Dolly Zoom (vertigo effect, zolly)

If your subject must stay the same size but the world must melt around them, go Dolly Zoom.

A dolly zoom involves physically moving the camera toward or away from the subject (dolly in or out) while simultaneously zooming in the opposite direction. This keeps the subject’s size in the frame constant, but drastically warps the background’s perspective. It creates an unsettling sensation where the world compresses or stretches around a fixed subject. Famously used in Hitchcock's Vertigo and Spielberg’s Jaws.

Subject & Background Behaviour:

Subject: Locked in scale and position
Background: Expands or compresses in depth (perspective shifts dramatically)

Don’t-Confuse-With:

Dolly In/Out: Subject grows or shrinks as camera moves—no zoom to counter it
Zoom In/Out Alone: Lens compresses space but doesn’t shift background perspective dynamically
Rack Focus: Shifts focal depth, not spatial perspective