For this exercise I am to find examples of moving camera that alters the  meaning and/or feeling of a sequence.

Pushing in on a character slowly

This is a sequence from the movie Lucy by Luc Besson. where Lucy is speaking with Dr Norman via a television that she is now mentally able to control. She has reached the point where her brain capacity is operating at 28% and she wants to know what to do. The way this is filmed is through a series of cuts between the two characters and very a slow push in on both the characters. As the doctor realizes what Lucy is, and Lucy reveals more and more of what has happened to her and how it makes her feel less human, the camera pushes in closer and closer to their faces. At the climax of this scene where the doctor says that she should pass on what she knows, the camera is so close that only his eyes, nose and mouth are visible. This slow push in serves to emphasise the enormity of the realization that Lucy is something special but very dangerously so.

 

Combination of camera movements

The next clip is from the trailer to The Conjuring 2, a film I don’t plan on watching as this is not a genre or subject that I have any interest in, but found the camera movements in the trailer both unusual and effective. As it is a trailer it is made up of a series of short snips of sequences.

In the first sequence, the intention is clearly to make the viewer afraid. The camera movements are a series of pans left and right depending on where the little girl is looking, plus a series of zooms/push ins from both the girls POV and whatever it is that is haunting the room. This rapid switching between shots combined with fast and slow camera movements heightens the tension and constantly increases the feeling that something horrifying is about to happen.

In the second sequence of the trailer (at 01:33 in the trailer), a man is shown into the room where these activities are taking place. It is the first time that he has walked into the room. As he enters and looks around the camera does a fast 360 degree track around the man. The lens is wide angle and it is possible to see both the reaction of the man to what he is seeing and what he is seeing (the mess in the room and the crosses on the wall).

In the third sequence, the shot is a birds-eye view of people sitting around a coffee table listening to a tape recording. As the camera pushes in on the tape recorder, the camera starts to slowly rotate. Although this is not necessary disorientating, it is so unusual that it creates a feeling of uneasiness.

Dolly/tracking shot and steadicam

The scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dog where Mr Pink steals some diamonds and then has to run away from the police makes use of a combination of a very fast tracking shot (I suspect they were tracking in a vehicle to keep up) and a steadicam behind the running Mr Pink and the police. The combination of these shots helps emphasize the speed and energy of the scene.

Panning shot that hides a major reveal until the end

If found a clip on YouTube that shows a scene from the final episode of Breaking Bad where what first appears to be an innocent panning shot is being used to set the scene. It is in fact hiding a major reveal point which is only shown at the end of the scene when the camera pushes in on the main character. This definitely changes the feeling from safe to dangerous.
The clip explains what is going on very well.