AI camera movements: the easiest way to control all 12, with real prompts and clips

The easiest way: name a basic move in the prompt and say how fast it goes and where it stops, like "a gentle, steady push-in … as it comes to rest." For an exact move, like a 90° turn, an orbit at a set distance or a camera that follows a moving subject, draw it in Flick's 3D Stage: block the shot, record the camera path and give the video model that take as a reference. Below are 12 moves, 11 with a real prompt from a film made in Flick and 9 with the clip that prompt made, and Jaime Yao's method for drawing a move in 3D.

The Easiest Way to Control AI Characters & Cameras, with Jaime Yao (Flick on YouTube)

Featured tutorial: Jaime Yao (Flick team). Prompts and clips from Flick team and Residency films.

The 12 camera movements, with prompts and clips from real films

Each move has what it does, the prompt a Flick team or Residency filmmaker used for it (11 of the 12), and our call on whether to prompt it or draw it in 3D Stage. Nine moves loop the clip their prompt made.

1. Dolly in (push-in)

Film: Anger is Stolen from the Market by Marco Zenki (Flick Residency)

The move

What it does: The camera travels toward the subject. The frame tightens and the background shifts as it closes in, which a zoom does not do.

Use it for: Building tension, or landing on a reaction or a detail.

How to get it

Words that do the work: "slow push-ins as the revelation deepens" ties the move to a story beat, so it creeps in. "Minimal camera movement" keeps it the only move.

Prompt or draw? Prompt. Speed and the beat it lands on are enough for most shots.

Model: Seedance 2.0

…Close coverage … tight singles, slow push-ins as the revelation deepens. Minimal camera movement. The stillness amplifies the weight.

Try this move in Flick · 3D Stage Dolly in preset (Flick docs)

2. Dolly out (pull back)

Film: A Proper Introduction by Jaime Yao (Flick team)

The move

What it does: The camera travels away from the subject and reveals the space around it.

Use it for: Reveals, endings, and showing who else is in the room.

How to get it

Words that do the work: "The camera pulls back farther" names the move. "As the camera pulls back, a man … appears in the foreground" ties the reveal to the move, and "By the end of the shot, both … are visible in the same frame" says where it stops.

Prompt or draw? Prompt. Say what the pull-back reveals and the framing it ends on.

Model: Kling O3 Pro · Note: Image to video, from a start frame

Handheld camera.
The camera pulls back farther.
The little girl stays in the doorway, looking into the room.
As the camera pulls back, a man in a blue-gray sweater appears in the foreground.
He is sitting at the foot of the bed.
His legs resting on the floor are clearly visible.
He keeps his head down and looks at several child’s drawings resting on his knees.
His attention stays on the drawings on his knees and he does not look toward the doorway.
By the end of the shot, both the little girl in the doorway and the man sitting at the foot of the bed are visible in the same frame.
No background music.

Try this move in Flick · 3D Stage Dolly out preset (Flick docs)

3. Pan

Film: Churchill's Mum by Sandi Jerome (Flick Residency)

The move

What it does: The camera turns left or right from one spot, like turning your head.

Use it for: Showing a wide setting a piece at a time, or following action across the frame.

How to get it

Words that do the work: "slow, smooth lateral pan drifting across the countryside" sets speed and direction. "After the pan carries across the vista" hands off cleanly to the second move. The start and end frames fix where it begins and stops.

Prompt or draw? Prompt. The clip loops seconds 1 to 6 of this 25-second take: the pan, before the push-in.

Model: Seedance 2.5 · Note: Start and end frame attached

Opening establishing shot, 16:9, 25 seconds, one continuous uninterrupted take. The shot begins wide on the open countryside of the start frame and slowly transitions to settle on the painting cottage of the end frame.

Camera Movement: Begin with a slow, smooth lateral pan drifting across the countryside, gliding over rolling fields, water, and treelines… After the pan carries across the vista, the camera eases into a gentle, steady push-in that zooms toward the cottage, tightening from a sweeping wide vista down to a composed medium framing of the painting cottage as it comes to rest. The motion is continuous and cinematic throughout, one flowing move with no cuts, never rushed.

Try this move in Flick

4. Tilt

Film: In ’twixt Vows by Jaime Yao (Flick Residency)

The move

What it does: The camera stays in place and turns up or down.

You've seen it in: The opening of Star Wars (1977), which tilts down from the stars to the planet.

Use it for: Showing height, or following something that rises or falls.

How to get it

Words that do the work: "The camera position remains fixed" and "No push-in, no pull-back, no lateral move, no rise, and no drop" rule out every other move. "only slowly tilts upward in place" then names the one that's left.

Prompt or draw? Prompt. A tilt is one axis, so a sentence can pin it.

Model: Seedance 2.0

The camera position remains fixed.
No push-in, no pull-back, no lateral move, no rise, and no drop.
The camera only slowly tilts upward in place, following the rising particles, gradually lifting from her body toward the higher air above.
This shot uses only that single upward tilt in place.

Try this move in Flick

5. Truck

Film: The Herder by Jaime Yao (Flick team)

The move

What it does: The camera slides sideways, parallel to the scene, so near objects pass faster than far ones.

Use it for: Parallax, or moving alongside someone walking.

How to get it

Words that do the work: "ultra-slow lateral truck LEFT only for parallax" gives direction, speed and the reason. "NO forward dolly-in, no zoom, no rise, no tilt" rules out the moves a model tends to add.

Prompt or draw? Prompt. Draw a Path in 3D Stage when the direction must be exact.

Model: Seedance Pro

Camera is environment-priority and street-locked; do NOT track, follow, or center the protagonist. …

Camera move: ultra-slow lateral truck LEFT only for parallax. NO forward dolly-in, no zoom, no rise, no tilt. Add handheld energy by using subtle micro-jitter and slight uneven drift speed (tiny accelerations/decelerations), but still overall moving left the entire time.

Watch for: Forward drift. A video model can turn a very slow sideways move into a forward creep, even when the prompt rules out a push-in. This prompt's output did. Reroll, or draw the path in 3D Stage.

Try this move in Flick

6. Pedestal

Film: Lifeguard by Owen Doerr (Flick Residency)

The move

What it does: The whole camera moves straight up or down without tilting, so the angle stays level.

Use it for: Rising from a tabletop to eye level, or sinking with a character.

How to get it

Words that do the work: "a vertical descent, not a tilt" names the mix-up and rules it out. "static and locked-off, no pans, tilts, or zooms" keeps everything else still, and "settling lower over the 12 seconds" sets the pace.

Prompt or draw? Prompt.

Model: Seedance 2.0

Camera: static and locked-off, no pans, tilts, or zooms … the whole rig slowly sinks straight down through the shot (a vertical descent, not a tilt), starting higher in the water column than the @image1 waterline reference and settling lower over the 12 seconds. …

Try this move in Flick

7. Crane (boom)

Film: The Miracle by Sam Wasserman (Flick Residency)

The move

What it does: The camera rises or drops through the air, often moving forward or back at the same time.

You've seen it in: The long opening take of Touch of Evil (1958).

Use it for: Opening up a scene, or bringing a big world down to one person.

How to get it

Words that do the work: "slow physical crane upward and forward over his shoulder" sets two directions at once, and "physical" asks for real camera travel, not a zoom. "As the camera continues rising, reveal…" ties the reveal to the rise.

Prompt or draw? Prompt.

Model: Happy Horse 1.1

The protagonist stands beside the driver’s door with his back to the camera, staring into the distance.
…
The camera begins a slow physical crane upward and forward over his shoulder.

He remains almost motionless. Wind moves the bottom of his wet leather jacket.

The first elevated highway becomes visible beneath him.
…
As the camera continues rising, reveal multiple circular elevated highways surrounding the city.

Try this move in Flick · 3D Stage Crane up preset (Flick docs)

8. Orbit (arc)

Film: Happy Souls Alive by Simay Ezer Pekcan (Flick Residency)

The move

What it does: The camera circles the subject at a steady distance.

You've seen it in: The shot that circles the team in The Avengers (2012).

Use it for: Showing a character from every side, or a transition.

How to get it

Words that do the work: "constant radius" holds the distance, and "matching @Camera 1 beat for beat" hands the timing to the 3D Stage take. "never pauses, speeds up, or corrects" stops drift.

Prompt or draw? Draw. Simay says an orbit like this "is difficult to achieve with text alone." She sets 3D Stage's Orbit move (above), records it and attaches the take as the video reference.

Model: Seedance 2.0 · Note: Camera section of a longer prompt; the 3D Stage take is attached as @Camera 1

Single continuous arcing orbit, eye-level, constant radius, matching @Camera 1 beat for beat. Opens on a three-quarter angle with Char2 favoring camera-left and Bone favoring camera-right, both mid-gesture as locked in @Untitled Image. The arc sweeps in a continuous clockwise drift, carrying the camera behind the near foreground pillar around the 2.5-3.5s mark (Occlusion 1), continuing until the pair’s screen-left/screen-right relationship inverts near the midpoint of the shot, passing a second architectural block (rear wall edge / second pillar) around the 6.0-7.0s mark (Occlusion 2), and settling into a closing three-quarter framing near 8.5-10.0s that echoes, without exactly repeating, the opening angle. The camera itself never pauses, speeds up, or corrects … one unbroken arcing move for the full ten seconds.

Try this move in Flick · 3D Stage Orbit preset (Flick docs)

9. Tracking (follow)

Film: In ’twixt Vows by Jaime Yao (Flick Residency)

The move

What it does: The camera moves with a moving subject, ahead of it, behind it or beside it.

You've seen it in: The Copacabana shot in Goodfellas (1990).

Use it for: Walks, chases and anything that travels.

How to get it

Words that do the work: "following Aurel and Aldred slowly toward frame right from a short distance away" sets side, speed and distance. "gradually falls behind them, slows down, and eventually comes to a stop" scripts the ending.

Prompt or draw? Prompt a loose follow. Draw an exact one, like Jaime Yao's 90° turn below, where "the prompt just wasn't giving me the movement I wanted."

Model: Seedance 2.0

Camera: one continuous handheld shot. Start frame matches @Aurel and Aldred on the Track 100%. The camera begins by following Aurel and Aldred slowly toward frame right from a short distance away. … As Aurel and Aldred continue forward, the camera gradually falls behind them, slows down, and eventually comes to a stop. After stopping, the camera keeps the same viewing direction while the men continue walking away toward frame right and gradually leave the frame. … No cuts, zooms, push-ins, or pull-outs.

Watch for: Extra cuts. In a long take, a video model may add a cut even when the prompt says "No cuts". This clip switches to a wide shot at about six seconds, so the loop ends before it. Trim in the edit, or generate a shorter take.

Try this move in Flick

10. Handheld

Film: Seasons by Raj Rishi More (Flick Residency)

The move

What it does: The camera looks held by a person: small sway, breathing and reframing.

You've seen it in: The Omaha Beach landing in Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Use it for: Realism, tension or a documentary feel.

How to get it

Words that do the work: "Handheld camera in front of Pema, following her" places the operator. "Subtle handheld sway and breathing motion" sets how strong the shake is.

Prompt or draw? Prompt. In 3D Stage you can also set handheld shake on the camera, or ask the agent for it, as Hannah L. does in the second box.

Model: Seedance 2.0

Handheld camera in front of Pema, following her as she walks in from the door carrying two empty steel plates. She crosses the room to the wooden dining table and sets the two plates down on it. Warm sunny daylight through the window. Subtle handheld sway and breathing motion. …

Model: 3D Stage chat · Note: Hannah L. asking the 3D Stage agent, in Flick's "Your AI Character Keeps Changing" video

can the camera record with just a slight handheld shake effect?

Try this move in Flick

11. Drone shot (flyover)

Film: One More Day by M.E. Owens (Flick Residency)

The move

What it does: A high, smooth aerial move over a large space, flying forward, pulling back or descending.

You've seen it in: The aerial opening of The Shining (1980), shot from a helicopter, flying over the car on the mountain road.

Use it for: Opening a film or a new place.

How to get it

Words that do the work: "Wide cinematic drone shot slowly pulling back from the winding country road" gives height, speed, direction and subject in one line. "Calm, unhurried movement" keeps it smooth. The second prompt caps the height: "Do not rise too high."

Prompt or draw? Prompt.

Model: Seedance 2.0

Wide cinematic drone shot slowly pulling back from the winding country road as the small sedan cruises forward peacefully through rolling autumn hills. … Calm, unhurried movement…

Model: Seedance 2.0 · Note: From In ’twixt Vows by Jaime Yao (Flick Residency)

The camera follows the particles forward into the wetland tree forest.
The camera move is smooth, slow, and continuous.
The camera keeps moving forward without sudden acceleration, sudden deceleration, or large shaking.
Do not rise too high.

Try this move in Flick

12. Dolly zoom

The move

What it does: The camera moves one way while the lens zooms the other, so the subject stays the same size and the background stretches or squeezes behind them.

You've seen it in: Jaws (1975), on Chief Brody at the beach, and Vertigo (1958).

Use it for: A moment of shock or realization.

How to get it

Prompt or draw? Draw. The move and the zoom have to change together at the same rate. No Flick team or Residency film has a dolly zoom shot yet, so this card shows how to set one up in 3D Stage instead of a result: pick the Dolly zoom preset (in the menu above), record the take, and attach it to the video model as the camera reference.

Try this move in Flick · 3D Stage Dolly zoom preset (Flick docs)

Source: Simay Ezer Pekcan, Happy Souls Alive tutorial (Flick on YouTube, 5:10)

Why AI camera prompts miss, and what to write instead

A short phrase like "slow dolly in" leaves out how slow, where the move stops and what else should stay still, so the model guesses. Every wrong guess is a reroll.

• Say the speed and the end point. Churchill's Mum doesn't stop at "push-in": it says "gentle, steady" and names the framing it ends on, "a composed medium framing of the painting cottage."
• Rule out the moves you don't want, as the tilt and truck prompts above do.
• Give the camera one job per shot. Flick's own Seedance guide puts it this way: "If the camera moves, give it one clear job only."
• Lock the camera when it shouldn't move. Of the 104 video prompts we read from 26 Flick team and Residency films, 38 ask for a locked or still camera, more than ask for handheld (25).

Video model	Credits per clip, on average	Generation time per clip, on average
Seedance 2.0 with references	about 344	about 5 min
Seedance 2.5 with references	about 550	about 6 min

Flick data, successful generations in the last 90 days, October 2026. Averages per clip.

Jaime Yao's rule is to try the prompt first: "I always try to solve things through prompting first." When a move still misses after a couple of tries, drawing it once in 3D costs less than rerolling.

How to draw a camera move in Flick

In the video above, Jaime Yao builds a shot where the camera loosely follows a bird around a room and then turns to a character. These are his steps.

1. Make the assets first. Jaime makes the environment, characters and props as stills, with his style line saved in the Flick agent's memory so every image matches.
2. Convert the environment to 3D. Select the environment image and choose Convert to 3D. The Flick agent builds a 3D scene from the image. Jaime: "This usually takes around 2 to 3 minutes."

   

3. Add a camera in the top-down view. Click the new node to open a top-down view, add a camera and drag it around. The camera preview inside the node updates as you move it.

   

4. Draw the path, with Match draw speed on. Click Draw direction and draw the camera's path. With Match draw speed on, the camera copies your drawing speed: "Wherever you draw slowly, the camera moves slowly, too." For many shots, Jaime says, that's already enough.

   

5. Open 3D Stage for complex shots. His scene needs three characters and a moving bird, so he opens 3D Stage from the button in the bottom right corner of the node.
6. Block characters with simple shapes. He asks the agent for placeholders: "A cube for the body and a sphere for the head are enough for blocking." Each character gets its own color so you can tell them apart later. Click a shape to select it, then use W to move it, E to rotate it and R to resize it.

   

7. Draw paths for moving objects too. A small flat rectangle stands in for the bird. In the top-down view, he draws a winding flight path for it, the same way he drew the camera's.

   

Most drawn camera paths keep Match draw speed on: 76 of the 97 camera paths Flick users drew in Flick's 3D views (the canvas 3D node or 3D Stage) used it, and users recorded 1,833 takes in 3D Stage over the same period (Flick data, last 90 days, October 2026, Flick staff excluded).

Make the camera look somewhere: targets

A target is an empty object in 3D Stage that gives the camera something to look at. It stays invisible in the recorded shot. As Jaime puts it, "The camera's path controls where it moves and the target controls where it looks."

1. Add a target and give it a path. Under Add action on the left, find Path and drag it onto the target. Click to place each point along the route.

   

2. Adjust the heights. The points start at the same height. Raise or lower them afterwards so the camera looks up or down where you want.
3. Steer the camera's attention. Jaime's target roughly follows the bird, with a few stretches that lead the camera's attention elsewhere in the room. Near the end he moves the target over to one character, so the camera turns toward him as the shot finishes.
4. Give the camera its own path and point it at the target. Add the camera, build its path the same way and set it to look at the target. In the path's Properties this setting is Faces (Flick's 3D Stage docs call it "Looks at"): the direction of travel, or a target. Jaime: "This part can take a little time, so be patient and keep adjusting."
5. Rehearse. Click Rehearse to preview the shot from the camera.

   

From blocking to final shot

The 3D take only carries the camera move and the positions. The look comes from your images.

1. Export the clip to the canvas. When the rehearsal looks right, export the blocking clip back to the canvas.

   

2. Select the clip and the references. Select the blocking video plus the reference images, both the environment and the characters, then open Omni reference with Seedance.

   

3. Say what each reference controls. Jaime: "Describe the scene you want to create and clearly specify what each reference should control." Flick's Omni Reference guide adds: "An attached reference that the prompt never mentions may be ignored."

Here is Jaime's full prompt, word for word from the video (5:33). In Flick the references show as chips; they appear here as @names, and names cut off on screen end in "…". Note how each colored proxy is mapped to one reference image.

Full prompt

Single continuous shot. Keep @Camera 1’s camera movement, framing, timing, character blocking and bird trajectory 100% unchanged.
Use @Hôtel de Ville Paris 1794… for the interior appearance and visual style; @Hôtel de Ville, Paris 1794 for the scenery through the windows.
Fully replace the proxies: yellow = Robespierre @Robespierre Character Tu…; red = young soldier @French National Guard S…; blue = officer @French National Guard …; cyan = swallow @Barn Swallow Character …. Proxies provide identity and motion only. Final silhouettes and colors match the image references 100%. Restore the surrounding background outside each replacement’s silhouette.
The officer and Robespierre sit at their respective tables reviewing documents. At the end, the soldier stops beside Robespierre and quietly but firmly speaks the shot’s only line: “Robespierre.” Robespierre pauses writing and looks up at him.
Continuous torrential rain sounds outside. Footsteps occur only when the soldier actually walks, synchronized with his footfalls. No background music.

Simay Ezer Pekcan splits the jobs the same way for her orbit in Happy Souls Alive: "The painted image controls the character design, costumes, lighting, and overall visual style. The 3D video is only for camera movement."

Three more ways Flick creators control the camera

1. An orbit with a set duration, direction and distance (Simay Ezer Pekcan, Happy Souls Alive). In 3D Stage she picks the Orbit move, which "moves the camera around a selected subject," sets the subject, angle, direction and duration, and tests it a few times before recording. Pillars in her set pass in front of the camera, and that is where she hides the cuts between clips. Her settings and her prompt are in the orbit card above.
2. Keyframes for an exact 90° turn (Jaime Yao, In ’twixt Vows). He first sets the camera to follow the character, then adds keyframes to rotate it 90°. "That gives me the movement I wanted while keeping the character and environment in the same consistent space." He records the camera preview, sends it to the canvas and uses it as a video reference for Seedance. You can also set up the move by describing it in the chat.

   

3. A handheld shake by asking the agent (Hannah L.). In 3D Stage, Hannah asks the chat to record the camera with a slight handheld shake (her exact message is in the handheld card above) instead of picking from the camera presets. She rehearses, records, brings the take back to the canvas and uses it in Omni reference with her original image.

There's a fourth way: film the move yourself, using your phone as a handheld camera inside the 3D scene. Jaime shows it in Step 4 of our guide on how to make AI movies (linked below).

Camera movement cheat sheet

All 12 moves at a glance. The wording column is ours; the films above show how real prompts phrase each move.

Move	What the camera does	Wording to start from (ours)	Prompt or draw
Dolly in	Travels toward the subject	Slow dolly in from a wide shot, ending on a close-up of her face.	Prompt
Dolly out	Travels away, revealing the space	Slow dolly out from a close-up to a wide shot of the whole room.	Prompt
Pan	Turns left or right in place	Slow pan from left to right across the valley, stopping on the house.	Prompt
Tilt	Turns up or down in place	The camera stays in place and tilts up slowly from his boots to his face.	Prompt
Truck	Slides sideways, parallel to the scene	The camera trucks left at walking pace, parallel to the wall. No push-in, no tilt.	Prompt
Pedestal	Moves straight up or down, no tilt	The camera rises straight up from table height to eye level, with no tilt.	Prompt
Crane	Rises or drops through the air	Crane up and back from behind her shoulder until the whole street is visible.	Prompt
Orbit	Circles the subject	One slow clockwise orbit around him, at the same distance, for the full 10 seconds.	Draw
Tracking	Moves with a moving subject	The camera follows behind her at the same distance as she walks down the corridor.	Prompt; draw for exact turns
Handheld	Looks hand-held: sway, breathing	Handheld, subtle sway and breathing motion, never shaky.	Prompt, or set shake in 3D Stage
Drone shot	High, smooth aerial move	High drone shot moving forward over the forest, slowly descending toward the river.	Prompt
Dolly zoom	Moves one way, zooms the other	The camera pushes in while the lens zooms out, so his face stays the same size.	Draw

Direct your first camera move in Flick

Sign up, open a canvas and draw a camera path in 3D Stage, or paste one of these prompts into a video node.

Every account gets 100 free credits when you sign up, and 100 more every Monday.

Create your free Flick account →

Related guides

• 3D Stage cameras Camera presets (orbit, dolly in and out, dolly zoom, crane), paths, follow and keyframes.
• Camera Control Generate a new angle of a still: rotate, tilt or move closer.
• Omni Reference Use a 3D Stage take as the video reference for camera movement.
• Seedance prompt guide Separate character action from camera action, one job per shot.
• Animation styles for AI 15 looks with the real prompts from real films.
• How to make AI movies Block every scene in 3D, with your phone as the camera, plus data from 9 films made in Flick.

About the author

Bilguun Bayarkhuu is a growth engineer at Flick. This guide collects the camera prompts Flick's team and Residency filmmakers used in their own films, the clips those prompts made, and Jaime Yao's 3D method for moves a prompt can't pin down.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 7 basic camera movements?

A common list is pan, tilt, dolly, truck, pedestal, crane and zoom. Pan and tilt turn the camera in place. Dolly, truck and pedestal move the whole camera forward or back, sideways, and up or down. A crane lifts it through the air, and a zoom changes the lens without moving the camera. All seven work in an AI video prompt when you add the speed and where the move ends.

What are five common camera movements?

Five you'll use most: pan, tilt, dolly in or out, tracking and handheld. They cover turning in place, moving toward or away from a subject, moving with a subject, and the feel of the camera itself.

What are the types of camera movement?

One way to sort them is into four groups. The camera turns in place (pan, tilt). The camera itself moves (dolly, truck, pedestal, crane, orbit, tracking, drone). The operator's style changes the feel (handheld). The lens changes (zoom, and the dolly zoom, which combines a move with a zoom).

What are the 12 different camera movements for beginners?

Dolly in, dolly out, pan, tilt, truck, pedestal, crane, orbit, tracking, handheld, drone shot and dolly zoom. Eleven are listed above with an example prompt from a real film made in Flick. The dolly zoom has no film example yet, so its card shows how to set it up with 3D Stage's Dolly zoom preset.

How do you control camera movement in AI video?

Name the move, say how fast it goes and where it stops, and list the moves the camera must not make. If the model still gets it wrong, block the shot in Flick's 3D Stage, record the camera path, and give that clip to the video model as a reference, saying in the prompt that it controls only the camera.