10 Most Revolutionary Camera Shots In Film History

By Keith Tomlinson /

1. Bound for Glory (1976) / The Shining (1980)

Stanley Kubrick€™s €˜The Shining€™ is rightly regarded as having pioneered the use of the Steadicam. But it wasn€™t actually the first movie to use the new (at the time) camera mounting. That accolade belongs to Hal Ashby€™s fictionalized Woody Guthrie biopic €˜Bound for Glory€™, released four years prior to Kubrick€™s horror classic. Ashby€™s movie arguably wasn€™t as inventive with the possibilities offered by creator Garrett Brown€™s steadying device, yet it did have the honour of officially being the first movie ever to use it, so therefore it must be given special mention here. Even €˜Rocky€™ and €˜Marathon Man€™ got in on the action before Kubrick did, but it is undoubtedly the Jack Nicolson starrer which has come to define what the €œSteadicam€ is all about. Indeed, the low angle effects achieved by Garrett Brown on the film are coincidentally very similar to another horror movie which was shot at around the same time, albeit with a substantially lower budget: which brings us back to Sam Rami€™s 'Evil Dead' and his budget tracking shot€