So Here’s What Got Me Curious
Honestly, it kinda bugged me watching The Umbrella Academy. Aidan Gallagher plays Five, right? Super talented kid. But man, sometimes he looked really short next to the others, especially in group scenes. I knew he wasn’t super tall, but the camera seemed to shrink him even more. I had to figure out why the heck that happens.
My Couch Potato Investigation Begins
Started simple. I grabbed my phone and pulled up random shots from the show on YouTube. Paused them, looked real close. Noticed a couple things right away:
- Camera angles were low often, looking up at people. That usually makes folks look bigger, not smaller!
- Five is hardly ever alone in the frame. He’s almost always shoved next to taller actors like Robert Sheehan (Klaus) or Tom Hopper (Luther).
- Sometimes the shot made him look tucked behind someone’s shoulder.
Time to Break Out the Props (AKA My Messy Apartment)
Okay, theories forming. Needed to test ’em without fancy gear. Here’s the cheap seat setup:
- Tall lamp (my pretend “Tom Hopper/Luther”).
- A small potted plant (my “Aidan Gallagher/Five”).
- My trusty phone camera.
- A chair for getting high angles.
The Experiments
First try: Put the lamp and the plant side-by-side. Clicked a normal photo, kinda eye level. Sure, the lamp was taller, but the difference didn’t look HUGE. Plant just looked like a normal short plant next to a tall lamp.
Second try: Got down LOW. Like, floor level. Pointed the camera UP at both of them. Boom! The lamp suddenly looked like a friggin’ giant! It dominated the whole shot. The poor plant? Looked tiny and kind of pushed to the bottom corner, insignificant. Making the camera look UP at stuff makes foreground objects seem bigger and closer, pushing smaller background objects down and making them look even smaller. If Five is positioned slightly behind or even just framed low by that upward look, he shrinks.
Third try: Pulled the plant back a little bit, putting it slightly behind the lamp base. Shot from a normal standing position. The lamp was now clearly in front, blocking part of the plant. The plant suddenly seemed even smaller than in the first test. Simple trick: someone physically closer to the camera blocks part of someone further away and makes the blocked person look smaller and less significant.
Fourth try: Got up on the chair. Shot DOWN on the plant and the lamp. Opposite effect! Now the plant looked way more prominent, way less tiny. The lamp’s height wasn’t nearly as overwhelming from above. Seems shooting down can actually help a shorter subject!
Connecting the Dots Back to Five
So what’s the answer? It ain’t magic, just clever (or sometimes just practical) filming tricks.
- Putting him with giants: Standing him next to Robert Sheehan (who’s lanky) or especially Tom Hopper (who’s huge) exaggerates his height difference. The human eye focuses on the comparison.
- Shooting up: Using low angles for dramatic effect (making Luther imposing, making the Academy feel grand) unintentionally squashes characters placed lower in the frame. Guess who often ends up lower? The shorter actor.
- Blocking him partially: Even just having taller actors slightly in front partially blocks his presence, making him seem even smaller.
- Camera lenses too: While I couldn’t perfectly test this, the wide-ish lenses often used for group scenes indoors? They stretch the sides a bit. This can sometimes make the person in the middle look slightly compressed vertically.
Wrapping It Up Plain and Simple
It all clicked. Aidan Gallagher isn’t vanishing, but the way they shoot The Umbrella Academy – constantly surrounding Five with taller actors, frequently using low camera angles for that dramatic comic-book feel, and placing him slightly behind or lower in frame sometimes – creates a perfect visual illusion. My plant experiments proved the basic physics of it! Makes him look shorter on screen than he probably does walking down the street alone. Just the camera playing tricks. Mystery solved with a lamp, a plant, and my shaky phone hands.
