The Filmmaker's Eye

pan shot

In a pan shot, the camera scans space horizontally pivoting left or right while remaining stationary, mounted on a tripod or even handheld. The term pan is short for panoramic: the showing of an unbroken view of an area. Panning shots are often used to follow a subject as it moves across a location (called pan with shots), and are said to be “motivated” camera moves because the movement of the subject motivates the movement of the camera. Pan shots are also used to shift the view from one subject to another; in these shots, also called pan to shots, the movement of the camera is not motivated by the movement of a subject, making the camera move more apparent to the audience unless some aspect in the narrative internally motivates the ...