DVX 100 Camera Movements
by D.J. Smithee

Breaking away into your first ever film production is a fun, yet challenging task. And although you might have the whole movie envisioned in your head, you still have to take the images from your mind and put it on camera. One challenging aspect of film making that many new directors or movie makers in general have to tackle sooner or later is how to effectively move that darn digital camera.

The right DVX camera movements can highly boost the movie production value of your digital film by making it look more professional. 

Dolly Vs. Zoom.

For example, if you want to effectively increase the tension, drama and focus of a scene, most people think that they should just simply do a slow zoom-in to their subject. That's not entirely true. For new filmmakers on their first digital film production, it's hard to break the habit of simply "zooming in", since we've been trained on our little consumer camcorders to do so.

Zooming in to your subject just causes them to become larger and take up more screen space. Instead, do what the pros do and use the “dolly move” (slowly pushing the camera in towards the subject…usually done on what looks like little train tracks to allow for smooth movement) as much as possible to create a more dramatic, fluid movement - unless of course, a zoom is what you really want (for example, action sequences, etc.).

Pan vs. Tilt.

Now, let's go ahead and clarify the issue of panning vs. tilting. Some people (news reporters for example) are notorious for confusing these two movements.

To PAN means to move your DVX100 on the tripod from side to side (think of your head on your neck looking from left to right when crossing a street).

To TILT means to move your DVX 100 on the tripod up or down (think of your head on your neck looking at someone from head to toe).

So, panning is from side to side and tilting is up and down. So the next time someone tells you to pan up to the sky, you can correct them (after you get the shot of course!).