Research On Camera Movement Techniques

There are a variety of different camera movement techniques which can allow me to keep the focus of the shot in the frame and to make the audience feel different emotions while watching my opening sequence.

As you can see in the picture, the main movements are Pan Left, Pan Right, Crap Left, Crap Right, Track Out, Track In, Ped Up, Ped Down, Tilt Up, Tilt Down and for a lens movement Zooming Out and In.

Panning left and right is normally done with a track in a circle/semi circle where it moves around the image in shot giving the audience views from different angles, as I'm planning on putting a chase sequence in my production this type of movement will be used as it can then add to the background image and show the audience more in each movement.

Crabbing left and right is when the camera moves in a straight line and makes the image in the shot move from left to right or vise-versa. This doesn't give the audience a different view of the image in the shot, but it can reveal something near the image that you couldn't see in the previous frame before the crabbing started. I will be using this so the camera runs parallel with the character running, this is to make the audience feel like they are running with the character.

Tracking in and out is kind of like zooming although the whole camera is moving. It gives an effect of either revealing something which couldn't be seen before the tracking happened (tracking out) or by gaining more detail and making the audience feel more uncomfortable (tracking in) i will be tracking out in a point of view shot to make it feel like the character is getting dragged.

Peding up and down is where the camera starts of at a certain point and then moves up to normally show a persons head, or moves down to normally show a persons feet. This is used a lot in horrors as it can start of showing the persons hands which could have a weapon in and then ped up to show who has the weapon in there hand. I am not going to use this as i don't want to reveal to much about the characters.

Tilting up and down is kind of the same as peding up and down, but in Tilting the camera doesn't physically move up and down keeping the shot straight on, instead it just tilts up or down, again this can be used in horror films as while tilting up you gain more knowledge about the person in view and the person is then in a dominant figure in the frame so can be intimidating to the viewer. I am going to be using this as a point of view shot so that the the audience look up at a dominant figure in low key lighting, so they still cant identify them but can see them in a low angle shot to show there dominance over them.

Zooming in and out is where the camera stays still and just the lens moves either in closer showing the image in the shot in more detail and gives an uncomfortable feeling to the viewer or zooms out which can show the audience more and normally is used to show the location of the person in the shot. I am going to use tracking instead of this because tracking gives a better effect of someone being dragged then zooming will.

There are also over camera movements like Surveying Pan, which slowly searches a scene which can build to a climax. Or Hand-Held camera shot, this is where the audience can see what the person is seeing, in the chase part of my production i am planning on using this with deep breathing in the background to create a sense of chaos.