Duplicate Trope: Epic Tracking Shot vs.The Oner

These seem to be more or less the same trope.

Epic Tracking Shot: "An Epic Tracking Shot takes this Up to Eleven. This is where the camera goes on an uninterrupted journey from a close-up to a distance shot or vice versa. The purpose of this complicated shot is so that you can see the sheer scope of their environment or that it helps reveal the location of different groups or characters in relation to each other.

What usually makes this so "epic" is that the complexity of the shot is such that it would be impossible to do without the use of some sort of visual effect, such as going from a city skyline into an apartment, and then through a keyhole into the bathroom. This doesn't mean that there has to be loads of Conspicuous CG, it's just that it would be quite difficult and very expensive to do certain shots like that any other way.

Compare The Oner. While not exclusive to each other, The Oner can be done from a relatively stationary camera or have no really complicated actions besides the camera shot."

The Oner: "One very long continuous shot (or "one-shot"). The camera moves, the actors move, things happen, the camera keeps shooting. Difficult. Expensive. Rarely makes it out of the editing room intact. It's also an expensive pain in the ass on film cameras, many of which hold no more than 5 minutes (if that) of film for a shot. A screwup means a lot more than just a reshoot."

So Epic Tracking Shot is an extended tracking shot where the camera moves around and The Oner is...an extended tracking shot where the camera moves around. And the definition of Epic Tracking Shot suggests The Oner might include long takes where the camera does not move, except that the definition for The Oner does not include the possibility that the camera does not move, and in fact links to a third trope, Leave the Camera Running, for long takes in which the camera does not move. Although even that page does not specifically state the camera is stationary.

I can't tell a difference between Epic Tracking Shot and The Oner and I don't know which examples are which. Right now I am watching Touch of Evil and editing its trope page, and the famous opening tracking shot is listed under both examples, and I don't know which one is right or if it should actually be listed under both examples.

edited 1st Dec '14 4:47:18 PM by jamespolk

Epic Tracking Shot is allowed to include full CG and animation as well as shots that are actually tacked together in post to appear as one shot. The Oner has to be done in one take. That used to be the difference, but a lot of clean up is needed.

edited 1st Dec '14 5:02:10 PM by shimaspawn

So an Epic Tracking Shot must have trickery, while The Oner is an actual one-camera one shot take?

Is that enough of a distinction to have two separate tropes? If a trick tracking shot is done really well, the viewer won't be able to tell, will they?

I will have to check later but I think a lot of the examples of Epic Tracking Shot don't necessarily involve trickery. The Touch of Evil shot, the Boogie Nights shots—GoodFellas lists its famous example under The Oner but actually calls it an Epic Tracking Shot.

There is overlap, but The Oner can also be just an extremely long take with characters moving around within the frame, instead an Epic Tracking Shot following the characters through a complex series of movements. The core differences is:

• The Oner: An abnormally long take used without (visible) cuts. The complexity of the camera movement varies.
• Epic Tracking Shot: A tracking shot that features abnormal movement of the camera. The length of the shot varies.

The Oner is a well established industry term, an Epic Tracking Shot is more of a subtrope (same basic idea and the majority of examples fall under the supertrope).

They're sort of a super/sub relationship. The difference isn't always something the audience picks up on, but from a para text standpoint, a Oner is a lot more impressive.

They're not sub/super, since neither of them always overlaps the other. They're sister tropes, though.

Good point, duck. The Oner is an industry term though. I do think clearer definition and page clean up is important, but there should be a decent number of examples that are both.

Here's a simple review of The Oner, notice that the primary focus is the length of time and not the exact specifics of how it is accomplished. In general, the average cut is about 10 seconds long, so anything that goes 30 seconds or more is considered a Oner. Epic Tracking Shot doesn't have to be abnormally long, it just needs to accomplish an unusual task. 300 had a lot of these, most of it done in camera, by speeding up and slowing down the footage for maximum impact.

And then there's the term Long Take, which I believe is also related?

So if I understand correctly, the tropes are these:

• Epic Tracking Shot: A long tracking shot in which the camera moves, and which may or may not include trickery.
• The Oner: A long shot in which the camera might or might not move, and which probably doesn't include trickery.
• Leave the Camera Running: A long shot in which the camera does not move. (I think, although the definition of that one is vague as well.)

I think there is one too many tropes here and I don't see the need for Epic Tracking Shot and The Oner to be separate tropes. For starters, apparently a troper must do reserach or something to determine which shot is which. Russian Ark is a single 90-minute tracking shot. Was that done with new advances in digital photography, or fakery of some sort? I don't know. Was the long tracking shot in Atonement done in the camera, or by some kind of CGI trickery? I don't know.

I propose a single trope to document, well, Epic Tracking Shots, to include both "real" in-camera long shots and shots that are done with CGI or digital effects, as well as shot done with old-school trickery like Rope. Merge The Oner into Epic Tracking Shot.

edited 2nd Dec '14 3:08:03 PM by jamespolk

Again, The Oner is about length between cuts, Epic Tracking Shot is about scale and complexity of camera movement. There is overlap, but they are distinctive ideas and nothing is gained from a merge.

The Oner isn't allowed to use trickery. It's an industry term.

Leave the Camera Running is also an industry term for when the director just leave the camera running as the actors adlib past what was actually on the script. It's capturing unexpected stuff and adding it on to the film. It doesn't need to be all one long take, but frequently is because it was unscripted and is often more a happy accident then something you can repeat.

I sense I am losing this discussion...but there still hasn't been a case made here for the need for two separate tropes. There is massive amount of overlap here. There's lack of a meaningful distinction between tropes. I will quote the distinction given in post #4:

• The Oner: An abnormally long take used without (visible) cuts. The complexity of the camera movement varies.
• Epic Tracking Shot: A tracking shot that features abnormal movement of the camera. The length of the shot varies.

This is the same trope, worded two different ways. The only distinction I am seeing in this thread is that Epic Tracking Shot features "abnormal" camera movement, which is vague and undefineable, and may or may not feature some kind of trickery to simulate the shot.

I submit to y'all that not only is the distinction too vague to justify separate tropes, it requires tropers to do background research on the material to decide which trope is applicable. I ask again about the examples I've given in this thread. Is the long tracking shot in Atonement an Epic Tracking Shot or The Oner? I don't know. Is Russian Ark, in its entirety, an Epic Tracking Shot or The Oner? I don't know. Gravity obviously is CGI up to its eyeballs, since Sandra Bullock wasn't really in space. But as far as the basic long tracking shots of Bullock and Clooney went, before the CGI background was applied—are they Epic Tracking Shots or Oners? I don't know.

If the distinction is not immediately obvious and the average viewer/troper has no way to tell which is which, surely there is a problem here.

The Oner isn't just without visible cuts. It's without any cuts and doesn't require the movement of the camera

One is a trope about shot length. The other is a trope about camera movement. They aren't at all related. They just happen to overlap on occasion.

All of your examples do sound like Epic Tracking Shots, but you have to stop thinking of this as an either or. They aren't even sister tropes. There is no reason a shot can't be both a Oner and a ETS. Yes, you need to be a film geek to know if something is a Oner. It might be better as trivia.

Either way, there is no overlap in the definitions of the two tropes.

edited 7th Dec '14 11:29:01 AM by shimaspawn

Can you have a 15-second epic tracking shot?

edited 7th Dec '14 11:45:04 AM by jamespolk

Yep. If in those fifteen seconds you go fly inside a house through the keyhole or something like that, absolutely.

I believe ETS may still involve cuts while The Oner is not. The Oner also doens't have to involve tracking.

Correct. None of the criteria of one are citeria of the other which makes the confusion between the two very odd. Just because there are a lot of red apples doesn't mean red and apples are the same thing at all.

Clock is set.

The laconics should be added to Canonical List of Subtle Trope Distinctions.

If you want. It will look a little silly on them since the criteria don't overlap at all which is generally a criteria for that page. I don't think there are any other tropes on there with absolutely no overlap in definition. It would be a first.

This isn't a subtle distinction. This is two tropes about completely different things that happen to have a lot of example overlap.

Stale with expired clock; closing.