Why is it when a character in a film has grown large (such as Ant-Man in the Avengers and Civil War), do all their movements appear slowed down, as if they are moving through water?
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My theory is this: When you film a scale model of something that’s supposed to be large, you need to play the film back more slowly than you recorded it, otherwise it still looks small. The reason is that gravity accelerates things (like water, or dust, or sparks) at the same rate regardless of how large or small it is. That means that if you drop a 1/32 scale model of a boat from a foot above the ground, it will take a small fraction of a second to reach the ground. But if you drop a full size boat from 32 feet, it will take a full second to reach the ground. So if you film a 1/32 scale boat, you have to play the film back at 1/32 the speed you recorded it.
Somebody also mentioned that the weight of things (and their momentum) doesn’t go up linearly with ~~volume~~ height. It goes up linearly with volume. So an ant that is 100x the size of a normal ant doesn’t weigh 100x as much, it weighs, like 10,000x as much or something. That means that if it were to move at the same speed as a tiny ant, it would just come apart. It’s flesh wouldn’t be able to stay together. It would be too heavy and the forces would be to great. So you slow it down.
People get used to seeing this, and that weird slow-motion look starts to mean “large” in your head. So when you want to make something look really big, in the language of film, you make it move slowly.
edit: formatting, correction (thanks barzamsr!)
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