Gaussian Girl: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

When filmed, the Gaussian Girl is shot through a soft-focus filter, a piece of translucent plastic or a quick smear of Vaseline, depending on the director's preference. This gives a soft, glowing aura to her, and smooths out any unappealing pores or lines on her face. The result makes her look nothing short of ethereal. If you can't tell a soft-focus shot, look at all of the light sources around her; if they have a starry-glare look, it's soft focus.

A more limited, so to speak, application of the technique was used during the days of the [[Hays Code]] to make sure that women in low-cut dresses weren't displaying their cleavage in too much detail, thus corrupting innocent youth. A limited portion of gauze or stocking, held in a frame, could be used to blur the "offending" anatomy and render it suitable for viewers.

 

 

Compare [[Bishie Sparkle]].

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* ''[[Naruto]]'' sometimes fantasized Sakura in this manner in a few episodes.

* ''[[Last Exile]]'', which generally isn't enamored of [[False Camera Effects]], does this with a ''vanship'' at one point.

* In the second ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' special, this effect is used on a shot of Gabite when Sunflora has been hit with Attract.

* Particularly noticeable in ''[[Omamori Himari]]'''s eyecatches.

* Possibly the earliest anime use could have been in ''[[Space Battleship Yamato]]'' (aka ''[[Star Blazers]]''). Queen Starsha typically appeared this way, even in scenes where she was having a normal conversation. Trelaina appeared this way througout The Comet Empire series. In fact, most of the willowy women in Leijii Matsumoto anime often appear this way: Maetel ([[Galaxy Express 999]]), Maya ([[Captain Harlock|Arcadia of My Youth]]), and Queen Millenia. Emeraldas seems to be an interesting exception to this trope, probably because she is supposed to be seen as a female version of Captain Harlock.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

 

== [[Film]] ==

* Used in the first shot of the love interest in ''[[Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow]]''. (On the other hand, much of the film seems to be shot like this...)

* No less than [[Alfred Hitchcock]] used it in ''[[Vertigo]]'', as handy shorthand for "[[Love At First Sight]]". This was also the film that pioneered the much-less-cliched [[Vertigo Effect]], just to show that there's highs and lows to cinematic creativity.

* Once Doris Day got a few lines on her face, she had a contract that all her closeups had to be filmed this way. It's especially noticeable when Rock Hudson is still in sharp focus, but she's fuzzy and glowing.

* In ''[[WALL-E]]'', Eve not only gets this treatment at times, but actually ''lives'' it. Her semi-translucent white plastic body scatters light, giving her an innately soft outline.

* Sophie Maes first appears this way in the film version of ''[[How To Lose Friends And Influence People]]''.

* Parodied with Lady Helen Port-Huntley and Narcissa in ''The Saddest Music in the World''.

* One or two close-ups of Saunders in ''[[Mr. Smith Goes to Washington]]'', but it's mainly used to show ''her'' becoming captivated by Smith's idealism.

* Used in ''[[Telstar]]'' when Joe first sees Heinz.

* In ''[[West Side Story]]'', when Tony and Maria both see eachother for the first time, the edges of the frame are noticeably blurred (though, this is more to create the effect that they each have eyes only for one another)

* ''Sextette'', a Mae West vehicle from 1978, noticeably used this technique in all of her scenes to try and portray her as a cougary seductress (her current love interest was played by Timothy Dalton). Keep in mind she was in her ''eighties''. [[Squick|It didn't help.]]

* Lois Lane gets this treatment in the first ''[[Superman]]'' movie.

* Pretty much all of ''[[Equilibrium]]'' is shot in a very harsh, very cold light, to drive home the concept of emotionless impersonality, except for [[Christian Bale|John Preston]]'s wife, who not only gets the gaussian treatment, but shots of her include actual colours, as opposed to the slightly desaturated/bleached out effect of Librium as a whole. There's even a sequence (as she's being arrested for sense-crime) in which she shares a shot with and kisses her husband as she's dragged away. Her side of the screen? Sparkly, glowy, soft-focus. His side? Cold, harsh, slightly desaturated hard focus. Even in the middle of the kiss.

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

** In cases of extreme infatuation, Kirk isn't in focus either.

* Italian politician and owner of several TV stations Silvio Berlusconi had himself filmed through a nylon stocking, although definitely not a girl. Comedians joked he should've put the nylon stocking over his face instead.

* In ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', a sketch involved Michael Moore and Phil Donahue contacting Barbra Streisand by cable. Her image is shown with a super-strong Gaussian Blur, as they comment on how young she still looks.

** And don't forget the [[Elizabeth Taylor]]'s White Diamonds ad-parody sketch featuring Sally Fields behind about four layers of gauze.

** Used when the girls first meet their mother in the first season.

** In the last episode, used on Patty and Penny, because both actresses were about 25 years older than the age they were playing.

** Also used in older episodes, along with massive bouquets of flowers, for Samantha Bee's interviews, to parody Barbara Walters.

** Also used on ''[[The Colbert Report]]'' when Stephen [http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/91152/august-08-2007/tina-brown interviewed] the author of [[Narm|yet another book about Princess Diana]].

* The sequences within the Fortress of Solitude in ''[[Smallville]]'' all get a bit gaussian...

* The Kirk version is referenced by Jeff from ''[[Coupling]]'', in the page quotation.

* ''[[Top Gear]]'''s Jeremy Clarkson attempted to create the romantic soft focus on a ''car'' by smearing vaseline on the camera lens. [[Hilarity Ensues|It didn't go well]].

* ''[[The New Adventures of Old Christine]]'' seemed to use this in every episode.

 

== Music ==

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** Parodied in [http://gigaville.com/comic.php?id=283 this page] of the [[Web Comic]] [[The Last Days of Foxhound]].

** Also found in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' 3, it is done for comedy in the Secret Theater "He's Still Got It," in which The End sees EVA this way.

** And to add on to that, Cloud ''himself'' later appears fully gaussianed in the sunlight.

* In ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', Joker [[Discussed Trope|mentions this trope]] in one of the dialogue sequences about how he and [[AI|EDI]] are getting along.

'''Joker''': It's just mad that all of its footage looks like a dream sequence. }}

 

* Parodied twice in ''[[Futurama]]''. Zoidberg spots a lobster in a tank this way ([[Squick|and ends up leaving the bar with it]]) in an early episode, ''Love's Labours Lost in Space'', back before [[Flanderization]] had rendered him the perennial loveless loser. And in the episode "Bendless Love", when Bender first sees Anglelyne, she appears out of focus - until the foreman orders the dirty glass in front of her removed.

** This is also inverted as the glass is curved, distorting and muting her curvy body.

** And then there's Homer's experience with boudoir photography, in which the photographer smears Vaseline on the lens with a ''trowel'' ("Light is not your friend").

* ''[[Rio]]'' repeatedly applies this to Jewel (a female macaw; the protagonist's a male one.) It's later used on Linda, but only when she wears a macaw costume.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Rule of Glamorous]]

[[Category:Camera Tricks]]