TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

The camera operators and directors making narrative films wasted no time in finding use for this new tool, which made it possible to shift the camera’s point of view in the midst of a shot. By 1910, most of the cinematographers working in a studio environment used tripod heads enabling the creation of pans (or “panorams” as they were often called at the time) and tilts (sometimes called “maxims,” because the movements they produced evoked those of Maxim machine guns).