Chapter 9 - Moving Shots

Dollying In and out | The Trucking of Follow Shot | Do It Yourself Improvise! | The Versatile Zoom Lens | Summary

Dollying In And Out

Up to now we have stressed the importance of keeping the camera as steady and stationary as possible. But frequently we can tell a motion picture story more effectively by using moving shots. These are shots in which the camera is shooting while it is in motion.

As we mentioned in the chapter on the simple sequence in which Mr. Prospect was our subject, one method of going from a long shot to a closeup was by using a mobile camera platform known as a "dolly."

Dolling in to your subject and dollying out-or-hack gives you a complete sequence without breaking it up into separate LS, MS and CU. When smoothly done a dolly shot can stim­ulate audience interest as it moves in to a closeup. If we started out with an MS of Mother holding a birthday cake and dollied in on the cake slowly to a CU, the gradual enlarge­ment of the cake-its seeming to "grow" till it is full screen-would steadily build up audience interest.

Or suppose you want to make a long closeup of Mother kissing baby. The heads of both your subjects already fill the frame. To keep the lengthy shot from becoming tedious, you want to move your camera a bit. With your audience eye al­ready very close to your subjects, cutting from a CU to an ECU would be somewhat jarring. A slow dolly-in shot would be a smoother way of changing the image size and would fit the mood of the action more pleasingly.

The Trucking  Or Follow  Shot

Another type of moving shot is the trucking or follow shot. In the trucking shot, the camera moves along with the sub­ject, usually maintaining the same image size as it follows the action. An example is a long, steadily maintained closeup of Baby reacting to the wonders she sees as Mother wheels her carriage down the street.

Another example of a trucking shot is to follow a speeding automobile from another car going just as fast.

Do it Yourself—Improvise!

Professional motion picture and television companies make their moving shots with specially designed equipment. Very often, it is elaborate to the point where the dolly is mounted on tracks, not only in the studio, but outdoors, on location.

But you don't have to go Hollywood to do moving shots. Any cameraman can improvise a satisfactory dolly. Borrow a ride in Junior s wagon, or have your neighbor drive you down the street while you shoot from the car window. Any moving vehicle can serve as a mobile camera platform. Your body too! Newsreel cameraman often must depend on so-called walking shots when they want to follow action or dolly in or out.

The trick, of course, is to bring off a smooth, steady walk­ing shot. Obviously, you can't use a tripod, so it's important to use the correct method of making a hand-held shot de­scribed in the chapter on panning. Make it a matter of auto­matic habit by practicing, and when the subject allows, re­hearse your shot with a "dry run."

Again, we must bear down with a word of caution: your moving shots will be effective only as long as the audience is not made aware of the method by which they were obtained. That is why Hollywood goes to such great trouble and ex­pense to do its moving shots in a seemingly effortless and un­obtrusive manner.

The moment your audience is distracted from the story by poor   technique,   such   as   unsteadiness,   jerkiness   or   other faults, your moving shot joins the class of the bad pan and must be condemned as worse than no moving shot at all. The Versatile Zoom Lens

The zoom lens, for all practical purposes, produces the same effect as the dolly in-or-out. In many shots, it is even more effective because the dolly must move slowly for the sake of steadiness, while the rate of movement of the zoom lens is variable. A fast zoom in from LS to CU—sometimes called an "explosion" shot—can produce a very dramatic effect.

A unique advantage of the zoom lens is that it can instan­taneously leap a space barrier. Suppose you are shooting a football game from the stands. Without moving your camera, you can go from a wide-angle shot taking in both teams to a closeup of the man carrying the ball, while keeping the action centered in the frame and in focus throughout!

A zoom shot can be equally effective at close quarters. As a matter of fact, the ingenious cameraman can simulate a short zoom with just a wide-angle lens—preferably an ex­treme wide-angle, such as a 10mm lens on a 16mm camera.

Suppose you are making a sequence of Dad signing an im­portant document—a check for you! You want to start with an over-the-shoulder shot of Dad as he begins signing, then zoom in to a CU of the check as he finishes.

Take a firm stance with your feet, because you will not move them, then lean back as far as you comfortably can, framing Dad in the left-hand side of the frame, and the check in the right background. As Dad starts to sign, bring the upper part of your body forward, shooting as you move, until you fill the screen with the check.

The camera will move just a few feet—perhaps only two and a half from wide shot to ECU—but the extreme wide-angle lens will provide a zoomlike change of image size.

Once you master this improvised zoom shot—and it takes only a little practice—you will find it has versatile uses. Try

it for catching facial expressions of spontaneous reaction. For example, move in from a medium close shot of Mother's face to a full closeup as she reacts to Dad's surprising act of gen­erosity!

A light warning—since you must close your lens diaphragm down far enough to get proper depth of field for this shot make sure your light source has sufficient brightness to allow this.

Because the zoom is so effective and easy to use, whether you use a special lens or simulate it, there is a great tempta­tion to overdo it. Excessive use can make even this spectacu­lar shot monotonous and distracting to an audience.

Also, when you cover too much of the action with zooms you make it difficult to edit it effectively. Just try cutting into the middle of a zoom! This is especially hazardous when you're simultaneously recording sound—a speech or comment­ary. After all, don't forget the editor may be you!

So, please use the zoom judiciously—with restraint.

Summary

A motion picture story can often be told more effectively by means of moving shots, in which the camera itself is in motion.

A familiar type of moving shot is the dolly-in or dollyout, in which the camera moves toward or away from the subject. Another is the trucking or follow shot, in which the camera moves along with the subject, usually maintaining the same image size.

A mobile camera platform for moving shots can be im­provised by using any available moving vehicle—or even the cameraman s own body.

The zoom lens can produce the same effect as the dolly in-or-out without moving the camera. Avoid the temptation— and the editing problems—of using it to excess.

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