The Crane Shot
The crane shot, also called a boom shot, is a shot that is photographed from a moving trolley equipped with a boom (or extension) on which is a platform for the camera and director of photography. From this platform the boom can lower or raise the camera to or away from a filmed subject, usually for dramatic effect. Here are three famous crane shots with dramatic purpose. In the Western, High Noon, the hero (Gary Cooper) is abandoned by the town to fight the bad guys by himself. To show the hero's isolation in an empty town, the camera slowly rises above him until he appears as a lonely speck in a ghost town (top, left).
The second example is from Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (right). Here the crane shot moves from above to below. The purpose is to show a party scene and then to isolate a detail of great importance—the key held by Ingrid Bergman, which will allow the hero to open a wine cellar that spies have used for their espionage work.
The final example (below, left) shows Scarlett O'Hara, in Gone with the Wind, as she discovers, with horror, how insignificant her own selfish needs are compared to the suffering caused by the Civil War between the Northern and the Southern US states. Only through this crane shot can the viewer contrast the private needs of a selfish individual (shown first in closeup) against the suffering caused by the war to hundreds of soldiers.
At the same time, the crane shot ends as a discovery shot, showing the Confederate flag—as if to link that flag with those dead, as the state anthem is heard on the soundtrack.
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