WALK THE SET

Half of the operator’s job is to make sure the right things are composed properly in the frame at the right time. The other half of the operator’s job is to keep everything else out. With experience this becomes easier and easier: I can walk into a room and immediately notice the glass-covered pictures on the wall that are miniature mirrors that I have to keep myself out of; the shiny surfaces in which the boom and boom operator will be reflected; and several vertical objects such as floor lamp stands that will make certain angles detrimental for closeups unless the actor is supposed to have a light growing out of them.
Other things are sneakier, and it’s always a good idea to walk the set and look for things that you may not immediately pick up by looking through the camera, such as cables and C-stand legs. It can also be helpful to look at the set with your eyes, free of the viewfinder, and see what you may have missed detecting. I remember shooting a shot that started on a glass table, and the reflection in the table surface was so strong that I didn’t notice the furniture pad laying underneath it until someone else, using only their eyes, pointed it out to me.
There was an old TV series called “Beauty and the Beast” whose art department always tried to hide a small red toy lobster on the set.

ADJUST THE CAMERA, NOT THE ACTOR

Sometimes actors miss their marks consistently, and it’s almost always easier to move the camera to restore the composition than it is to try to move the actor’s mark. Let them miss their mark consistently rather than giving them a new mark to miss. At least they’ll end up in the same place every time, and you have more control over the camera that you do over them.
If you do need to move an actor in order to get a better shot, and there’s more than one actor in the shot, don’t move the star if you can help it. I learned that lesson the hard way once. Move the lesser actor.

COMPOSITIONS DON’T HAVE TO BE BALANCED

In a 1980’s movie entitled “The Hit,” two characters have a conversation at the base of a lighthouse. The camera is on the ground looking up and the bulk of the lighthouse dominates the dead center of the frame. One character is leaning against a car in the foreground on frame left, and the right side of the frame is empty.
Over the course of this shot the character in frame has a conversation with a character who is not in the frame. The off-balance framing creates a lot of tension until the very end of the scene, where the other character steps into the empty part of the frame and balances the composition.
This little scene showed me that compositions take place not just in space but in time as well. Keeping a frame unbalanced for a period of time can build dramatic tension, and later completing the composition can release it. I’m constantly looking for opportunities to do this.
There’s another style of composition that frames for an object, such as a building or architectural feature, that focuses attention by introducing something else that just doesn’t seem to belong. Imagine a distant shot of the Taj Mahal, symmetrically framed down the center of the reflecting pool, and then introduce a single person into the environment anywhere in the frame. No matter how small that person is, as long as they are visible we will be drawn to look at them because they are the one thing that’s out of place in an otherwise perfectly balanced composition.

WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION

One key advantage of a geared head is that it divorces your mass from the camera’s movement. In the event of the dolly coming to a sudden stop, your body may want to continue down the track. As long as the gear head wheels don’t turn, though, the camera won’t follow your body. This can be more difficult with a fluid head, but it’s definitely possible if you can distribute and brace your weight through three points of contact with the dolly. If you’re sitting, plant your feet firmly, or find a comfortable sitting position, and then put your upper body weight onto your left hand, which should be placed somewhere near the camera (around the base of the fluid head, or the boom arm itself). The idea is that your weight is firmly planted between your legs and that hand resting on the dolly, leaving your panning hand free to operate the camera.
This works in a standing position as well, where your weight is spread out between your legs and your left arm. The right arm, controlling the camera, can do what it wants.
Over time you’ll learn to completely divorce your panning arm from the movements of your body. I’ve gotten to the point where I can operate a 180-degree or greater move on a fluid head while climbing over a dolly. My body does one thing while my panning arm does another.

FEEDBACK

I find that I operate a fluid head better when one hand operates the head and the other is placed around the base of the head, where I can sense panning movement, or on the tripod or dolly. Having that point of reference, either in feeling the head rotate or having a solid surface against which I can judge movement, aids me considerably, particularly on dolly moves where one can become “lost in the move” and not quite know visually what affect your movements are having on the camera because everything is moving.

BODY LANGUAGE IS OUR FRIEND

Human beings often physically telegraph what they are about to do, and over time one can get a feel for an actor’s movements and predict what they may do next, and where.
This works well with sudden movements. I’ve become very good at being able to tell how far an actor will jump, for example, by having an innate sense of how far they can move in one step for someone their height. If an actor is moving suddenly in one direction or another it can be easier to move the camera to where I feel their end point will be rather than try to follow them. For someone like myself, whose reflexes are okay but not great, I can make up for my lack of reflex speed with my excellent sense of timing. Instead of following fast action I often focus on properly timing the start of my move and then moving the camera a set distance at a set speed, based on rehearsals or gut feeling. This works very well, although it takes a certain amount of faith at times.
Most operators will tell you that the hardest shot to execute is someone standing up from a sitting position. This is absolutely true. Practice, practice, practice.

HALF OF OPERATING IS KNOWING WHEN NOT TO MOVE THE CAMERA

Just because you can move the camera doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes the strongest frames are the ones that move the least and allow action to play within their borders.
A lot of this is about body language. I’ve noticed that most people tend to move around a central point: if they’re sitting at a desk, for example, they’ll sit in one position for a while, then lean in across the desk, then lean back, and return to the original position. If they do this fast enough, and you have a wide enough frame, you don’t really have to move the camera. You can let them “play the frame,” although you have to be limber and watch for the unexpected.
“Micro operating” is the habit some operators have of reacting to every small movement, even an eye twitch or slight head turn. This style is appropriate for certain things, and whether you employ this style or the “less is more” style has a lot to do with who you’re working for.
The bottom line, though, is that just because you’re an operator doesn’t mean that you need to move the camera to prove your worth. I once heard a producer complaining to a DP that the grip and electric departments stood around during takes, and he hated that he was paying them to stand around. The DP corrected him: “You’re not paying them to stand around; you’re paying them to do exactly the right thing at the right time.” The same is true of an operator: there’s no shame in not moving the camera as long as your moves are proper when you make them.
My personal style is to find static frames that play for long periods of time, and then when I do move the camera I simply move from one composition to another. This isn’t appropriate for everything and I have to adjust when necessary, but left to my own devices this is the kind of style that I prefer. I call it the “David Lean” approach: the compositions in his films are like paintings, and the camera rarely simply follows someone. When the camera moves it is typically making a transition from one “painting” to another.