The trigger

A move starts, changes speed or ends because something in the frame or the sound does.

Name the trigger [proven as craft]: what in the frame or the sound starts the move, changes its speed or ends it. She lifts the lid. He turns. The door bangs. Give it its time in the CAMERA block ("when she lifts the lid at about 2 s, the camera begins…"), as Template A does.

The camera's speed follows the character's inner speed. It travels faster when the story speeds up, and settles when the story settles.

Frame one already breathes, so there is no static first second; the trigger starts the main move.

The trigger changes when and how fast the camera moves, not whether it moves. A hold is a named lock (see Camera and lens → Named locks and breathing frames).

The plan sets each shot's trigger in its camera column (see Planning, budgets and takes → The rules for each shot).

Roger Deakins: "If the camera moves it's got to be for a reason."

Sources

• Roger Deakins (Hazlitt interview); Greig Fraser on Lion ("his story slows so the camera needs to slow"; Film Courage interview, YouTube); Bradford Young (American Cinematographer, Arrival); Sam Mendes on 1917 (The Hollywood Reporter); HUNGER by @sssacccade (project), a Higgsfield Creative Partner.