Hi Annet,
To master cinematography is certainly not a simple task. A question of a technical storage and manipulation of a camera movement is, on the other hand, straight forward, and yes, it can be simple or complex. However, any key-frame that expresses the position or rotation will fine an expression in an F-Curve. With that, the change of the F-curve, simple or complex is possible. nevertheless, the key-question is here is that a clear idea what one wants to “tell with pictures” is needed. Smooth is just an expression and doesn’t lead to what you are looking for, as it misses out the observation one has to do to get the “WHY” of the whole movement. I would love to just tell you, read this book about Cinematography and you will be good. Well, having read any book about the subject since many decades that I was able to get my hands on (aka lots off), there is no single book that would deliver here the simple key philosophy quickly (or the one size fits all idea), if at all.
Take an album, or a coffee table photo-book. Observe yourself, how do you watch it. Seriously! How is your head moving, how are your eyes moving, perhaps how is your body moving. How does it differ when an image is boring or very interesting? This is a non-synchronized choreography of all the parts, to say the least. Simplified: This is expressed in “Point Of View” (where the camera is) and “Point Of Interest” (where the focus is set.) The difference between both (POI/POV) is an ratio or expression that can alter the feel of your animation dramatically. Again this is simplified.
In an album like yours, (I haven’t seen all the content,) where the eyes are resting and moving, you might find that those movements are independent from the eye/head placement/movement. Your head could move to the other page, perhaps to stay in an rhythm but the eyes are glued perhaps on a detail of the previous and not moving to the next, which leads to a different animation of the POI and the POV. Here is exactly what makes something smooth (not really a term that I would use for this, as it is too wide), if the camera represents that anxiety to see the next page but the passion (at the same time) to sticks on an image, if that difference is in sync with the audience, it might be perceived as smooth, if you do it in the opposite way, it is horrible to the audience. Why horrible? Because it doesn’t represent the idea of what should happen.
What is “smooth” for one, is rough or even stochastic for someone else. Again, music is a healing and driving force here, as it set a rhythm. The content of the images and the audience creates something very specific here, it fits to one case, but not to the next. All of that leads to a camera move, that can be cinematic or dynamically (what most people would identify as motion graphic, (which is a correct definition or not, based on the artist/target).
Speed, is the translation of this, my suggestion in one previous file, as mentioned before, was based on the speed of the flapping pages and “my” limited idea of your target audience and content. As mentioned, speed is not the key problem here. Speed is only how far apart certain values are stored in the time line (means horizontally), as well as dynamically, i.e., how far these values are apart (vertically) in conjunction with the time. Just use the ripple tool and stretch it, all is slower. No problem here, just a simple fix.
The F-curve, to come back to technical parts, works in a similar way: The more the curve is towards a vertically orientation – the faster the change, a complete flat F-curve represents no change. Anything between is what we can adjust and in F-curves, that can be changed gradually, from no movement to nearly sudden change. Sudden would be “Step” as interpolation, but with curves, there is no 100% vertical. So, anything can be achieved in F-curves, speaking of position and rotation.
To summarize: Our attention (POI) is often not in sync with our body (as in POV). If both are set properly in an animation, and perhaps most likely out of direct synchronicity, the movement might never stop, even the POI seems to be focused on a small area. IF the POI slows down, the POV might move, and vice versa. While not disturbing the observation of details.
The example below will be not to your liking in terms of speed, for reasons I have laid out in a very detailed way above. However, it shows the flow of movement that is created when the described idea from above is translated in cinematography, which is defined by most artist of that field as “leading the eye” and “translating the story into pictures”. It is a complex language, which is mastered when it becomes invisible to the audience, but transfers the story that has to be told in the best way.
Scene file
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/PXN0EzBRGPP9iePdYLSMNo7kKxhNTR3XGVoxDzpuMXQ
My suggestion, Take a cube and animate it, then use the F-Curve and change via the handles the curves and see how that changes the speed of the cube from start to finish. Do this until any prediction you make shows up on screen. To do this with a camera set up, like the one above, seems to much, when F-Curves are not really stored in one’s muscle memory.
My best wishes.
P.S.: A short clip 0-25 sec the adjustment of a curve, and 25-60 sec the POI/POV of the scene file from above.
