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Film & Television vocabulary · Shots and Camera Movements

Pan

Meaning in film & television, with examples

/pæn/verbCore term

In film & television, pan means: To turn the camera horizontally from left to right or right to left while it stays in the same place. The movement itself is called a pan.

In Turkish: pan yapmak, yatay çevrinme

How it is used

Directors say pan left, pan right or pan with him. A slow pan reveals a landscape; a whip pan (swish pan) is so fast that the image blurs, often used as a transition. Pan comes from panorama.

Example sentences

  1. Pan slowly from the window to the empty bed.

  2. The camera pans across the crowd and stops on her face.

Common collocations

  • pan left
  • pan right
  • slow pan
  • whip pan
  • pan across
  • tiltTo move the camera up or down on a fixed point, like nodding your head. The movement itself is called a tilt.
  • zoomTo make the subject look closer or further away by changing the focal length of the lens, without moving the camera.
  • tracking shotA shot in which the camera itself moves through space, for example on rails, a dolly, a vehicle or a stabiliser, usually following a character.
  • camera angleThe position and direction from which the camera looks at the subject, such as from above, from below or at eye level.

More terms: Shots and Camera Movements

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