DOF & beauty

[Tom Lowe]

This shot reminds me that you don't need shallow DOF to produce an incredibly beautiful frame.

Can you guys post other examples of "beautiful" deep-focus shots? I'm looking for gorgeous shots, not just utilitarian deep-focus shots that get the job done.

[hans de vries]

Isn't almost everything in the Harry Potter movies with deep focus?

[Felix K.]

I watched Shining yesterday. Almost no shallow focus. Still really nice imagery. The foreground/background separation is done a lot with colours, e.g. in the kitchen.

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, a gorgeous women is still gorgeous in deep focus...

I mean, it's hard to know what you mean by "gorgeous" -- deep focus mainly helps to create strong dynamic compositions, so is a strong composition "gorgeous"? Or are you talking about more conventional notions of "prettiness"?

Deep focus is particularly powerful in b&w where you aren't distracted by extra color information coming into focus and can create a graphic image:







Now here's a color image from a Sergio Leone film, not pretty, but a strong compostion:

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm just pulling old stills I already have, but here's a shot from "Cromwell" (DP Geoffrey Unsworth) that I like because it looks like a painting, fairly deep-focus considering it's an interior anamorphic shot:


I don't have a prettier shot, but the "Raiders" movies were shot in anamorphic with a fairly deep stop for strong compositional opportunities:


These aren't exactly deep-focus, but show the 2D painting-like opportunities of fairly soft frontal lighting and flatter focus to the lens:

[David Mullen ASC]

I've always liked Kurosawa's use of deep focus:

[David Mullen ASC]

The thing to remember is that a frame is an information delivery system, and color is one layer of information, texture is another, contrast is another, etc. So the more of the image that is in-focus, the more information the viewer is receiving, which puts more burden on the filmmaker to make that information visually pleasing or dramatically appropriate, etc. Which is one reason why location matters so much -- if you are going to see more of it, it better be worth seeing. To be crass, for example, I'd rather a shot of a room of beautiful women be in deep-focus than a room of fat, ugly men... So a period movie, with a beautiful location, period costumes, etc. -- plus a lot of color control over the image because it's either nature or costumes -- can stand to be more in-focus than a modern urban movie with the riot of aggressively obnoxious detail coming at us from all directions, most of it distracting to a dramatic scene.

[D Fuller]

Thank you for posting these, David. I feel like I've just seen the curtain over your private collection of inspirational images pulled aside for a moment. There's a ot to be learned from these frames.

[Brandon Kraemer]

I think Antonioni was really inspired by Kourosawa's use of deep focus. He was also very interested in natural landscapes and man made ones. He often used deep focus to show the characters relationship to the landscape or the architecture they were within.

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[David Mullen ASC]

Since color is an extra layer of visual information, it has to be controlled, which is why good-looking deep-focus images in color are harder to pull off, because you have to work harder to remove distracting colors, not an issue in b&w.

A good exercise is to compare "The Last Picture Show" and the sequel "Texasville" -- both shot in deep-focus, the first in b&w (and nominated for an Oscar for its cinematography) and the second in color, with some reviewers complaining about the tackiness of the color schemes, etc. (though that was intentional to some degree.) As Nestor Almendros said in his book, it's hard to be visually tasteless in b&w, it's like a black evening dress.