6   A Simple Track-in

A very common form of camera move is the track in or out.

Again, I would stress that a drawing a camera guide is the simplest way to explain what is happening so that everyone engaged in a production will understand.

The dopesheet for a simple track in might look like this:

Note that the two blue lines which are drawn to indicate a track-in do not join up. If these two lines were joined to a point, this would indicate a fade out. (See later).
 

This example shows how to specify a camera move. The camera is at a 12 field centre until frame 29. On frame 30 it starts to move down its imaginary column towards the artwork. It ends on a 7 field but not in the centre. On a real rostrum camera, the camera itself would only move vertically whilst the table on which the artwork lies would perform the East/West and North/South moves. Working with digital software, it is only necessary to specify the beginning and end points of a move and the program will take care of the rest.

It is very poor practice to simply state something like "move 4W" as this might refer to fields, inches or centimetres.

DON'T USE FIELDS TO SPECIFY ARTWORK OR CAMERA MOVES!

You should only use fields to indicate either the size of the artwork or to indicate where the camera is in terms of height above the artwork. When a camera is at a 7 field (written 7F), it means that it is photographing an area of artwork exactly 7 inches across. I recommend using inches, though naturally most software will also recognise metric measurements.

The reason for not using fields to specify moves is simply that with two aspect ratios in common use ( 4 x 3 and 16 x 9), the vertical distance of a one field move is in effect two different quantities depending on which aspect ratio is being used.

The camera guide for the above move might look like this:

(note this is in 4 x 3 aspect ratio)