Week 26.30 - Socials Roundup IRIS SHOTS
20 July - 26 July 2026: collapsing the frame into a small circle (or oval, or square)
Week 26.30 posts include Iris Shots from A Fractured Leghorn (1950) The Pit and the Pendulum (1961); Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968-2001); Jungle Fever (1991); and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010).
Meanwhile, we also looked at all the iris transitions in The Acolyte.
The Pit and the Pendulum
Director Roger Corman makes use of this three times, each time irising-in on a character’s eyes.
The first two lead into flashbacks:
Note how after the iris ‘closes’ to black, the flashback sequences start with the black ‘moving away’ like a curtain to reveal more of the scene.
Also note the squaring-off of the iris, the better to really focus our attention on that most expressive strip, the windows to the soul of the characters we’re flashing back with.
The final shot of the film is also a closing iris shot, which uses the same square effect . . . but who and where and why it’s closing is a huge spoiler, so we will leave you to discover that for yourself.
Jungle Fever
When Flipper (Wesley Snipes) wakes up, he finds Angie (Annabella Sciorra) is gone — the iris shot emphasizes how alone he feels, and also provides a visual counterpoint to the ‘zoom out’ which opens the scene.
For more on Jungle Fever, we broke down
how Spike Lee uses a food montage to develop Flipper and Angie’s relationship.
Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood
This standard transition was probably the first time I was aware of an iris shot — for what it’s worth, this show was surely also where I became aware of the possessive apostrophe.
The iris-as-camera-moves transition happens twice, every episode: first as Trolley goes into the tunnel (video 1), then the reversal when Trolley emerges into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe (video 2).
These clips are from different episodes, showing how the stylisation is consistent across the show.
Even with the interlacing (turns out, finding my preferred hi-res clips of a Public Broadcast Service children’s show from the 80s is not exactly a picnic) you can see how much care goes into these shots.
The iris shot is a beautiful stylisation within a show which was often quite simple and more straightforward in its techniques. It’s a fitting choice to take us into and out of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, and the consistency of using this shot every time provides a clear visual line of demarcation, especially important for children to distinguish between Mr. Roger’s real daily life and his Make-Believe neighborhood.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
The shots in Scott Pilgrim go fast, and this iris shot is no exception.
In addition to a visual hat-tip to the graphic novels which spawned it, the iris also immediately makes clear that Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) is talking not about Scott or G-Man, but about Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and helps take the shot of her from out-of-focus-background of G-man’s shot, into her own single.
See also: our companion post on how The Acolyte uses iris shots.
A Fractured Leghorn
Looney Tunes play with iris shots in many ways, from changing their shapes to opening two iris ‘portals’ which allow things to pass back and forth after the scene has presumably drawn to a close.
Here, Foghorn Leghorn simply will not I say will not shut up until the iris shot closes around him . . . and even then!
Last Looks
The iris shot certainly seems to have been far more common in the 1930s than now, but we have done no exhaustive research on this; if you know of any, we’d love to hear!