Let's stitch together some Panning Shots! (0080 Edition) (Patreon)

Every Gundam series has them: those especially striking shots too big to fit on the TV screen, so the camera must pan dramatically across them. If you watch the show normally you'll never get to appreciate the whole image at once. But if you watch it like a podcaster (or at least if you watch it like Thom...) you can always stitch multiple frames together to recreate the original image. So let's do that, starting with highlights from the 6 episode OVA from 1989: War in the Pocket.

 This painterly pan from episode 6 showing Bernie and Al working on a downed Zaku in a forest clearing is perhaps the most famous in the show, and certainly one of the most beautiful.

The story of War in the Pocket is fixated on how non-combatants experience the detritus of war: lost dog tags, spent ammunition, destroyed mobile suits... The panning shots emphasize that by repeatedly putting human figures alongside wrecked mobile suits, like these police detectives looking at the wreckage of the Kampfer in Episode 5, or this scene from Episode 6 of Bernie scavenging parents from a wrecked GM:

It's extremely unscientific, but Thom's impression is that vertical panning shots are more common on TV, while horizontal shots appear more often in movies and OVAs. Like these, all from episode 3, in which Al goes to the police for help, Chris tests out the as-yet-unfinished 'Alex' Gundam, and a mildly concussed Bernie joins the Mackenzie family for tea.

   But how did Bernie get concussed? Well.............