Italian author Gabriele d'Annunzio contributed to the screenplay, writing all of the intertitles, naming the characters and the movie itself. The film was noted as being the first popular film to use the tracking shot – the camera is mounted on a dolly allowing it to both follow action and move within a film set or location. The tracking shot in itself was nothing new. "Panorama" effects (lateral and vertical) had been used frequently in film since 1896, but "Cabiria", with the new freedom provided by the dolly, is innovative in introducing "zoom" movement, towards and away from the scene, which for years afterwards was referred to by both cameramen and directors as a "Cabiria" shot. This movement was such an innovation at the time that other film makers quickly incorporated it. The film was a major influence on D.W. Griffith's "Intolerance" (1916) but he never uses 'Cabiria' shots; the famous crane shot moving down and into the festival in Babylon is a "panorama" effect.