Serene Velocity is a 1970 American experimental short film directed by Ernie Gehr. Gehr filmed it in the basement hallway of a Binghamton University academic building, using a static camera position and changing only the focal length of the camera. It is recognized as a key work of structural filmmaking and has been inducted into the U.S. National Film Registry.
Director Ernie Gehr in 2017
Serene Velocity shows a one-point perspective view of the hallway that divides it into the ceiling, walls, floor, and doors.
Structural film was an avant-garde experimental film movement prominent in the United States in the 1960s. A related movement developed in the United Kingdom in the 1970s.
In Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (1969), Ken Jacobs rephotographs the 1905 Billy Bitzer film of the same name.