From the course: Creating a Short Film: 05 Directing

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Moving the camera: Handheld shots

Moving the camera: Handheld shots

From the course: Creating a Short Film: 05 Directing

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Moving the camera: Handheld shots

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- Another one of the most common ways to move the camera is to shoot handheld. This is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of putting the camera on some stationary apparatus, the camera is held by hand. This creates an organic shakiness that creates a lot of energy in the frame. If the camera lens represents the eyes of the audience, then handheld shots are like cranking up the heartbeat of the audience, making it so they just can't sit still. The most common usage in this is probably fight scenes, both verbal and physical. The war boys are on the hunt in this scene from Mad Max: Fury Road. Almost every shot in this sequence has a frenetic movement of a handheld camera to keep the energy up, and it really works. In the movie Whiplash, throughout much of the film, even when things were tense because the student couldn't quite keep up with the teacher, the camera was still pretty stable, but later when the teacher and student were in direct conflict with each other, the camera becomes…

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