Camera Movements

November 21, 2022

For my camera movement, I used a pan. A pan is a horizontal movement from left to right which shows a panoramic view of what is being focused on. Instead of being mounted on a dolly or steadicam, the camera swivels from one side to the other. In my video, I panned the screen across a mural that says our school name as well as our mascot. Above the mural, there is a bit of the atrium's walls and the sky. Oftentimes, directors will use the panoramic camera movement to widely establish location. This introduces the audience to other views that may not fit in a static shot. In my film, I could use this camera movement to either show the addition, or absence of characters or objects. For example, If I did a horror film, I could use this camera angle to express the common trope of “friends go missing”. By panning the camera from a place where there were once people, to the same place once there no longer are people, it can show the absence of characters in a single shot. In my video, using the pan helped show the other elements of the surroundings. At the start, my camera was focused on the entrance of the school, and then slowly panned across the mural to reveal the back entrance on the other side. This fluid shot allows for less cutting, and more ground coverage.