The Easiest Camera Movements Anyone Can Do!
Camera Movement
Last week, I discussed the essential filming equipment required to make any movie. The three essential filming equipment are cameras, microphones, and lightning. Any other tools used for filming can be boiled down as attachments or modifications of these three tools. This week, I’m going to delve more into the camera and talk about some basic camera movement.
Camera movement refers to the different ways the camera moves to capture video. There are many different types of camera movement, but in this blog I’m only going to be talking about the basic and essential movements.
- Static: when the camera doesn’t involve any movement. This is the most basic form as this camera movement doesn’t require any! Static movement is typically achieved using a tripod or a stabilizer, but it can also be used with hands, as long as you’re steady!
- Pan: when the camera turns horizontally. The camera is able to turn left or right and is achieved either from a stabilizer, a tripod head, or with hands. Camera pans typically take place depending on a character’s action. For example, if a character is walking across the room, a camera pan could be used to follow the character and reveal new information to the audience. Pans can happen slowly, or turn really quickly. Camera pans that suddenly turn with considerable speed are called whip pans.
- Tilt: similar to the pan, a camera tilt turns the camera vertically, either up or down. Like pans, tilts can also be achieved with a stabilizer, a tripod head, or with hands. Camera tilts help reveal information from a vertical axis and can help give a character dominance.
- Push in/out: this is when the camera either moves towards the subject or away from the subject. Doing so can either make the subject bigger and draw attention to a specific detail, or make the subject smaller and draw awareness to the surroundings. These types of camera movements typically cannot be achieved with a tripod, and is instead more effective with a stabilizer or with hands.
- Tracking: when the camera follows a subject. Typically used when a character is moving, the camera can track either the front, back, or side of the character. This camera movement helps the audience follow one subject.
- Zoom in/out: When the camera enlarges or shrinks the visual shown. Like the static shot, this doesn’t really utilize any movement. The zoom also doesn’t require any equipment, and instead relies solely on the camera’s capabilities.
Final Thoughts
These camera movements are basic movements that every person has done if they ever pressed record on a camera. I will be utilizing all of these camera movement as well as other ones for the short film. Tune in next week to learn more about the filming process!