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Tracking shot

 

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Tracking shot



 
 
In motion picture terminology
Motion picture terminology

The film industry is built upon a large number of technologies and techniques, drawing upon photography, stagecraft, music, and many other disciplines....
, a tracking shot (also known as a dolly shot or trucking shot) is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken. One may dolly in on a stationary subject for emphasis, or dolly out, or dolly beside a moving subject (an action known as "dollying with").

The Italian feature film Cabiria
Cabiria

Cabiria is a silent movie from the early years of Italy's movie industry, directed by Giovanni Pastrone....
 (1914), directed by Giovanni Pastrone
Giovanni Pastrone

Giovanni Pastrone, also known by his artistic name Piero Fosco , was an Italian film pioneer, Film director, screenwriter, actor and technician....
, was the first popular film to use dolly shots, which in fact were originally called "Cabiria movements" by contemporary filmmakers influenced by the film; however, some smaller American and English films prior to 1914 had used the technique prior to Cabiria.

The tracking shot can include smooth movements forward, backward, along the side of the subject, or on a curve.






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In motion picture terminology
Motion picture terminology

The film industry is built upon a large number of technologies and techniques, drawing upon photography, stagecraft, music, and many other disciplines....
, a tracking shot (also known as a dolly shot or trucking shot) is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken. One may dolly in on a stationary subject for emphasis, or dolly out, or dolly beside a moving subject (an action known as "dollying with").

The Italian feature film Cabiria
Cabiria

Cabiria is a silent movie from the early years of Italy's movie industry, directed by Giovanni Pastrone....
 (1914), directed by Giovanni Pastrone
Giovanni Pastrone

Giovanni Pastrone, also known by his artistic name Piero Fosco , was an Italian film pioneer, Film director, screenwriter, actor and technician....
, was the first popular film to use dolly shots, which in fact were originally called "Cabiria movements" by contemporary filmmakers influenced by the film; however, some smaller American and English films prior to 1914 had used the technique prior to Cabiria.

The tracking shot can include smooth movements forward, backward, along the side of the subject, or on a curve. Dollies with hydraulic arms can also smoothly "boom" or "jib" the camera several feet on a vertical axis. Tracking shots, however, cannot include complex pivoting movements, aerial shots or crane shots.

Tracking shots are often confused with the long take
Long take

A long take is an uninterrupted shot in a film which lasts much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general, usually lasting several minutes....
 -- such as the 10-minute takes in Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, Order of the British Empire was a British filmmaker and film producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres....
's Rope
Rope (film)

Rope is a film written by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring James Stewart , John Dall and Farley Granger....
 (1948) -- or sequence shots.

See also

When combined with a zoom
ZOOM

ZOOM was an United States educational television show, created almost entirely by children, which aired on PBS from January 1972 to March 1978....
, a tracking shot can become a Dolly zoom
Dolly zoom

The dolly zoom is an unsettling in-camera special effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception in film.The effect is achieved by using the setting of a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view while the camera dollies towards or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout....
, famously used to create a sense of vertigo in the church tower scenes in Hitchcock's Vertigo
Vertigo (film)

Vertigo is a psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak and featuring Barbara Bel Geddes and Tom Helmore....
 (1958).