Arrow Cam - Television Tropes & Idioms

Where the camera seems to be attached to an arrow or other projectile (well, actually it would be the other way around, wouldn't it) and you follow the arrow as it goes to its target.

Used lots in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, hence the alternative name of Raimi Vision.

Oddly enough, there may be a real-world prototype for this type of shot. Military snipers have been known to report going into a Zen-like trance when firing, during which their perception seems to "ride" the bullet all the way to the target.

Usually subject to No Arc In Archery even in works where that trope is otherwise averted.

Examples:

Perhaps the best-known usage comes from the early-90s Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. It should be noted that the shot was originally used only in the trailer, but proved so popular that it was added to the film.
- Naturally, this was subsequently parodied by Mel Brooks in the trailer to his movie Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
- And again in the tabletop RPG spoof movie, The Gamers. In this one the arrow actually stops and looks around at one point before finding its target. "Natural 20!"
The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring features another "point of view" arrow shot.
The Unreal Tournament games literally let you become one of the weapons, a tac-nuke known as the Redeemer, and guide it around until it explodes.
- ''There is also a mod for UT 03 & 04 that lets you actually ride the rocket. Naturally, the mod is called Strangelove.
- Additionally in UT'99, being gibbed at any point would treat the player to a "head bouncing around-cam" shot.
  - This returns in UT 3, whenever your head gets taken off.
The Slayer weapon in the N64 game Perfect Dark has a secondary fly-by-wire mode that allows the player to control the missile remotely while watching through an built-in camera.
The Seeker Missiles in Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire have a built-in camera that can be enabled or disabled in the options menu.
The Nikita remote controlled missile is a favourite in the Metal Gear series. Normally, the missile is controlled from a top-down view. However, in Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2, there is an option to go into first-person mode while controling the missile, displaying full screen the view from the built-in camera onboard.
The Visibomb Gun from Ratchet And Clank has a similar just-behind-the-warhead-view, and enough range (and steerability) that you can often sit at the beginning of the stage, and hit enemies at the very end. It was subsequently toned down in power when it returned in the sequel, Going Commando.
Saving Private Ryan contains a very prominent example of this with a bullet.
Occured in episode 13 of Avatar The Last Airbender, when the Blue Spirit was struck down by a single arrow fired by a Yuu Yan archer.
Real life example: Many modern missiles have cameras built in to facilitate aiming. Expect war coverage on the news to use these shots generously when talking about smart bombs.
- Interestingly, smart bombs themselves do not have cameras.
In Max Payne, this happened every single time you hit someone with the sniper rifle.
- This is, of course, a homage to Ringo Lam.
In an early episode of Mahou Sensei Negima we have an Arrow Cam without an arrow as Negi mentally homes in on his lost wizard's staff.
Sam Raimi used several POV shots in the Evil Dead series, and Army of Darkness featured a literal Arrow Cam when Arthur shoots an escaping captive in the back.
The Australian comedy series Pizza used Arrow Cam constantly, any time anything was shot or thrown.
The film Lord of War has the opening credits played over the manufacturing, shipping, loading, and eventual firing of a bullet using this technique.
Targeting your own bombs in the Freespace video game series allows you to view it in first-person as it smashes into the target.
Famously sent up on the sketch series Almost Live! with their "Billy Quan'' sketches; Billy's Finishing Move was a double-foot jumpkick, shot in this fashion, which could apparently home in on his opponent. The camera is from his viewpoint, and his legs jut into the shot.
- They also did a fake commercial for a restaurant called "Burger Gun", which instead of using a dive-up window fired burgers at passing motorist-customers from a cannon; the viewer got "burger's eye view" as the food blasted into a customer's mouth.
Descent II had the camera-guided-missile variety.
Crimson Skies also had a bunch of camera-guided-missile turrets... in the 1930s. Granted, the world of that series is not exactly identical to ours, what with the Divided States Of America and all that, but still...
When playing a multiplayer game in "Call of Duty 4", if a player is killed by an explosive (eg. Thrown grenade, grenade fire from grenade launcher, RPG rocket, or even bombs from airstrikes), the killcam will track that projectile when replaying the kill.
The Multiplayer of Star Fox: Assault includes an example of this with the rocket launcher setting. Both players must use Arrow-Cam missiles, leading to what this troper calls "Jousting".
The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian does this twice.
The Last Samurai did this with, if I recall correctly, a javelin or similar weapon.
Done in the animated film The Swan Princess.
The Bill Plympton short Draw! features a western gunfight from the bullet's point of view.
MDK and MDK 2: Armageddon had a bullet cam when the player went into Sniper Mode.
- In the original MDK, Kurt actually had three live bullet cams when sniping.
In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, Nanoha's first usage of Divine Buster Extension was accompanied by an Arrow Cam that rode the pink beam of death all the way to Vita.
In various animated media involving Golgo13. (There was a homage to this in the animated portion of Kill Bill.)
Rome: Total War allowed you to have the camera follow the projectiles of a selected ranged unit.
- Medieval: Total War has the same trick.
  - Empire: Total War also does this, for artillery/cannon and ships.
In the game Clive Barker's Jericho, all the playable characters have different weapons and abilities. One of them packs a sniper rifle, and has the ability to fire a bullet, whereupon you not only enter a Slo Mo Arrow Cam, but can telekineticly control the bullet. Really fun to just shoot one off and drive it into a demonic monster's skull.
In Comanche 3, the camera can change to follow a locked-on missile to its target.
There is a chance of this happening with any type of projectile weapon fired while in V.A.T.S. mode in Fallout 3. It most often happens when it is the killing shot.
In Supreme Commander if you set the camera to track an ACU (commander) and zoom in, you will get an Arrow Cam effect whenever the ACU fires a blast from its powerful overcharge cannon.
One of Ram's Loco Moves in Total Overdose is a golden gun, an homage to the Man With The Golden Gun except that it fires three bullets. The camera follows each bullet's trajectory to it's invariably lethal destination.
The space combat sim Independence War has remote piloted missiles which the player manually flies to the target and detonates. Notably, the missile has a large blast radius, so you don't need to actually hit a target to hurt them. Also your ship is not invulnerable while you're busy flying the missile.
In Star Wars Battlefront II, guided missiles are controlled like this.
The Angry Video Game Nerd uses this against the Nostalgia Critic. With a pen.

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