Film first: the moving-camera-through-a-scene shot

[2 Reel]

Cabiria (1915) usually gets the accolade, because of those many shots from a rolling platform that cause the viewer to creep into and through scenes as they happen, but was this the first use of that specific technique (not including cameras mounted on a moving platform, such as Hale's Tours), or was there something similar that was done earlier that officially takes the cake? What was this technique called in 1914?

[boblipton]

Billy Bitzer invented the Busby Berkley shot -- a moving crane shot -- at least as early as Panoramic View, Aisle B, Westinghouse Works in 1904, and there's at least one rising crane shot -- from the Eiffel Tower Elevator -- from 1900.

Diagrams show that Melies installed a track in his studio, so he could produce zoom effects.

Bob

[Gumlegs]

There is also Bitzer's 1905 film shot on a subway traveling from Union Square to Grand Central Station. Because the camera moves into the stations, I am guessing it's not going to be rejected on the grounds that its like one of the Hale's Tours films.

[Daniel Eagan]

Original poster wrote:

not including cameras mounted on a moving platform

so that would disqualify all films shot on trains, trolleys, trucks, etc.

I think the OP wants examples of a camera on a dolly moving through a set. Like the tango scene in Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Possibly Méliès, maybe Porter and Bitzer. Would have to look up Charles Musser's books to verify.

[wingate]

There is a moving panorama of Ealing filmed in 1901,taken from the top of a tram.It can be viewed on the BFI channel on YouTube.

[boblipton]

There is a moving panorama of Ealing filmed in 1901,taken from the top of a tram.It can be viewed on the BFI channel on YouTube.

Voila!



Bob

[s.w.a.c.]

There is a moving panorama of Ealing filmed in 1901,taken from the top of a tram.It can be viewed on the BFI channel on YouTube.

Voila!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmEcxE0MPgM

Bob

Just enjoyed an interesting experience moving my cursor along the timeline for the video, and the YT preview window was like a photograph you could zoom in and out of as you "fast-forwarded" along.

[Cineanalyst]

I think Charles Musser (and others?) have credited Hooligan in Jail (1903) and Photographing a Female Crook (1904) as first/early use of dolly shots and ones that moved forward into close-ups, and The Haverstraw Tunnel (1897) as first phantom-ride film, while the Lumière Panorama du grand Canal pris d'un bateau (1896) put the camera in a moving gondola.

Méliès moved stuff towards the camera--not vice versa. But, yeah, otherwise, these tracking shots likely began to gain momentum in the proto-documentaries such as the aforementioned Bitzer series, although Pastrone seems to have popularized them for a while. Regeneration (1915), for one, blatantly imitates "Cabiria shots" or "movements."

[boblipton]

I think Charles Musser (and others?) have credited Hooligan in Jail (1903) and Photographing a Female Crook (1904) as first/early use of dolly shots and ones that moved forward into close-ups, and The Haverstraw Tunnel (1897) as first phantom-ride film, while the Lumière Panorama du grand Canal pris d'un bateau (1896) put the camera in a moving gondola.

Méliès moved stuff towards the camera--not vice versa. But, yeah, otherwise, these tracking shots likely began to gain momentum in the proto-documentaries such as the aforementioned Bitzer series, although Pastrone seems to have popularized them for a while. Regeneration (1915), for one, blatantly imitates "Cabiria shots" or "movements."

I've seen the blueprints to Melies' studio. He had the camera on a track and moved it to and from the shoot space.

Bob