Glossary · Camera & motion
Tracking shot
A tracking shot moves the camera along with a moving subject, beside, ahead of or behind it, keeping the subject in frame as it travels through a place.
Why it matters
It carries the viewer along on a journey and shows the space a subject passes through, which a camera standing still cannot do.
Because the camera keeps pace with the subject, the subject stays in roughly the same place in the frame while the surroundings move past. That makes the viewer feel they are traveling with them.
Tracking can be side-on (sometimes called trucking), leading from in front, or following from behind. A long, unbroken tracking shot pulls a viewer deep into a scene; short ones add energy to action.
It differs from a pan, where the camera only turns, and from a dolly in or out, where the camera moves toward or away from the subject rather than traveling alongside it.
A short about one of the first long-distance car journeys follows the car from beside the road at the same speed, with fields and fence posts streaming past behind it as the narrator explains that the driver had to buy fuel at a pharmacy along the way.
Last reviewed 15 October 2026.