Locked-On

The subject holds one position in the frame no matter what happens around it. The camera reframes constantly to keep it there, and every other thing in the picture moves instead.

It hands the audience a fixed point in a scene that will not sit still. That is useful in chaos, and unsettling in calm, because a frame that never lets go of somebody starts to feel like attention.

The camera pans, tilts and travels as needed so the subject stays pinned. On a modern set this is a gimbal with subject tracking, and before that it was an operator with good hands.

Pick the point in frame and say it. Dead centre reads as clinical. Off to one side with the subject fixed there reads stranger, because the composition never resolves.

The background carries all of the motion, so it needs detail. A locked-on shot against a plain sky has nothing left in it.

Use it in action where the audience has to keep hold of one person, and in a crowd where somebody should not be lost.

Skip it when the scene wants the audience to look elsewhere. The lock decides where the eye goes for the whole shot.

A SnorriCam bolts the camera to the subject's body, so the rig is physically attached and the world swings violently with every step.

Locked-on is a framing rule rather than a rig. The camera can be metres away, the motion is smooth, and the subject stays put because the camera keeps correcting. If the background swings wildly, it is a SnorriCam.

The model reframes for composition and lets the subject drift toward the middle. Pin the subject in words: say it stays in the same place in the frame for the whole shot.

The second failure is a still background, which makes the lock invisible. Say the surroundings move freely around the subject.