Week 26.10 - TEXAS SWITCH Socials Roundup
02 March - 08 March 2026: Soap Suds and Space Stations and Switcheroos!
Week 26.10 posts include shots from Uptown Girls (2004); Solaris (1972); Wait Until Dark (1967); Pulp Fiction (1994); and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014).
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
To make Steve Rodgers (Chris Evans) look like the Super Solider he is, this scene uses one of the oldest practical effects in the books.
As Evans runs past the camera; the camera pans left to follow Anthony Mackie . . . revealing another runner sprinting off into the distance towards the Washington Monument.
(This scene has also got the Rule of Threes, and a dick joke for the cherry on top.)
Pulp Fiction
After a short phone call, a single shot which follows paranoid Lance (Eric Stoltz) to his front door, where a car careens through the frame; then without cutting the camera follows Lance out to where he finds the car crashed, and the camera continues to move as Lance argues with Vincent (John Travolta) as he drags Mia (Uma Thurman) out onto the lawn.
So how did they guarantee the car could safely crash exactly in place with Travolta and Thurman in it?
Well, they didn’t.
There are two cars — the first driven right past the second (you can see the tire tracks across the lawn in the shot), where Travolta and Thurman are waiting.
That’s one way to do a Texas Switch, but Uptown Girls has its moving stunt as the second half instead . . .
Uptown Girls
As Molly (Brittany Murphy) talks on the phone outside the laundrymat, we see soap suds overflow from her washing machine in the background. When Molly realizes what is happening, she drops the phone and runs . . .
When Brittany Murphy runs offscreen, the camera stays still, allowing the stuntperson to dash in and take the slip-and-fall.
Wait Until Dark
Like Uptown Girls, this Texas switch is to allow a stunt performer to take the fall!
Roat (Alan Arkin) stabs Mike (Richard Crenna), steps through the door, pauses menacingly, then the camera follows his turn as he pushes the stuntie down the steps, Crenna having taken that pause to get out of shot.
You can see they *could* have used a cut to Susy (Audrey Hepburn) a bit later, in case the switch didn’t work, but since it did, it’s much more impressive to show Mike staggering to the side then getting pushed all within one moving medium shot.
Solaris
This oner involves a double Texas Switch!
When the camera follows Kelvin (Donatas Banionis), Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk) is replaced by an actor with different arm prosthetics; after Kelvin cleans the supernaturally-healed wound, Natalya switches back in to complete the illusion.
The oner makes the whole scene feel as odd to us as it does to Kelvin; effective, evocative work.
For more on Solaris’s use of oners, check this out.
And for a Texas Switch involving a digital double, see
our breakdown of Game Night’s classic egg scene!