Know Your Camera, Part II: Movement

Posted May 31st, 2010 / By John Kostrzewski in Resources, Tutorials

In my last article, Know Your Camera, Part I: Shot Lengths & Angles, I began to explain how to easily make your work look more professional and dynamic by simply changing the shot length and angle of your camera. In this article, Know Your Camera, Part II: Movement, I’ll take it one step further and add motion to the mix. We do, after all, work with motion graphics.

It goes without saying that movement is important in motion graphics. The whole industry is based on movement, and through the use of the camera, and creative motion of your object, your work can really shine. Because we work in mostly user created environments, the cameras and objects can move in any direction or rotation that you can think up; however, by following the basics you can achieve better quality work that will appear less confusing to your audience. Let’s take a look at the basics of movement.

Camera Movements

Dolly

A simple movement toward or away from an object, or from side to side. This is not zooming, though they share similarities. The camera physically moves, but no settings of the camera (other than the coordinates) change.

Follow

Also called a tracking shot. The camera follows the object as it moves on the Y and Z planes.

Pan

The camera rotates across the object, but does not physically move it’s position.

Pedestal

A vertical movement as the object stands still.

Tilt

The camera rotates up or down to or from an object.

Arc

A 180 degree movement around the object.

Object Movement

The camera isn’t the only thing that moves in your scene; your objects can also have movement. The way the object moves depends on many factors including what it is and how it’s being used in the scene, so it can have natural or unnatural movement depending on what you choose and what the object is. A good rule of thumb is to keep true to the project and to what the idea of the object is. If the movement fits the object and the scene, then it’s a good bet it’s the right move. For more information on object movement and animation, check out The Principles of Animation for Motionographers – Part I, Part II and Part III.

The Foundation is Set

That’s the basics of camera movement. Hopefully this allowed you to grasp (or remember) the fundamentals which you can apply to your work. There are more camera moves and combinations of moves that you can apply to your work to make it flow better, but using these tried and true methods will give you a good foundation to start from. When striving to create better projects, you can never have too many tools, or too much knowledge, on your side.

Please check out my next article, Know Your Camera, Part III: Settings, in which I will go over the many different settings your camera has for you to play around with to create more interesting shots.

John Kostrzewski is the Editor of Fuel Your Motionography and a freelance motion graphics and visual effects artist, videographer and writer living in Minnesota. He is awesome. Follow him on Twitter at and .