Walk and Talk

Two people walk and talk, and the camera retreats ahead of them holding both faces. The scene gets movement and dialogue at once, so exposition arrives while something appears to be happening.

It also gives a place a shape. The corridors, doors and people the pair pass build a geography that a static two-shot never shows.

The camera travels backward at the walking pace of the subjects, framed so both faces stay readable. On a set that is a dolly pulled by grips or an operator walking backward on a Steadicam with a spotter behind them.

The pace has to be exact in both directions. If the camera is slow the pair walks into the lens, and if it is fast they fall away and the shot loses the faces.

Run it as one take where possible. The value of the form is continuity, and a cut in the middle turns it back into ordinary coverage.

Use it for exposition that would be dull standing still, for a workplace where everybody is busy, and to move a scene from one room to another without a cut.

Skip it when the conversation needs stillness. A person deciding something difficult should probably stop walking.

A tracking shot runs alongside and shows the subjects in profile. A walk and talk leads them, so the camera is ahead and both faces are in frame.

The test is where the camera is. Ahead and retreating is a walk and talk. Beside and parallel is a tracking shot.

The television series The West Wing (1999) made the form its house style, running long retreating takes through the corridors of the White House while characters traded dialogue. The device is often credited to director Thomas Schlamme, and it is now the standard way a busy workplace is shot.

The camera ends up behind the pair, because backward is a harder request than forward. Say the camera leads and moves backward ahead of the subjects.

The second failure is a pace mismatch that walks the subjects into the lens or loses them off the back of the frame. Say matched pace and say both faces stay in frame the whole time.