Tracking Shot

The camera keeps pace with somebody moving, so the subject sits still in the frame and the world runs past behind them. The audience travels with the person rather than watching them leave.

It also buys length. A tracking shot can hold a scene for a minute without a cut, because the changing background keeps giving the eye something new while the subject stays the anchor.

The camera moves on a parallel line to the subject at the same speed, usually on track, on a dolly, on a Steadicam or on a vehicle. Matched speed is the whole mechanism.

The background is what the shot is made of. A blank wall gives you a subject that appears to be on a treadmill, so pick a route with things to pass: pillars, windows, trees, doorways.

Distance sets the tone. Close in, the shot feels like company. Further out, with foreground passing between the camera and the subject, it feels like surveillance.

Use it for a walk with purpose, for a chase held in one take, and for a conversation that happens on the move.

Skip it when the destination matters more than the journey. If the point is that somebody arrives, a cut gets there faster.

A follow shot sits behind the subject and shows the back of their head. The camera is on their tail, and what is ahead of them is what the audience sees.

A tracking shot usually runs alongside, so the subject is in profile and the background crosses the frame laterally. The test is what you can see of the face.

Park Chan-wook plays the corridor fight in Oldboy (2003) as one lateral tracking shot, holding the whole length of the hallway in profile so the fight cannot be helped by cutting. Francois Truffaut ends The 400 Blows (1959) by tracking alongside Antoine as he runs, holding the run until it stops meaning escape.

The subject drifts out of frame, because the camera speed and the walking speed were never tied together. Say matched speed and say the subject holds the same place in the frame.

The second failure is a still camera with a subject walking past, which a model will give you because it is far easier to produce. Say the camera travels, and name what it passes.