Camera movement helps make your videos more engaging and compelling by adding intrigue, interest, and suspense to scenes in your story.
In this guide, we’ll teach you the seven types of camera movement, show you an example of each, and explain how to recreate each type in Vyond Studio. For a short introduction to camera movements in Vyond watch this tutorial in our help center and this video from Rued Riis on YouTube.
Jump to each type of camera movement to learn more:
Pan camera movement
A pan is a movement where you rotate your camera horizontally from a fixed position (like when a camera is attached to a tripod) to capture the scene from right to left or left to right.
During a scene from season 1 of Stranger Things, the series uses a pan to reveal more of the town’s streets as the narrator speaks.
How to pan in Vyond
- Click the Camera icon on the top right of Vyond Studio, and then on “Add Camera” in the panel.
- An orange rectangle will appear on the stage, representing the camera’s framing.
- Reduce the rectangle’s size and position it at the right or left of your scene, depending on where you want your shot to start.
- After scaling and positioning the orange rectangle, click on “add camera movement” in the camera panel. This will add a yellow rectangle to the stage, which indicates where your camera movement will end
- If you want the camera to pan from left to right, place the orange rectangle on the left side of your scene and the yellow one to its right.
- Hit preview and you’ll see your camera pan from left to right.
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Slide (or Dolly or Tracking) shot
A slide (also known as a dolly or tracking shot) is where you move the physical camera from left to right or right to left. These shots allow you to direct the viewer’s attention to the movements of a specific character, object, or event. A slide is different from a pan in that a slide physically moves the camera and allows more motion to happen on the screen than a pan would. This creates a parallax effect, where objects closer to the camera appear to move faster than objects in the background.
Famous director, Wes Anderson, is especially known for using dolly shots in his movies. In this video below you can see dozens of examples from Wes Anderson movies over the years.
How to create a slide in Vyond
While it is not possible to physically move a camera like this in Vyond, by using the camera tool along with motion paths, this look can be easily achieved.
- To pull off a slide in Vyond you must have at least a foreground and background; however, having a mid-ground will help sell the effect even more.
- Add a Camera Movement to create the same movement as a pan.
- To finish your slide, you must now add motion paths to your foreground and mid-ground, which will create the parallax effect. First, group all of your foreground assets together, and then group your mid-ground assets.
- Once you have your foreground and mid-ground groups, add motion paths to both. If the camera is moving left to right, you’ll want your motion paths to go the opposite way. You’ll also want the motion paths to be short; a little bit of movement goes a long way. The foreground motion path should also be about twice as long as your mid-ground motion path, as objects closer to a moving camera will appear to move faster than objects further away. You can play with the length of the motion paths in conjunction with the camera movement to get the movement that feels right to you.
For additional inspiration, watch this example to see what you can create with camera movement and motion paths.
Tilt
A tilt is a movement where you rotate your camera vertically from a fixed position to capture the scene from top to bottom or bottom to top.
Like with a zoom, the camera position does not change, so, objects in the frame hold their same relative position to one another.
At the beginning of the Friends: The Reunion trailer, the camera does a tilt to better view the building and then the kitchen, both without moving the camera from the tri-pod.
How to create a Tilt camera movement in Vyond
- Click the Camera icon and add a camera.
- Make the camera’s orange rectangle smaller and position it at the top or bottom of the stage, depending on where you wish your shot to start.
- Open the Camera panel to add a camera movement, and position the yellow rectangle at the desired end position.
- If you want the camera to move from bottom to top, place the yellow rectangle higher than the orange one. Do the opposite for a top to bottom tilt.
Crane (or Boom) camera movement
A crane shot (also known as a boom shot) is where you move the camera up or down using a jib or crane to capture more elements in your frame. A crane also creates a parallax effect with the objects or people on screen and gives your scene more movement. These shots work best when there are foreground, midground, and background elements.
During this movement, your foreground and background appear to move at different speeds, once again, caused by the parallax effect. For example, if your camera goes up, your foreground would seem to move down faster than the background.
Overall, the boom shot’s purpose is to add style to your video as you reveal a subject or scene. Disney+ used a boom shot during a trailer from The Mandalorian to add more context to The Mandalorian’s surroundings.
How to perform a crane camera movement in Vyond
- Add a tilt camera movement to your scene.
- Group your foreground elements, then apply a Line Motion Path to move your foreground in the opposite direction of where your camera is heading.
- If your camera is moving up, add a Line Motion Path to your foreground that goes down, to make the foreground move faster than the background.
- If your camera is moving down, add a line motion path to your foreground that moves up.
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Zoom camera movement
A Zoom is when you adjust the camera’s focal length, which changes the visual depth of field – or visual distance between objects – to give the illusion of the subject being closer to or further from the camera than it is. For example, you can use a zoom-in effect to “crop out” elements you don’t want on the screen, emphasizing your subject. Or you can zoom-out to include more scenery in your frame.
In one of the last episodes of Breaking Bad, the camera zooms in to the main character’s face to emphasize the shock of what he had seen.
How to Zoom in Vyond
- Click the Camera panel and add a camera.
- Add Camera Movement. You should now have two rectangles on your screen. The orange rectangle is your starting position, and the yellow one is your ending position.
- To zoom in, make the yellow rectangle smaller than the orange rectangle; do the opposite to zoom out.
Push & Pull
A push and pull, also known as a dolly in or out, physically decreases or increases (respectively) the distance between the camera and a subject. These camera movements are different from a zoom because they require you to physically move the camera without zooming the lens. A push moves the camera in, or forward; whereas a pull moves the camera out, or backward.
When you push the physical position of the camera forward it can tie characters together with other people, props, or places without the need for dialogue. A push is great for scene or character introductions and directs attention to what’s on the screen. It gives more importance to what’s on the screen compared to if the camera was static. When you pull the physical position of the camera backward it can signify the separation of characters from other people, props, or places, without the need for dialogue as well. It can invoke feelings of leaving, conclusion, or abandonment. A pull or a zoom-out can be a great way to end a video.
Pushes and pulls are a good alternative to zooming in or out and can add a higher level of production quality to your video. Additionally, these two movements separate foreground and background elements, causing a parallax effect, exactly like the slide camera move.
For the first four seconds of the trailer for The Trial of the Chicago 7, the film crew performs a push-in, moving the camera closer to the subject without zooming in.
How to Push or Pull in Vyond
To achieve a push or pull in Vyond you’ll need to have foreground and background elements in your scene, so add some components behind most subjects and others close to the camera.
Push
- Add a camera and camera movement.
- Create a zoom shot by making the secondary, yellow rectangle smaller than the orange one.
- Select your foreground elements and group them so you can apply a Line Motion Path to slightly increase their size.
- Make the length of the motion path the same duration as your camera movement.
- By increasing the foreground size at the same rate as your camera zoom, you can imitate what happens if you push in the camera in real life: your foreground elements move past the camera faster than the background elements, appearing to also become larger as the camera moves toward them.
Pull
- Add a camera and camera movement.
- Create a camera move that zooms out by making the yellow rectangle larger than the orange one.
- Decrease the size of the grouped foreground elements through a Line Motion Path.
This video demonstrates how to build a push camera movement in Vyond.
Zolly or Zolly zoom
A dolly zoom, also known as a zolly, is a camera movement where you do a standard zoom, either in or out, and then dolly or move the camera in the opposite direction. The idea behind a dolly zoom is to make it look as though the subject never changes in size while everything else in frame is changing size. So, while you zoom in, you dolly out to maintain the character’s relative size to the frame. And while you zoom out, you dolly in to preserve the character’s relative size to the frame.
Dolly zooms transmit unease, intrigue, tension, and claustrophobia, which explains their popularity across suspense and horror films.
The movie Jaws features a classic example of a dolly zoom, showing how the film crew zooms out from the subject while moving the camera towards him.
How to do a Dolly Zoom (or Zolly) in Vyond
Although you can’t dolly a camera in Vyond, using a motion path on your main subject in conjunction with a zoom camera movement is an easy way to create the dolly zoom effect!
- Add a camera and camera movement to your scene.
- Zolly out: position the cameras to zoom out, that is, making the yellow rectangle larger than the orange one.
- Click on the character
- Add a Line Motion Path.
- Motion Paths let you choose a subject’s ending position. To complete your zolly out, make the character’s end position larger and try to match the framing as closely as possible from the start positions of both the camera and character. Since you are zooming out from the subject while increasing its size, it will seem as if the character remains the same size while the background appears to get wider.
- To do a zolly in, that is making the background appear smaller while maintaining the character’s size, make the ending camera position smaller than the main one, and decrease the character’s end state with a Line Motion Path so that it shrinks in unison with the camera.
Make scenes engaging with camera movement
With Vyond, you can execute all your video ideas without worrying about camera angles or equipment. Our tools can help you vary your shots to tell more detail-rich stories, whether through easy-to-implement camera techniques like a Zolly to more well-known techniques like a Zoom.
See where your creativity can take you with a free 14-day trial of Vyond.
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