tracking shot

American  

noun

Movies, Television.

1. dolly shot.

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tracking shot British  

noun

1. a camera shot in which the cameraman follows a specific person or event in the action

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Etymology

Origin of tracking shot

First recorded in 1940–45

Example Sentences

One person’s humiliating nadir comes during a painful tracking shot at an outdoor party where they’re shunned like they have the plague.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 17, 2025

"Babylon" flickers to life during its second episode starting with a fabulous tracking shot through the moviemaking process which includes dozens of spectacles in the foreground and background.

From Salon • Dec. 23, 2022

When the film is buoyant, it is through its blending of diegetic music and traditional scoring to create the auditory equivalent of a tracking shot.

From New York Times • Jul. 28, 2022

He’s knocked out by Alana, instantly smitten, a thunderbolt moment that Anderson memorializes with a prodigious tracking shot that gets both the camera and the story’s juices going.

From New York Times • Nov. 25, 2021

Megan is not a mystery to be solved, she is not a figure who wanders into the tracking shot at the beginning of a film, beautiful, ethereal, insubstantial.

From "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins