The final consideration when choosing and using a camera is thinking about how you are going to move it. The bigger and bulkier your camera, the trickier it’s going to be to move. But while small cameras are easier to move around, they also tend to be more sensitive to that movement. If you’ve ever looked at iPhone footage on a large screen, you might notice that footage you thought had been captured with a steady hand suddenly seems shaky.
So let’s talk about the terminology and considerations for different types of camera moves.
Handheld#
A lot of filmmakers start out with handheld footage. It’s by far the easiest and cost-effective way to move your camera . This is naturally going to lead to a lot of shakiness in your image. Now, if you want your footage to feel rough, chaotic, or documentary-style, this handheld shake might be the right stylistic choice for you. But what if you don’t want to lean into that “handheld” feel and you’re shooting this way out of necessity rather than out of style?
Well, there are a couple of considerations. Firstly, you might want to consider how you’re going to move. If you look at professional documentarians shooting footage on the go, they sometimes look like dancers as their bodies flow around. Also tru to hold the camera with two hands, below your face. While we all love the feeling of holding a camera’s viewfinder up to our eye, having the camera body near your head is going to throw off your balance and lead to more shake. Better to keep the camera somewhere between your chest and your waist.
Secondly, a huge consideration when keeping your handheld movements as smooth as possible is to minimize how many steps you have to take. For example, rather than starting a shot standing upright, and then stepping two steps to your left; consider instead, starting leaned all the way to your right, then standing up straight, and leaning all the way to the left. That way, you cover the same amount of distance without ever picking up your feet.
Another consideration is stabilization. Some cameras have a built-in stabilization feature (though these differ in quality), and it’s also possible to add a stabilization effect to your footage in post. But BE WARNED. Thee effects work by cropping your footage so that as the camera moves, the software can move the cropped frame around. Therefore, if you think you’re going to need to do a lot of stabilization, consider shooting in a higher resolution.
Locked Down#
Any footage where the camera is stationary is said to be “locked down.” Usually this means putting your camera on a tripod, but you can also simply set your camera on a table.
However, just because you're using a tripod, doesn't mean you're beholden to a totally locked down look. You still have plenty of room movements that will feel far smoother than if they were done with a handheld camera.
Panning#
This word is often used in day-to-day speech to mean any sort of camera move. But a pan is simply any shot where the camera is rooted to one spot (whether handheld or on a tripod) and then turns to the left or the right.
You may also hear the phrase “whip pan” which refers to a very quick pan that moves so fast that the viewer loses all clarity in the motion blur of the camera “whipping” from Point A to Point B. (A fun aspect of whip pans is that it’s very easy to “hide” a cut inside the whip. There is so little visual information being processed that as long as you cut from one whip to another whip moving in the same direction, it won’t look to the audience like there was a cut.)
Tilting#
A tilt is the exact same thing as a pan except the camera moves up or down rather than right or left.
Tracking#
This is any shot where the camera follows along with (or “tracks”) a person or moving object. A tracking shot moving to the left or right is different from a pan, because the camera is physically moving rather than staying in one place and pivoting.
Dollies and Sliders#
The most common way to move a camera outside of handheld movement is to put it on a dolly—a sort of wheeled platform—and then roll the camera where you want it to go. The smoothest dolly motions come from laying down tracks, though you can still get a smooth tracking shot from putting a wheeled dolly down on a solid surface.
However, real dollies are fairly cost-prohibitive, so for beginner filmmakers, you can often improvise a dolly. Putting a camera on your lap and being pushed around in a wheelchair can lead to some very professional-looking dolly shots. Don’t have a wheelchair? Try an office chair. Don’t have an office chair? Try a skateboard. Just get creative.
Additionally, with the rise of DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, and high-quality smartphone cameras, there is another dolly alternative: the slider. This sort of mini-dolly is a type of track you attach to the top of a tripod to move a small camera.
This leads us to one of the most fun shots for an early filmmaker to practice called the DOLLY ZOOM (aka the "Vertigo shot"). If you've ever seen a shot where a hallway suddenly begins to stretch longer and longer, or the world around a character suddenly expands, you're looking at a dolly zoom. It's a simple trick where you start with your camera far away and zoomed in on a subject. Then, as you begin to physically move towards the object, you zoom out so the lens’s focal length gets smaller and smaller. If executed well, this creates an image where the subject of your frame stays roughly the same size, but the world around them seems to expand as the lens becomes wider and wider, "de-compressing the space around them.
Stabilizers and Gimbals#
A final way to put your camera in motion without pesky handheld shake is to use some sort of stabilizer or gimbal, devices that offset your movements with weights and motors to create a more fluid image. Especially if you’re working with a cell phone, some sort of a gimbal is an absolute must to make your footage look professional.
Aesthetically, these machines make it look like the camera is gliding through the air. While handheld feels messy and dolly shots feel controlled, any work done with a stabilizer will create the sense that the camera is floating. Some people think this feeling is less personal or connected to the world of your subjects. Others think it creates an uneasy feeling. The important thing is that you understand how it looks and then use that look intentionally.