The 7 Most Powerful Camera Movements To Perform Cinematic Shots
Combine different Camera Movements to add more depth and visual information to your shots.
Camera Movements are powerful resources that help creators to better tell their stories. Understanding these techniques will allow you to create more dynamic, deep and meaningful scenes!
“The function of the camera movement is to assist the storytelling. That’s all it is. It can’t be there just to demonstrate itself” — Mike Figgis
As the quote says, camera movements have meaning. Therefore, you must understand what each one of them can add to your scene. In this article you’ll learn exactly what to do with your camera while shooting your scenes!
What is camera movement?
Camera Movement means moving your camera in a three-dimensional space along the XYZ axis. Therefore, you can move it sideways, up, down, back and forth to capture the perfect image you want.
Pan
The Pan movement is one of the oldest movements in the filmmaking industry in which you rotate the camera to the left or to the right. With the camera in a fixed position you can capture the things that are happening next to the subject.
Tilt
The Tilt movement is quite similar to the Pan movement, but instead of rotating the camera sideways, you move it up and down. With the camera in a fixed position, the tilt movement allows you to capture the things that happen above or under the subject.
Zoom
The Zoom movement is very familiar to everyone and it allows the creator to show a more detailed part of what he’s filming. With this type of movement you can situate the audience and show detailed parts of it in a single scene!
Pedestal
The Pedestal movement is used to show what is above and under the subject while maintaining the same angle. To create this type of movement you must move the camera as a whole up and down in the vertical axis.
Dolly
The Dolly movement is basically moving the camera backwards and forwards. This movement helps to maintain a single scene along different places, add dynamism to the scenes and, also, to add depth to it.
Truck
The Truck movement is the same as Dolly, but instead of moving the camera backwards and forwards, you move it from left to right. Both Dolly and Truck have similar principles so use them in the way that suits your scene better!
Conclusion
Now that you’ve learned about the Camera Movements, you can start combining them with all the camera techniques existent and creating truly cinematic scenes!
Use each one of them to create meaningful scenes to tell better your stories to the audience. These techniques are very powerful, but they must also be used with a purpose.
You can practice your filmmaking skills directly on the Vliz app that allows you to record different shots and clip them together into a single video so you can better understand the effects each one of the techniques apply!
Download the app for free at: vliz.tv/download
We’re looking forward to watch your vlizes using the techniques learned in this article!
You can learn more about positioning the camera on our latest articles:
