew give their explanation as to how the shot was crafted. Niko Pueringer broke down the shot, saying “that’s just footage for reaching up to the knob in this real-life version.”

That “real-life version” is the first shot of Jena Malone running towards the camera. The second shot, which is of the mirror frame with a blue screen cover in place of the glass, is then introduced in the edit.

(Skip to 4:17 to see the topic discussed)

“Look at her pointer for example. Her hand position in the mirror is different than her hand position in real-life,” Pueringer added.

Co-host Wren Weichman believes that “the most believable part of this entire shot is the smudge on the actual mirror.” This was added intentionally by Ken Ralston to give the shot a sense of realism.

The mirror shot isn’t the only incredible usage of VFX in Contact, which contains a bevy of innovative filmmaking magic.