Tracking shots in film allow viewers to follow action backwards, forwards or alongside. In Biograph's March 1912 "The Girl And Her Trust," D. W. Griffith, in one of cinema's first tracking shots, places his camera both on a truck bed and on tracks to capture the sequence of the apprehension of kidnappers by a rescue train.
"The Girl and Her Trust" is almost a carbon copy of the 1911's "The Lonedale Operator," about a female telegraph operator who is held up by a pair of robbers intent on stealing payroll money she's holding for a company. Contrasting the two movies made a year apart directly shows the progress Griffith was advancing in establishing new cinematic techniques. The difference is especially noticeable in the chase sequence about two-thirds into "The Girl and Her Trust."
Griffith has heightened the action of his later film by having his camera capture both the train rescue and the robbers' attempt to get away with the loot in a sequence of cross-cutting edits. He had his cameraman, Billy Bitzer, place his camera on a flatbed truck and drive on a parallel road to the tracks following a speeding train. Even though other directors may have thought of this idea, Griffith was the first one to record cinema's first trucking shots to the vast American public.
To film the thieves in their attempt to escape with the money using a handtruck on the same train tracks, Griffith situates his camera high above the pair's handcar. The series of shots, with the female telegraph operator as a hostage on the handcar, is technically a tracking shot, using the train tracks to film the robbers frantic pumping of the rails.
Essentially, trucking and tracking shots are the same "following shots' which capture people or vehicles' movements without them traveling out of frame. Pedantics will split hairs and claim a trucking shot is one utilizing a moving vehicle on wheels to place the camera on, while tracking shots solely rely on rail tracks to have a camera dolly filming on them. Tracking shots have been used ever since the "Phantom Ride" movies of the late 1890's where a camera is posted on a train and records the landscape going by.
The only fault of Griffith's in the rescue sequence was his violation of the 180-degree rule, where his axis of action fails to follow the rule of directional consistency. He has his train and handcar traveling from right to left and then left to right, confusing viewers into thinking the two will eventually crash into one another.
In another shot of brilliance, during the final sequence, where the operator's boyfriend and the movie's heroine are sitting on the front of the train, Griffith cuts to a medium shot of the pair. This reflects the two getting extremely close to one another after their ordeal. Then, in a unique shot at the time, the camera remains stationary while the train reverses itself. It's a shot that stands as an aesthetic testimony of Griffith continuing to bring art into his films.
"The Girl and Her Trust" is almost a carbon copy of the 1911's "The Lonedale Operator," about a female telegraph operator who is held up by a pair of robbers intent on stealing payroll money she's holding for a company. Contrasting the two movies made a year apart directly shows the progress Griffith was advancing in establishing new cinematic techniques. The difference is especially noticeable in the chase sequence about two-thirds into "The Girl and Her Trust."
Griffith has heightened the action of his later film by having his camera capture both the train rescue and the robbers' attempt to get away with the loot in a sequence of cross-cutting edits. He had his cameraman, Billy Bitzer, place his camera on a flatbed truck and drive on a parallel road to the tracks following a speeding train. Even though other directors may have thought of this idea, Griffith was the first one to record cinema's first trucking shots to the vast American public.
To film the thieves in their attempt to escape with the money using a handtruck on the same train tracks, Griffith situates his camera high above the pair's handcar. The series of shots, with the female telegraph operator as a hostage on the handcar, is technically a tracking shot, using the train tracks to film the robbers frantic pumping of the rails.
Essentially, trucking and tracking shots are the same "following shots' which capture people or vehicles' movements without them traveling out of frame. Pedantics will split hairs and claim a trucking shot is one utilizing a moving vehicle on wheels to place the camera on, while tracking shots solely rely on rail tracks to have a camera dolly filming on them. Tracking shots have been used ever since the "Phantom Ride" movies of the late 1890's where a camera is posted on a train and records the landscape going by.
The only fault of Griffith's in the rescue sequence was his violation of the 180-degree rule, where his axis of action fails to follow the rule of directional consistency. He has his train and handcar traveling from right to left and then left to right, confusing viewers into thinking the two will eventually crash into one another.
In another shot of brilliance, during the final sequence, where the operator's boyfriend and the movie's heroine are sitting on the front of the train, Griffith cuts to a medium shot of the pair. This reflects the two getting extremely close to one another after their ordeal. Then, in a unique shot at the time, the camera remains stationary while the train reverses itself. It's a shot that stands as an aesthetic testimony of Griffith continuing to bring art into his films.