Why are so many scared of focus?

[DavidBeier]

One thing that I keep hearing as a criticism of video is the deep depth of field. I'm curious how come I seem to be the only person I know who actually likes that. Isn't anyone else a fan of deep focus? Doesn't anyone else think it's actually pretty amazing and more powerful to be able to direct the viewers eye using lighting and composition rather than just making stuff blurry? Look at Welles, Kurosawa, or Frankenhiemer. They've filmed some of the most beatiful stuff ever captured and they deliberatly made the focus as deep as possible.

 

[vidled]

It has more to do with being a fad I think, than anything else.
That, and the fact that it makes a small-chipped cam look more "expensive", since no small cam has shallow DOF.

 

[J.R. Hudson]

What's the question ?

I don't think anyone is afraid of it.

It just is something that has become standard (Longer lenses) in modern cinematography. It is't about making stuff blurry, it is about creating that depth to give another dimension to your frame.

 

[pmark23]

Shallow DOF is my (and many other's) pet-peeve.

(Warning: Big rant ahead which is sure to offend.)

At an indy screening you can hear the groans and sighs as yet another out-of-place DOF shot intrudes upon the story for no reason other than to stroke the DP's ego.

Back of the olden days, a DP would be fired on the spot if a dailies report came back from the lab that part of the background was soft.

If you look at the language of cinema, there's lots of terms and buzz-words to commonly used techniques: MOS, Zoom, Push, etc... But there is no term for the shallow DOF shot. Why not? Simply because professionals don't talk about it because they don't use it.

If you look at films from the dawn of filmmaking to the early nineties you'll see just how rare shallow DOF is.

The shallow DOF shot was considered an effect, and used only for very specific situations (such as a reveal), but even then used sparingly because it was (and still is) considered a crutch.

The fact that it's in vogue now is firstly because of inexperienced video-oriented DPs who are trying to copy a drawback of 35mm filmmaking (that film professionals try to avoid!) And secondly, by the proliferation of directors with poor directing skills who aren't able to control where the viewers eyes travel -- and hence need to blur parts of the background to make sure the audience is focussed on the foreground subject. This is bad. BAD!

Our brain has a remarkable ability to blur-out whatever we're not looking directly at. On the big screen, we automatically blur out the background (when we're not looking at it), so doing it for the viewer is pointless. Worse, it makes the film less visually interesting, because there's no place for the eye to wander. A good filmmaker will use the background to add layers of meaning to the film and help the story-telling process. By blurring out the background you automatically reduce the scope and meaning of the story -- which makes the film less interesting on a subconscious level, while consciously you may be left only with "Gee doesn't that look pretty".

There are places for shallow DOF. For example in shooting for television where you have the audience watching a small screen and need to get rid of a distracting background. Or in documentaries, where you don't have control over the background.

Otherwise, constant shallow DOF mostly betrays an amateur filmmaker. Sure now it's somewhat stylish, but it's the "grunge music" of filmmaking. Eventually people will come to there senses, and throw their DOF adapters in the garbage with red-faced shame.

</rant>

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

I must disagree. Although i'm not a huge fun of shallow DOF i think it's yet another tool that can be used to varying effect. For instance Michael Mann usses it to put his subjects in their own personal lives (think The Insider or sometiems Collateral). In Requiem for a Dream Libatique talks about the difference in "power" subjects have when put against soft background (more depth) and shallow ones. Etc... etc... SO again it's juts one of many tools at our disposal.

 

[Rasquachemedia]

hmmmm...

i think it can be used way too much as well. but when used right it is very powerful and dramatic.

sometimes dolly and crane shots are used too much and make me dizzy, or i sit there and ask myself if that was necessary. the answer is usually no. this happened in the movie The Island, i think it was called .

i see most of my movies on dvd now, so maybe that gives me more time to think about it and assess it, given that i could pause at anytime or rewind. maybe the movies experience is a bit different.

in independent films, maybe its because most everyone is experimenting, trying to learn, or attempting to show they have skills for their next job.

don't really know and can't relate as film is really a hobby for me and not by bread and butter.

but i agree DOF could be used too much sometimes.

in the first rocky film when rock is leaving adrianne's home after a horrible thanksgiving and he standing outside her house and she's at the porch, they speak and he walks away. i thought that was an excellent use of DOF.

 

[J.R. Hudson]

I must disagree. Although i'm not a huge fun of shallow DOF i think it's yet another tool that can be used to varying effect. For instance Michael Mann usses it to put his subjects in their own personal lives (think The Insider or sometiems Collateral). In Requiem for a Dream Libatique talks about the difference in "power" subjects have when put against soft background (more depth) and shallow ones. Etc... etc... SO again it's juts one of many tools at our disposal.

100% agree.

I can pull a laundry list of films and grabs like RIGHT NOW that showcase shallow DOF and it looks great. I appreciate a Deep Focus but I dont want it looking like The French Connection already

It's a tool. And that's that. Hopefully a filmmakers skill and knowledge bring merit to the decision in using it.

 

[snodart]

In terms of shooting DV/HD footage with a shallow DOF and prosumer cam, it is in some ways a fad I think. It is also based on tradition though (film). As we stand now, the majority of people are accustomed to seeing a medium to shallow DOF at a typical theater or on their DVD player with a rental.

I spent two months of late nights building my own vibrating 35mm adapter. It is a very limited tool (shallow DOF), but IMO, it brings my footage to a different level. Well, okay, it makes it look like a real life movie. True, this alone won't make a great shot, but in combo with all the correct elements (lighting, movement, comp, etc), I sure like it. And yes, there are great shots with a large DOF if the correct elements are there.

Another factor to consider is that a 50mm lense (for 35mm film) most closely mimics the human eye. Look across the room with your finger about 9 inches away from your face and focus on it. Not much else is in focus. Keep your finger there and focus on something across the room. Finger is out of focus. The brighter it is, the more the pupil (aperture) is open and the DOF is more shallow. The darker it is, the smaller the pupil, DOF is deeper. Perhaps this has something to do with a medium/shallow DOF gaining the praise of many.

 

[pmark23]

There's a very big difference between using it as a tool and using it as a crutch.

As a documentary filmmaker, I use it all the time (the DVX has great shallow DOF, BTW) when I don't have time to clear the background of distractions.

One place where it's almost mandatory is in advertising, because you want the focus to be on ONLY the subject. This is why you see DOF adapters on many DV commercial shoots.

Getting back to the point of the main topic, the reason many current top-tier directors don't use it (or use it extremely sparingly) is because of the cheese factor involved in a shallow-DOF shot. It's been abused by so many filmmakers more interested in style than substance that it's lost it's storytelling value.

The reason it was used so rarely in the past is because it wasn't viewed of as a very useful storytelling tool. Shallow DOF restricts the layers of meaning.

For an excellent example, look at Murnau's "Blue Angel". Murnau deliberately set up several layers of action, each one separate, yet adding to the story to form a larger whole. Citizen Cane used it another way, by setting up a path for the eye to follow along a single 3-dimensional path then back to the subject just in time for a cut to another deep-focus shot.

Another reason it wasn't used is that it was viewed as unnatural and intrusive, and pulls the viewer out of the story just as if the camera pulled-back and you saw the crew standing there filming it. In other words, it's self-reflective of the filmmaking experience, and points out to the audience that they're watching a movie rather than being involved with a series of relationships in a story.

Why is it that the reason people make DOF adapters is to "capture" the "look" of 35mm film? None of the movies I watch use shallow DOF, except extremely sparingly. My assumption is that this is used as an excuse to cover shoddy cameramanship. "Dude, your movie sucks!" "Yeah, well... you see... um... It's only video -- it doesn't have the depth-of-field of a real movie camera. If only I had more gear, then I'd be better than Spielberg!" Which probably explains why we're flooded with crappy indy movies and shorts with shoddy camera work and too much pointless DOF shots.

I think the real reason it is so much in vogue by beginning filmmakers is that they don't know framing or composition yet, and making the background blurry looks pretty and distracts the audience (and maybe themselves) from noticing their poor framing (or so they think.)

Filmmakers didn't use shallow DOF for the first 80 years of filmmaking (even though it was available and extremely easy to use) -- nobody will miss it if you don't use it today. Forget about DOF adapters and learn composition and blocking if there's "something missing" from your production.


John, I'd love to see your list of feature-films featuring shallow DOF. I'm racking my brains trying to come up with some. I can think of lots of tiny shots (for example, the robot-kid's entrance in "AI"), but nothing that uses it a lot besides television shows, commercials, and music videos.

 

[vidled]

One place where it's almost mandatory is in advertising, because you want the focus to be on ONLY the subject. This is why you see DOF adapters on many DV commercial shoots.

They also "artificially" blur out stuff in post (* or they use filters); something I can not stand. It's not as common right now as it was a year ago, luckily.

These things are FAD based to a LARGE degree, and they are cyclic too; remember the 70's zoom-in zoom-out; well it was a BIG no-no in the 80's/90's and now it's back.

And what about the shaky cam? I bet that will disappear again, until some "new" director will be hailed for re-introducing it again in 50 years!
In the end, there's so many different ways to tell a story well, there certainly isn't a fixed rule to adhere to....and it all remains subjective anyway...
Very interesting discussion though.

 

[Greggl]

Err... shallow DOF came with the onset of much more realistic and
subtle lighting as well as the move to location shooting as the studios
sold off their backlots. Thats when you started to see the dedicated
focus puller added to the crew. This became fimly entrenched in
the late 60s and early 70s when the 'film school' grads came on the
scene and took control and worked with the awful film stocks and
spotty budgets from the floundering studios.

Less light, wider aperature = shallow DOF. The trend for even more
subtle lighting is still progressing. Hech, hit the set of most 'big'
films these days and its almost 'dim'. You could barely read in the
lighting on the sets of The Practice or Buffy the Vampire Slayer

 

[vidled]

Oh, and ironically, I remember an episode of Beyond 2000 (I think) where they showed an Australian nature cameraguy who "invented" a lens that had an ASTONISHING deep DOF. He could keep in focus something that was a few centimeters away from the lens to way in the b.g.
IIRC he made this lens himself, by just experimenting with all sorts of different lens elements until he got it right.
He had some AMAZING footage; and major lens companies at his doorstep wanting to buy his design.
I sure hope, for his sake, that he cashed in at that time, as nowadays he might have little chance of making a buck, especially from the 1/3" chip video camera community!

 

[tigeba]

I find this discussion of DOF a little amusing. Over the last couple of days I have read probably the entire online archives of the ASC ( www.theasc.com ). Probably 50% of the descriptions are something like this: "The director wanted to incorporate as much natural and practical lighting as possible. We shot S35 with Cooke primes, most of the time wide open". It's not like this desire for depth of field control is some sort of grass roots revolution of the 1/3" chip filmmakers.

For the folks that were saying that shallow depth of field is a gimmick that is hardly ever used by "real" cinema I have to ask: Have you seen a move? When was the last time you saw an internal reverse shot at F11? Probably never. For that matter, when was the last time you saw ANY dialogue shot at F11? Not very often.

The ability to select focus in a scene is just as important as framing. The desire for filmmakers to have this choice is obvious and seems pretty non-controversial to me.

 

[DavidBeier]

I think Pmark has summed up most of my thoughts.

I've seen some great directors make good use of a shallow DOF but as an artistic choice. Most I've seen however use it as a crutch to hide poor composition or because they think it looks more Hollywood. Most indie filmmakers who whine so much about it never really do much with it when they get it, they also tend to use it as a crutch so they don't have to pay as much attention to composition. Listen to Roger Ebert's commentary on Citizen Kane. He talks so much about how they carefully draw your eye to different portions of the screen using much more sophisticated methods like lighting, composition, and motion.

I think linking the current love of DOF to the zooms of the 70s is quite accurate.

I don't dislike shallow depth of field on principle. I hate how people seem to think that any film needs it. I get tired of hearing people whining that 1/3 cameras don't have it when I never used it with 16mm.

 

[hotchkiss]

Shallow DOF is my (and many other's) pet-peeve.

The shallow DOF shot was considered an effect, and used only for very specific situations (such as a reveal), but even then used sparingly because it was (and still is) considered a crutch.

Otherwise, constant shallow DOF mostly betrays an amateur filmmaker. Sure now it's somewhat stylish, but it's the "grunge music" of filmmaking. Eventually people will come to there senses, and throw their DOF adapters in the garbage with red-faced shame.

</rant>

Yes, once people come to their senses, we'll all be shooting wide shots at f16. Heck why worry about lighting either ? It's a crutch as well. Auto exposure all the way!

Once the grand epiphany occurrs, I can't wait to go dumpster diving ...

 

[J.R. Hudson]

John, I'd love to see your list of feature-films featuring shallow DOF. I'm racking my brains trying to come up with some. I can think of lots of tiny shots (for example, the robot-kid's entrance in "AI"), but nothing that uses it a lot besides television shows, commercials, and music videos.

Ill post em tonight (With grabs from the DVD's). I gotta ask:

Do you even watch films ? Every film I can possibly think of does this as of late. Stay tuned anyways !

-

The ability to select focus in a scene is just as important as framing. The desire for filmmakers to have this choice is obvious and seems pretty non-controversial to me.

Thanks Tigeba! I was just starting to write this very thing:

I'm surprised at the apparent dismay for shallow DOF. Lot's of accusations being thrown around of beginning filmmakers using it as a crutch or because it may be en vogue.

Nuts!

It's a tool. It's looks wonderful.

-

Let's not all start acting like snobs. K ?

 

[HDkilledFILM.]

Shallow DOF (racking focus), dolly shots, jib moves, crane shots, etc... are all tools, the thing that makes them good or bad is their application to the story. Fad's and DP's ego's are sure to play in to the process. This does not mean that it's bad. A mark of a true DP is the abliity to serve the story and capture the directors vision and to do this as a DP you have to do whats right for the scene and total piece.

 

[J.R. Hudson]

Wait a second; I aint doing all the leg work for you. It's not my fault you don't watch movies past the year 1975

-

Just goto Apple.com and watch the movie trailers. The real test is too find a trailer that isnt showing a shallow DOF

:18 Seconds into the Superman Returns # 2 trailer and then predominant throughout

Next I chose a random foriegn film

House of Sand

Again, :18 seconds into the trailer we get the DOF and again at :57 seconds ...

Let's try Mel's Apocalypto

Yep. Plenty of shallow DOF shots.

How about 70's Icon Terence Malick and The New World? There it is.

-

I'm starting to think yall don't know what in the haiti yer talkin about. I'm not sure what you guys mean when people are using it as a crutch ?

Is it up to you to decide when this is happening ?

 

[vidled]

Well, I have pre-ordered the SGpro, so I'm the ultimate hypocrite!
rogar-BigGrin(DBG)

 

[Loki]

Shallow DOF is my (and many other's) pet-peeve.

Start a revolution... shoot all your shots at 5.6 and using a short lens. You can also petition against focus pullers while your at it.

At an indy screening you can hear the groans and sighs as yet another out-of-place DOF shot intrudes upon the story for no reason other than to stroke the DP's ego.

You must be watching some shi*ty films I guess.

Back of the olden days, a DP would be fired on the spot if a dailies report came back from the lab that part of the background was soft.

Well that is amazing... so.. the DP would be fired because he wasn't about to get around the limitations of a lens? or the limitataions of physics? I think you need to actaully watch some more films..

If you look at the language of cinema, there's lots of terms and buzz-words to commonly used techniques: MOS, Zoom, Push, etc... But there is no term for the shallow DOF shot. Why not? Simply because professionals don't talk about it because they don't use it.

Your right..because MOS is a sound term, and the others you mention are camera moves. Rack Focus however is a term widely used. And is 100% related to a shot with a shallow depth of field.

If you look at films from the dawn of filmmaking to the early nineties you'll see just how rare shallow DOF is.

I agree there. But that is a technology issue, not a stylistic one. The early filmmakers had little choice for a lens. I think if you watch some good films from the 70's onward, you'd be surprised to find that "shallow DOF" is everywhere. Most CU's in any film use focus to direct attention. Watch a Michael Mann film...

The shallow DOF shot was considered an effect, and used only for very specific situations (such as a reveal), but even then used sparingly because it was (and still is) considered a crutch.

Shallow Depth of Field is not an "effect" as you say.. a "Rack Focus" is though..

The fact that it's in vogue now is firstly because of inexperienced video-oriented DPs who are trying to copy a drawback of 35mm filmmaking (that film professionals try to avoid!) And secondly, by the proliferation of directors with poor directing skills who aren't able to control where the viewers eyes travel -- and hence need to blur parts of the background to make sure the audience is focussed on the foreground subject. This is bad. BAD!

Do you always speak for other filmmakers? And since when is proper focusing a drawback...? So.. I guess if you were shooting on long lens.. wide open, and you had to direct someone's attention from point A to point B in the frame you would do that how? keeping in mind of course.. point B.. is Out of Focus... You can't get around the limitations of a lens. You could I suppose use a wide lens, and have everything in focus. But what happens if it is time based event? that requires people to see something at a point in time, and another shortly after? What would "Deep focus" do for you there? I think you get my meaning..

Our brain has a remarkable ability to blur-out whatever we're not looking directly at. On the big screen, we automatically blur out the background (when we're not looking at it), so doing it for the viewer is pointless. Worse, it makes the film less visually interesting, because there's no place for the eye to wander. A good filmmaker will use the background to add layers of meaning to the film and help the story-telling process. By blurring out the background you automatically reduce the scope and meaning of the story -- which makes the film less interesting on a subconscious level, while consciously you may be left only with "Gee doesn't that look pretty".

Yes... of course! Thats what all those small budget films were trying to do.. add layers of meaning to each shot! my god.. it is so obvious.. seriously.. how does having a busy background help your audience? Of course if we went down this path, we'd have to get into the art of Production design, but that is a whole other topic...

There are places for shallow DOF. For example in shooting for television where you have the audience watching a small screen and need to get rid of a distracting background. Or in documentaries, where you don't have control over the background.

That is not "Shallow DOF" that people refer to on this site.. any lens can do that. You just have to know the focal length, and the range of focus for it. (Aperture aside for simplicity sake).

Otherwise, constant shallow DOF mostly betrays an amateur filmmaker. Sure now it's somewhat stylish, but it's the "grunge music" of filmmaking. Eventually people will come to there senses, and throw their DOF adapters in the garbage with red-faced shame.

Focus is part of the toolbox. You don't need to use focus to divert attention to places all the time. But it is another tool you can use to help your idea.

DVXUser has some sort of inferiority Complex related to Depth of Field. People need to get over it I think. Tell the story with the best means available to you, and if that means using focus to help, then giver.

"The DVX has great DOF BTW" ... i dunno what that means.. every camera that has a lens attached to it would qualify that statement.. it's almost like saying "This camera can record images". no kidding..

I have yet to see a movie use "Deep Focus" like say, welles, Citizen Kane. *link, could you list films that use Deep Focus as a technique? Wide shots don't qualify since this technique requires you to have the layers to achieve it, namely, a foreground, middle ground and a background. I can't think of any recent films that do this. Or specifically set out in the production design and composition to achieve the effect.