Discover Top Posts Tagged with #depth of field

I'm so tired.

Sorry, I have to put on my ranty pants one more time.

Do you remember after The Last Jedi came out someone said Princess Leia looked like Mary Poppins and then everyone who hated the movie had the exact same nitpick and it just spread like a virus?

It didn't matter that the original nitpick was a misunderstanding of the scene—that she was pulling herself through a vacuum instead of force-flying.

Everyone just copy/pasted that nitpick as their own very important opinion.

I think this copy/paste effect is happening with shallow depth of field.

These viral deep focus essays say that shallow depth of field is the devil and it is ruining all movie visuals and now everyone thinks deep depth of field will magically fix movie aesthetics.

Here is the rub.

The screengrab above is cropped.

Cropping is magnification.

Do you know what happens to depth of field when you magnify?

It is perceived as shallower because the background blur is enlarged.

Let's look at the full composition.

The wider field of view shrinks the background which reduces the perception of blur. (Everything is blurry. The size of the blur dictates our perception of soft or sharp.)

Personally, I think that is a tasteful amount of background blur. You can still see details. You can see the bartender in the back. But the subjects have a little separation to help give them focus.

That is the entire point of background blur.

But let's play this out. I took another, sharper version of the bar background and placed it behind them.

Did I fix it?

Are movies fixed now?

Personally, I think that looks a bit busy. I think the shallower DOF was a better composition.

Which is how it should be. You design the composition and choose the DOF that suits it.

Another person said that the new Star Trek shows have this same issue.

I looked at screen grabs from an entire episode.

First, there are plenty of wide shots with deep DOF.

And almost all of the shallow depth of field shots are closeups.

This brings focus to the performance. And it is an efficient filmmaking technique. Efficient filmmaking is not good or bad. If it is overused, it can be quite boring. But some efficent processes have to be employed to finish things on time.

Making every scene deep DOF requires designing more complex compositions for every single shot. That just isn't compatible with the rushed creation of TV shows.

But let's convert this close up to deep DOF.

Is that better?

Here's another scene that has a deep DOF wide shot...

And then a shallow close up.

Does that bulkhead behind her need to be sharp? Will that add anything substantial to the aesthetics?

Let's see!

Did I fix TV aesthetics?

I think that looks a little fake. I think deep DOF on closeups might be a little distracting. I think serving the composition is more important than making sure everything has deep DOF.

The most frustrating part of this post is that Blue Moon features varied depth of field throughout the movie.

There are plenty of scenes with mild, tasteful background blur.

There is deep DOF.

There is deep focus.

(Not the same thing as deep DOF. Deep focus requires the background to be somewhat in focus to give narrative information. See this post.)

There are deep DOF environmental compositions.

And they also use depth of field as a cool storytelling tool in this rack focus scene.

(This is shallow focus, btw. Again, not the same as shallow DOF. Shallow focus requires narrative intention like deep focus.)

Yes, they also use shallow depth of field.

For closeups.

Because depth of field shrinks when you get close to stuff.

Our eyeballs do the same thing, despite all the video essayists repeating "deep focus is how our eyes see." (Weird how they all repeated that erroneous fact. Look at your peripheral vision! It's blurry, right?)

But what compositional advantage would be gained if the background of this scene was sharp? You'd see more details in two empty tables?

Is that... better?

This discourse has made shallow depth of field like "don't think of pink elephants." Everyone is hyper attentive and now every blurry background is on trial. And it doesn't seem to matter if it was a good compositional choice.

Instead of wanting better shot design and more thought-out compositions, these people need to see those two blurry tables in perfect detail.

Zack Snyder's shallow DOF compositions kinda suck.

Ryan Coogler's shallow DOF compositions were tasteful and beautiful.

Which makes me think it is the artist's vision of the composition and not the amount of blur.

Shallow DOF cannot be replaced with deep DOF. You need to design an entirely new composition. And deep DOF compositions take more time and effort. They often require precise blocking and another method for background separation. Typically layers, colors, lighting or a combination thereof.

I wish there was a simple way to convey how much work it was to create this composition. How many departments had to collaborate to get this perfect? Lighting, props, set design... all because the background isn't blurred out.

Filmmaking does not allow infinite time and money. You have to pick when to use the time and money to do more complex compositions. You cannot just lock your lens to f/8 and get a guaranteed good looking visual.

I have listened to many director's commentaries where they will say, "we have to choose when to put the money on screen."

Again, I'm not denying there is a problem. But bland visuals and boring compositions are not fixed with hard light and deep depth of field. They are fixed by removing systemic constraints that force filmmakers to overuse efficient techniques.

But it is also unreasonable to demand that every second of every movie have striking visuals.

It's important to judge things holistically.

Does the movie/show have consistently boring visuals?

Do they make an effort when it counts?

Do they make good use of efficient visuals so they can put more effort into the spectacle moments?

Does the DOF serve the composition?

Would the scene be dramatically improved with a different DOF?

Did you just watch 4 video essays on deep focus and now you are only paying attention to DOF and completely forgetting to be immersed in the actual story?

I feel bad that Blue Moon took strays in this depth of field discourse because someone took a magnified screencap, erroneously thought it was "shallow focus", and was convinced it ruined all of film.

From the trailer, Blue Moon seems to be a well composed movie with tasteful use of depth of field.

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