Distance Learning Film: Camera Movement
Victoria
Over the last few days, we have looked at the importance of camerawork in a film as a means of enhancing the art of visual storytelling. We started off with the basics of camera shots, then went into the importance of angling the camera. Today, we’re tossing movement into that equation. If you want to know why movement is essential to most films (unless stillness is favoured by a filmmaker), we’ll have to zip back to the earliest days of film. When cinema started, cameras weren’t nearly as advanced as they are now. For the most part, cameras stayed in one spot and captured exactly what was in front of them. This resulted in films that feel frozen by today’s standard. Here’s an entire film: The Great Train Robbery.
Did you notice how jarring this film feels in today’s world (one full of movement and fluidity)? While still a groundbreaking work for its time, clearly the need for movement in film was understood, and the capabilities of cinema were slowly realized. Things didn’t have to be confined like a stage or a photograph. Stories could be told through shifting perspectives. If a camera is our eye, then we also needed a neck to be able to turn and tilt our heads, as well as feet to move forward or backward. Movement in film adds life to visual storytelling. Here are the many ways that is achievable.
Static Shot
The very first type of shot ever achieved is the static shot. Basically, the camera doesn’t move. It won’t even wobble. It is fixed in one spot, without panning or zooming of any sort. At the start of the history of filmmaking, cameras were way less functional than they are now, so every film until a point was made up of static shots. This can place an emphasis on what is on screen, rather than allowing the camera as a moving tool to create fluidity. This can also prove useful for quick shots, like extreme close ups, scenic captures, and the focuses of an emotional reaction. If placed in a sequence of cuts, the static nature of this type of shot won’t be distracting, and will allow the series of cuts to let the focal points take the reins.
If you choose to shoot an entire scene statically — especially well after the creation of film — you may get a sequence like the following clip from Tokyo Story. Instead of tilting, panning, or zooming, the scene uses cuts to change perspectives, offering limitations to the visual narrative structure. Notice the lack of breath the camera has, but how enhanced the subjects are when captured by this frozen camera. Also, compare this scene to The Great Train Robbery above. You may see that deliberate stillness — with the proper framing of a setting and/or subject — feels much more different to the limitations in the earlier days of cinema.
Zoom
Zooming is a basic addition to a static shot, allowing a scene to focus or pull away from a subject. There are two types of zooms: the zoom-in, and the zoom-out.
The zoom-in is mainly used to pull into a character, object, or other focal point. Maybe this is used to frame a realization, or place emphasis on what an object or place represents. You essentially cut out the rest of the world by zooming into a particular point, as they become the prominent focus of the close up. The zoom can be fast enough to cause a rush — like a realization — or slow to instil dread or fear. Going closer into a shot does cut off the breathe of a scene, so zooming in can create uneasiness when used right as well.
In this Once Upon a Time in America clip, the character is seeing someone he loves leave on a train, and the zoom-in captures the very moment he notices. The shots of the train actually feature zoom-outs, probably to make the departure seem much more dramatic.
On the other hand, a zoom-out can do much more than that. Going from a close up or medium shot to a wider perspective allows you to slowly see the surroundings of a scene unravel. This also provides more breathing room, rather than claustrophobically being smushed up against a focal point. While zooming in can cause you to be attached to a character or object, zooming out reveals the large nature of a moment. For example, if a scene where a mouse is hunting for cheese in a maze is being shot, you can approach this in two ways. You can have the shot zoom in on the mouse, as it gloriously finds that cheese (or nervously gets lost), thus allowing audiences to realize the circumstance for the character. You could also zoom out, revealing the size of the maze and showing audiences the gravity of this situation, and how the mouse may not realize what it’s in for: a confusing exist after this daunting mission.
Take this Barry Lyndon scene for instance, where a zoom-out starts the scene. Before a duel takes place, you see the loading of the pistols to introduce the nature of the duel to you right away. Then, the zoom starts, and you realize where we are: an open field, with no one else around (outside of the parties involved). Compared to other moments in the film which take place within structures or crowded landscapes, this duel is framed in a more friendly way, as to suggest that it is not going to be the most threatening moment of the film (despite its nature).
Dolly Zoom
If you want to get super fancy, we have the dolly zoom just as a bonus here. Works the same way as a zoom, except with an extra technical pull. The camera zooms one way, and the dolly it sits on goes in the opposite direction. For example, the camera zooms in, and the dolly pulls the camera backward, or vice versa. This creates an extremely dramatic zoom effect, usually to create a hyper stylized realization or alarming sensation. This isn’t used too often, but it’s beautiful when it is used.
Take this gorgeous moment in Raging Bull. The opposing boxer seems worn out, as he is exhausted from repetitively hitting the lead character, who refuses to fight back. One dolly zoom later, the opponent now seems ferocious. The dolly zoom made the fighter seem larger-than-life, and the world around him shrink. It’s a surreal effect that becomes a warning of what’s to come: a second wind. It’s frightening, but so brilliantly captured.
Tracking Shot
Instead of zooming in or out of a focal point, a tracking shot can be used instead to follow a subject. Nowadays, the idea of a film shot to look like one long take utilizes tracking shots almost exclusively (save for a few exceptions). Basically, the camera lingers in front of, beside, or behind a subject (or subjects) as they walk, creating the feeling that you’re alongside them. This creates a personal connection to whomever you are watching, as you feel a part of their world for a little while. If used without visible cuts, you basically experience the routines of these characters for however long the scene goes on for. With cuts, tracking shots just add a bit of life to spliced together moments.
This opening credit sequence in Baby Driver is one continuous tracking shot, which is used to detail a ritualistic coffee run for the getaway driver, while displaying the choreographed, musical nature of the film. It’s a great introduction to the downtime of the film after an electric opening scene.
Camera Pan
This leads us to other types of actual movement with a camera, as opposed to just the zooming in and out of a subject (since we’re following subjects now). A camera pan is the most basic form of camera movement, because it allows a camera to be fixed in one spot, with the ability to move from left to right. You can use pans for many situations: to feature people having a conversation without cutting, to show what someone is looking at, to glance at a backdrop with a character, to momentarily follow a character, and more. Pans are basic techniques that add some freedom to shots that would otherwise be static, without getting too invested in moving a great deal.
Wings of Desire utilizes camera movement especially well, considering the film is meant to place you in the perspective of a guardian angel. In this example, the camera pans across the faces of subway travellers, as the angel reads the mortals of the world via their facial expressions.
Whip Pan
If you want to get fancy with a pan, you can create a whip pan instead. What this is, is simply a fast pan that looks like you are literally whipping your head from position A to position B. This is achieved by finishing a shot with the camera being quickly panned to one side, and starting the next shot with a quick pan going the same way towards a new subject. This creates the illusion of one continuous moment, when it’s really being broken up. You can also set up two different focal points and have a camera “whip” between the two of them, which requires much more coordination. This can be used to create dizziness, exhilaration, panic, or excitement.
This clip from La La Land actually shows both the footage used in the final film, and a behind-the-scenes look at how it is achieved. The finished scene is a musical showdown between two parties: a dancer, and a pianist. Both worlds collide almost like a duet. This is turned into a call-and-response via whip pans, which also allows each main character to dominate their sets without worrying about blocking the other person.
Crab Shot
Since we’re still going side-to-side, there’s a type of shot that is either an actual pan (since the camera isn’t necessarily being rotated) or a literal tracking shot (since the subject is followed in a more mechanical, fixed way). This is — believe it or not — referred to as the crab shot, since it mimics the sideways gait of a crab. A camera fixed to a rail (a set of tracks so the camera can glide smoothly) and is locked onto a subject. It follows the subject gradually, creating a floating sensation that’s not quite as directly personal as a tracking shot. This can help show more of one’s surroundings as they stroll, create an airiness to a scene, or just be a piece of technical flair that punctuates a moment better than a pan would. If you’re looking for a way to either follow a character from a distance, or show off a backdrop or set, a crab shot could be your ticket.
In this musical scene in Pulp Fiction, a crab shot is briefly used to follow a dancing mob wife during her moment of euphoria. You sense the openness of her living room, and her current openness as a person. Cutting to the confined bathroom with a static shot, where her date for the evening is realizing the mess that he’s in, allows you to see the contrast in how both characters are feeling about the evening. The mob wife is having fun. Her boss’s hitman, who took her to dinner as a favour, is trying to convince himself that he has to end the evening now by going home.
Tilt
A tilt shot is just like a pan, but it darts up or down instead. You can use these techniques to create a sense of wonder, by scaling the height or depth of a setting. You can also detail the perspective of a character as they look at something raise or lower, or simply who they are talking to to match their height differential. Like pans, tilts can also be “whipped”, although this is really not common; it would be for the same intensity-creating reasons that whip pans are used.
Here’s a simple example: the camera in Up pans, well, upward to reveal the unveiling of countless balloons. Tilting upwards allows the shot to initially cut off the amount that are visible, allowing the scene to slowly reveal just how many balloons there actually are. This creates a sense of astonishment. Then, the actual house lifts off, and we follow it with our eyes (the tilting perspective).
Arc
We’ve been up, down, and side to side. We’ve been stuck in one spot and unable to move, just before we moved in, out, and around. We now have one last type of movement: the “arc”. Either envision a semi-circle or a complete circle around a subject. The camera will move along this blueprint. Essentially, the camera circles around (or partially around) its focal point(s), providing a complete look at the world around the characters, and all parties involved. This frees up any visual restrictions, and allows your eyes to wander everywhere, trying to take in everything that you see. This type of filming can be used to place you entirely within a scene, dispels the fact that a crew is off to the side anywhere (they still are, but you just can’t see them), and maybe get a sense that this moment in time is either special to a character (and all of their surroundings are part of the moment), or daunting (with their entire world listening in).
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is edited and filmed to look like one long shot, so most of it is done with tracking shots or simple pans, However, this moment near the beginning includes an arc shot. This expositional moment shows the stage and set that the theatre actors have to work with, the size of the possible audience that will be watching them, and the personal relationships the performers have with one another while rehearsing.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.