Shallow depth of field

[IgorVe]

Dear Sir Roger Deakins,

Just curious about your opinion, knowledge and taste regarding the shallow DOF that seems overused in the popular cinema today. It was always called “cinematic” because until the early 2010s, only really large projects could get access to the technology. But now it’s used even where not determined by logic to emphasize something. Isn’t it a sort of “cheat code” to make DP’s and Director’s life easier, because it’s much more complicate to create a mise-en-scène where everything is in sharper focus?

Asking not only because it’s my opinion, but also after being impressed by your still photography style:

which is more into classic Bresson/Brassai/Koudelka philosophy.

 

Can’t even imagine a still from you like this:

 

Of course, we cannot compare still photography and cinema in the way the of telling a story and can’t beat physics when the POI is close to the lens, but isn’t it enough amount of blur? Isn’t it that “cinematic” whatever that means:

What’s a reason to make it more blurry like in 90% of modern films? Or does it mostly come from Directors and Producers? And what’s so special in Batman’s look for you? Because it’s completely the opposite of what you’re doing and looks like unnatural CG for unexperienced eye.

Please sorry for a long question and poor English as well. Thanks for the site and knowledge!

Topic

[dmullenasc]

First of all, shallow focus has been available to filmmakers ever since the 1930s, low or high-budget, when f/2.0 lenses became available for cinema. Unless you are talking only about digital cameras when 35mm sensors appeared in the mid-2000s with the Panavision Genesis, but low-budget filmmakers had access to the Red One by the late 2000s, so I’m not sure why you picked 2010 as a date for shallow-focus being available for smaller movies.

Second of all, I don’t know why a visual effects scene shot on a volume or against a green screen, etc. would be more realistic and less “CG” if the focus was deeper. And that frame from “The Batman” that you posted doesn’t look like it was grabbed from the blu-ray so I’m not sure that is the correct color timing.

Shallow and deep focus filmmaking follows trends and both approaches can be used well or inappropriately. The 1930s was a time where shallow focus and lens diffusion was popular, to the point where sometimes it was used when sometimes it shouldn’t have been. Then after the critical reaction to “Citizen Kane”, you sometimes saw deep-focus used when it wasn’t always necessary, or caused the lighting to look artificial due to the high levels required.

But after fast f/1.4 lenses arrived in the 1970s, you saw plenty of low-budget movies with shallow focus.

I think in the case of “The Batman”, as with other Greig Fraser works lately, the shallow focus works well for creating a certain dreamlike mood or a feeling that one is trapped in the headspace of a character (it worked well in Roger’s “Empire of Light” as well). But certainly we are in a time where shallow focus is trendy to the point where it gets used indiscriminately even on big-budget projects just because it is “pretty”.

[IgorVe]

dmullenasc wrote:

First of all, shallow focus has been available to filmmakers ever since the 1930s

Ahhhh, I’ve expected that might not be understood. I meant that from early 30s till early 2010 shallow focus was avaliable only for still photographers or large cinema productions. Now it’s in every pocket in every smartphone and every single wedding is shot with shallow DOF. Just because it pretty, as you said. That’s why I don’t understand why It’s so overused in the Hollywood today. Almost every blockbuster/mass-market film has a dominant shallow depth of field, such as >50% of the scenes in the entire film. Isn’t shallow DOF just a “special effect” like dolly zoom or slow motion?

dmullenasc wrote:

I think in the case of “The Batman”, as with other Greig Fraser works lately, the shallow focus works well for creating a certain dreamlike mood or a feeling that one is trapped in the headspace of a character (it worked well in Roger’s “Empire of Light” as well).

If we’re talking about Mr. Deakins work, there was a lot of shallow shots in Burton Fink. But that’s because character’s headspace as well and I didn’t mean cases where it’s a justifiable artistic choice.

Just watched Blade Runner 2049 for the first time since the theatrical experience… and only few close up scenes were in really shallow focus. So much texture, information and emotion are preserved when the aperture is closed.

[Stip]

That scene from The Batman threw me out of the movie (and into a computer game) the most from the many scenes that were filmed in The Volume. Visually stunning but just didn’t work for me, felt too perfectly computational, too often.

The best (worst) example for shallow DoF galore I can think of is Zack Snyder’s Netflix film “Army of the Dead”, where he paired the large sensor of a RED Monstro with vintage Canon 50mm f0.95 and 35mm f1.5 lenses and shot everything wide open.

The film is as shallow as the DoF he filmed it in. I had to fast forward after 30 minutes and eventually stop. Even though making ok use of it, I think it is still exemplary for random use of very shallow DoF in modern productions.

[IgorVe]

is Zack Snyder’s

Snyder was in my first edit of previous answer about the overusing of DoF 🙂 That was funny and cool in 300 for a first time, but then I just phisycally can’t watch his projects. And new Batman is really close in terms of blurring.

I’m really intrigued by what Sir Roger saw there. Absolutely the opposite of how he shoots: unmotivated blur, anamorphics, breathing, harsh light accents etc. Hope to get a lot of insights after learning the details.

[dmullenasc]

I think Roger is happy that every movie doesn’t look like he shot it! Variety is the spice of life as they say.

[dmullenasc]

No single technique is better or worse than another, it all depends on whether it is wielded by an artist or not — and Greig Fraser is an artist, he’s proven that on many productions.

[dmullenasc]

Shallow focus was not only available to “large productions” in the past, it was available to low-budget productions as well.  Even if you’re talking about people limited to smaller sensors like in the early days of 2/3″ HD in 2000-2007 or so, there were tools to get shallow focus like the P&S Technik Mini-35, the Brevis35, the Letus… all spinning groundglass attachments that allowed one to use 35mm lenses and get that depth of field.

[Stip]

But weren’t those still s35 sensors? The past few years there emerged lots of full frame / 135 sensor cameras (and more fast lens options too). I definitely noticed a trend in very shallow DoF, especially in TV shows, where you’d sometimes even see wide shots with fore-/background separation.

No single technique is better or worse than another, it all depends on whether it is wielded by an artist or not — and Greig Fraser is an artist, he’s proven that on many productions.

Fraser is an artist but I don’t have to admire all of his work, and this one is too computational for me. The new tool of gaming engines being used to create worlds around the stage bares the danger of feeling like a computer game and it happened to me in The Batman too often, although I wasn’t aware of how it was shot when watching.

I also had the feeling the visuals tried to deflect me from an ultimately shallow story and endless plot holes 🙂

[G.C.]

First, I have to say that I do enjoy using larger sensors for human-interest documentary work. The compact zoom lenses I work with are never faster than a F:2.8 aperture, which equals approximately to a desirable F:2.0 aperture on a Super 35mm sensor. This means that while using a zoom lens in small interiors, I can still get some separation with the walls when I am (literally) backed into a corner. If I have to work with some ugly background, I have more leeway to throw it out-of-focus. And outside, I can close down to a healthy T4 or T5.6 and not ask too much from the variable ND.

But this is my internal, personal process and I agree the depth-of-field question is a concern sometimes. I was preparing a documentary recently, and the request from the (Emmy-award winning) director was: “Can we have as little depth of field as possible? Remember last time? Well, I want less depth of field than than.” What he was referring to, was a wide open lens on a super 35mm sensor. The problem: this was the fullest extent of our discussion about the look of the piece. It was literally, quite shallow, if you pardon the pun.

So I shot the whole piece consistently wide open on a full frame sensor. Not that it wasn’t pretty at times, but it was pretty without a reason. At the end of the day, this is a job, so I consider it part of my duties to honour the request and deliver the desired look, but not without attempting to steer the conversation towards more fluid, constructive and inspiring language and concepts.

The point of this anecdote (and I think of a lot of the pertinent answers here) being that the talk about depth-of-field and other techniques (let me put the use of vintage glass in this bag!) becomes a problem only when it takes center stage and replaces the more fundamental and important conversations about emotion, mood, flow, and point of view.

The pendulum always swings, trends come and go, so I am sure that there will be a comeback of deeper DOF and deep staging! But trends are not a concern when you follow the rules you make for yourself for a project.

[IgorVe]

The point of this anecdote (and I think of a lot of the pertinent answers here) being that the talk about depth-of-field and other techniques (let me put the use of vintage glass in this bag!) becomes a problem only when it takes center stage and replaces the more fundamental and important conversations about emotion, mood, flow, and point of view.

I totally agree and maybe it’s just my personal rejection, but when I watched an Oppenheimer, this “wedding style” DoF prevented me from enjoying the picture. Yes, this is a movie about the inner world and isolation from the outside and 70mm film look, but even understanding this, it was hard to watch.

Thank you all for your opinions and experience: I read everything with pleasure.

[mskb]

I agree as well on your Batman and Oppenheimer points @IgorVe. Very interesting thread!

[Author]

Replies