Lesson 3 · 16 min
Camera movement weighs heavily on the result of a generated video, and a common mistake is stacking movements in the same shot. In this lesson each movement gets a function: move closer, pull back, follow, reveal, orbit, or shake. One per shot, chosen for its effect on the audience.
Start the lesson
Goal: choose one movement per shot by intent and write, for each shot, the effect it causes in whoever is watching.
Start with what the audience should feel. Click to see the movement and the prompt term.
A still camera (static shot) is also a choice: watching without interfering. It counts as "one movement" in the shot.
The example continues in the bakery.
Orbit plus push in plus pan plus zoom: the camera fights itself and the shot comes out unstable. One movement gives the generator a single direction to carry out.
If the scene calls for two movements, it calls for two shots.
Weak: an orbit with a zoom and a dolly on the oven. Directed: a slow push in on the oven while the door opens.
In a dolly the camera moves: foreground and background shift at different rates and the space feels real. In a zoom only the lens changes: the image gets closer without the camera leaving its spot, flatter and more observational.
The dolly zoom does both at the same time, in opposite directions: the background seems to stretch. It's disorienting; use it once, at the right moment.
Style is the texture of the movement. Steadicam is smooth and controlled; handheld is raw and urgent; slow motion stretches time and gives weight.
Two styles in the same shot dilute both intentions. Pick the dominant feeling and stick with it.
Two neighboring shots with the same movement kill the rhythm. Match the movement to the job of the moment: opening calls for a side tracking shot or a still camera; tension calls for a slow move in; a reveal calls for an orbit or a tilt.
To close, use a final move in, or a pull back that gives the place back. End on a strong image.
The intention → movement → prompt term table, and the template file for the exercise.
# what the audience should feel → movement → prompt term tension, intimacy → slow approach → slow dolly in, push-in isolation, scale → pulling away → dolly out, pull-out fluidity, following without cutting → travelling → tracking shot, truck left/right revealing horizontally → pan → pan left, pan right revealing vertically → tilt → tilt up/down grandeur, revealing from above → crane or pedestal → crane shot, pedestal up volume, expensive-looking cinema → orbit → orbit shot, arc shot urgency, realism → handheld camera → handheld shot observing without interfering → locked-off camera → static shot disorientation → dolly zoom → dolly zoom (vertigo effect)
Scene: <scene name> 1 | <one movement> | <what happens in the shot> | effect: <what the audience feels> 2 | <one movement> | <what happens in the shot> | effect: <what the audience feels>
The page rejects a shot with two movements, a shot with no movement, and a shot with no written effect. It also asks for at least 4 different movements in the scene.
Use the shots from your step (lesson 2) and give each one its movement.
For each shot in your scene, choose a movement (or a still camera) and write the effect on the audience. At least 4 different movements, with no repeats in neighboring shots. Check it and download movimentos.txt into the project folder.
Done when: the page answers OK: [n] shots, one movement each, with the effect written for your text, and movimentos.txt is in the project folder.
Read the list from top to bottom and mark where two neighboring shots use the same movement. Swap one of them for the movement that delivers the same intention in a different way.
Done when: in movimentos.txt, no pair of neighboring shots repeats the same movement, and the page keeps answering OK: ….
Four questions. The explanation shows up after each answer.
Question 1 of 4
What is the difference between a dolly in and a zoom in?
Question 2 of 4
A prompt asks for "orbit, dolly in and zoom" in the same shot. What is likely to come out?
Question 3 of 4
You want the tension to build while the oven door opens. Which movement?
Question 4 of 4
Two neighboring shots have the same movement. What do you do?
Pick an answer. The explanation appears after you try.