73 Part One: Framing—The Range of Shots

place. If you have the time and enough tape or gi- gabytes, shoot a zoom three times: once slow, once me- dium, once fast. Then choose the zoom with the best speed when the piece is edited. A good rule of thumb is not to make any movement last more than five sec- onds, and generally to try to limit zooms to about three seconds. This is enough time to execute most shots and still be short enough to fit with almost any editing pace.

When shooting for special effects or for an “artsy” look, a slow zoom can give the feel of gentle movement and can add to the pace and flow of an edited piece. In a faster-moving piece, a snap zoom can be done by putting the auto-zoom servo on off and manually wrist-snapping the zoom ring from one extreme to the other (assuming you have a professional-quality cam- era with a zoom ring). This produces a very dramatic result and should be used with that effect in mind. Too much of any one technique may be bad for the piece. The more noticeable or dramatic the technique, the easier it is to overuse it.

The Pan Shot

Apan is the horizontal pivoting of the camera: left and right. In many ways, the pan is like the zoom in how it is used, the two major uses being to show relationships and to show more information than is contained in just one static shot. A pan from a raging brush fire to a nearby house can show the danger the house faces due to its proximity. This type of shot does not work well if the pan lasts too long or if the angle of the pan is too great. If the pan lasts too long, it might not fit into the edited story; if the angle is too great, the relationship might be lost because too much ground is covered be- tween subjects. Panning too fast can blur the picture to the point where nothing is recognizable during the pan. Generally, this is not acceptable. Try to pan slowly enough so that you can obtain a good freeze frame from your video at any point in the pan. You may need to rehearse a pan several times—if you have the time—to find the right speed. Again, try to stick with the three- to five-second rule. There are, of course, many times when a long pan is desirable. (See Figure 4-6.)

For a shot of an extremely long line of people, a long pan can be more effective than several static shots

or a zoom. The same is true for long angles of pans. While about 30º to 90º is as far as you should nor- mally pan, 180º or even 360º can be made to work in the right situation. For instance, when showing how a small town has decorated the entire main street for Christmas, a 180º pan from one end of the street to the other might be very effective. In the middle of a neighborhood totally destroyed by a tornado, a 360º pan could give a viewer a very dramatic overview of the destruction. Again, as with the zoom, the purpose of the pan should be to impart as much information to the viewer as possible in the least amount of time.

The Tilt Shot

Atiltis like a pan, but it is the vertical—not horizon- tal—pivoting of the camera: up and down. The same basic rules apply for its length, speed, and purpose. The shot must start on one properly framed picture and end on another, showing a relationship to, or more infor- mation about, the overall subject. For example, an ENG package about earthquake damage might begin with a shot of a reporter at the base of a hill; then, as the reporter speaks, the camera tilts up to reveal a house perched precariously at the top of the hill.

The Dolly and Truck Shots

In all the shots previously discussed, the camera is in a fixed position while shooting. The dollyandtrucking

Figure 4-6 Within this scene, a good pan could be from the composition on the left to the one on the right. Together they form a complete picture of the area.

74 Chapter 4: Part One: Framing—The Range of Shots

(a.k.a. tracking) shots require the camera to move while the shot is being recorded. For the dolly shot, the camera moves in closer to, or backs away from, the subject. For the truck or tracking shot, the camera moves left or right, rolling on wheels or sliding on tracks or riding one some kind of truck or cart device.

For EFP work, dollies and trucks should be done on a dolly mechanism or a wheeled tripod. On un- even surfaces, tracks or a platform can be put down for the tripod or pedestal to move. This makes the shot time consuming to set up, rehearse, and execute, not to mention more expensive to the overall produc- tion. For ENG work, the use of such extra equipment is usually out of the question. Therefore, dolly and trucking shots become walking shots for most ENG work. Sometimes someone with a bit of ingenuity can improvise a dolly or truck using a grocery cart, wheelchair, bicycle, golf cart, or car if there are crew members to help.

The point to keep in mind when using the dolly or truck shot is that the perspective of the shot constantly changes as the camera position changes. This is the purpose of a dolly or truck. These are similar to zooms and pans in that they move from one shot perspective to another in real time, but the difference is the type of perspective change. This change can add a sense of drama by, say, moving closer to the subject in a dolly- in shot, or moving away in a dolly-out shot. The ad- vantage of the dolly shot is that the focal length can stay the same as the shot changes. If the focal length is short, the depth of field will be great; moving the cam- era in to a closer shot does not lessen that depth of field but exaggerates the perspective. In a zoom, the depth of field steadily decreases (as focal length increases) while you zoom in, and the perspective is compressed. The resulting size of the subject might be similar be- tween a zoom-in and dolly-in, but the visual perspec- tive is quite different.

The dolly or truck can also be a point-of-view shot. In ENG, the walking shot gives the feel of a point of view, if not of a specific character then cer- tainly of the viewer, as if he or she were actually present. This point-of-view idea can work in many stories. For example, in the earlier shot of the long line of people, a trucking shot along the line would give the viewer a firsthand look at what it would be like to be walking along that line.

Another use of the dolly or truck shot is to replace a pan shot to maintain perspective. Instead of panning a long row of TV sets in a showroom, a trucking shot can keep each set in the same proportion (size and an- gle to the camera). The desired feeling is not so much the relationship of the sets to each other and to the room, but the vast number of sets.

Dolly and truck shots have a beginning, middle, and end, just like all camera movement shots, and each part must be a good shot. For any moving sub- ject, such as a walking on-camera host, the dolly or truck can keep the subject framed while revealing changes in the background that impart new informa- tion to the viewer.

To get a feel for the effect of a dolly or truck shot, try dollying a shot for which you would normally zoom, or trucking a shot for which you would nor- mally pan. Often, you will notice that dollies and trucks have greater impact and are more pleasing than zooms and pans. The only drawback is that trucks and dollies require more time and sometimes more skill and equipment than zooms and pans. A walking shot can be too shaky to look good in many segments be- cause it looks out of place with all tripod shots in the rest of the story. While most ENG work should be done on a tripod, spot news is actually a good place to learn the effect and importance of a dolly or truck shot because of its hurried, go-with-the-action nature. Still, you can zoom and pan a lot faster than you can dolly and truck.

The Crane Shot

Acrane (a.k.a. pedestal) shot is like a dolly or truck, in that the entire camera moves rather than pivots, but instead of moving in and out (dolly) or side to side (truck), the camera moves up and down. For this type of movement, the camera may be mounted on a tripod or pedestal or body rig that allows the camera to be raised or lowered, or it may be mounted on a crane de- vice that allows more dramatic, swooping movement than a simple tripod, pedestal, or body stabilizer. In the absence of a mounting device, the videographer must squat and stand while holding the camera to achieve a pedestal or crane shot. For this shot, the same guidelines apply as for dollies and trucks: keep the movement smooth; move neither too fast nor too slow;

75