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Tracking Shot - TV Tropes

  • ️Tue Apr 22 2008

Tracking Shot (trope)

A long (in time and space) moving camera shot. Originally required tracks to be laid down, hence the name; nowadays is often achieved by Steadicam.

A Tracking Shot is often used as an Establishing Shot; it's also essential to the Walk and Talk. Related to Object-Tracking Shot and Epic Tracking Shot. Compare The Oner and Leave the Camera Running, which is more about how LONG the take is rather than the movement of the camera.

Super-Trope of Conveyor Belt Video (the camera continuously tracks to one side, creating the illusion of filming on a conveyor belt).

Examples:

Films — Live-Action

  • The Second Act: The film is quite aware of its use of tracking shots because the pre-credits scene showcases the seemingly never-ending railroad needed for the tracking shots to keep going.

Literature

  • Warhammer: Time of Legends: The epilogue of Nagash the Immortal follows the journey of a fleck of ash from the furnace burning Nagash's remains, as it journeys scross the now-silent Nehekhara and settles inside a sarcophagus within the Black Pyramid. "And there, it waited".

Live-Action TV

  • The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: In "Just Say Yo", the camera follows Will when he walks back into the prom to find Carlton high on speed and dancing.
  • Loki: In "Ouroboros", the sequence of several characters walking towards the control room and talking to each other consists of three long Tracking Shots following each other with a very small shot of an opening door squeezed in-between.

Video Games

  • ANNO: Mutationem: In specific moments, the camera performs a tracking shot in cutscenes to track whatever is being focused on; such as the Fantastic Nuke missiles launched in the opening scene and Loki running across the area during the Ruthless Rooftops in Noctis City.
  • The Last Guardian: In the Distant Finale, the boy, now an adult, raises the shield to the sky, and unbeknownst to him, the beam from the shield travels all the way to the valley where the adventure happened.

Western Animation