VOTD: Go Behind The Scenes Of The Incredible Camera Movements Of 'La La Land'

The Oscar nominations this past week gave a lot of love to La La Land to the tune of 14 nominations, tying the record for the most nominations received by a single film. It remains to be seen whether or not the modern musical can sweep every category it's nominated for like it did at the Golden Globes, but its chances of taking home more than a few trophies are very good.

If there's any doubt in your mind that La La Land is a stunning achievement in cinema, you may want to check out a batch of behind the scenes videos revealed by the film's steadicam operator. They show off how impressive some of the camera movements are on set, and you might even be surprised to learn that one particular sequence didn't feature any digital trickery to pull off.

Check out the La La Land behind the scenes videos after the jump.

Here's the first one from the energetic opening sequence of the movie on the freeway:

#bts #panavision #anamorphic #shootfilm #kodak #lalaland #cameradept #wheelsofsteel #technocrane

A video posted by Ari Robbins SOC (@steadijew) on

Then there's this crane shot from "Someone in the Crowd" on the streets of Los Angeles:

#ridedemcranes #panavision #tiffen #steadicam #cameradept #lalaland #bts #whenifly #isawyourhousefromhere #foryourconsiderstion A video posted by Ari Robbins SOC (@steadijew) on

But this is the one that I was surprised turned out to be a practical whip pan instead of digitally completed:

#lalaland #whippan #iwhipmycambackandforth #panavision #cameradept #doitlive #dreamscometrue

A video posted by Ari Robbins SOC (@steadijew) on

It might not seem all that impressive to do a whip pan like that, but when you're dealing with those big cameras, moving them quickly like that and still getting the right shot with each whip pan is can be extremely difficult. And that's director Damien Chazelle tapping him on the shoulder for the perfect timing of each whip pan.

The man behind the camera is Ari Robbins, and you can check out his IMDb to see the other extensive camera work he's done. Thanks to our own David Chen for bringing this to our attention from his own blog.