A composed start and landing

Every move travels from one composed frame to another, and the landing has to be one the move can reach.

One composition clause at each end [proven]: where the subject sits, what fills the foreground, and what each edge cuts. "It opens on the boy small in the lower right, a blurred railing along the bottom edge, and lands with his face filling the left half, the doorway cut off by the right edge."

The move's dramatic job

The landing must be reachable. A gentle push that starts on a wide will never reach a tight close-up. Make the move bigger, or the framing change smaller. If your instructions for the move stop before the clip does, the camera wanders or drifts back, so the instructions cover every second to the end.

The ending follows the planned cut (decided): the camera keeps moving into the final frame if the edit cuts on movement, and comes to rest if the cut follows a beat (see Video with Seedance → Joins, endings, extension and the video edit).

In review, the first and last frames you use are judged as stills (see Video with Seedance → Take selection and review).

Greig Fraser's rule: make a great image, "and then you move the camera to another great image."

Sources

• Greig Fraser (No Film School); Bradford Young (American Cinematographer, Arrival); Roger Deakins; CINEDANCE, Higgsfield's studio prompt writer (a move with a job); @adilinthewild, written camera paths with a start, a push and a landing (blog).