What is… Deep Focus?

Deep focus is a cinematographic technique that allows objects or people to appear in focus on various planes of a shot. Simply, it means that things in the foreground and the background are in focus. It does this by using a large depth of field, which can be created using bright lights, a narrow lens aperture and by using a wide angle rather than a long lens. Deep focus can also be achieved through image trickery and manipulation if so required. It is the opposite of shallow focus, whereby only what is in the immediate foreground is in focus.

Although not invented by, Orson Welles and his cinematographer Gregg Toland have been widely accredited with popularising the technique. Other auteurs such as Jean Renoir, Hou Hsao-Hsien and Abbas Kiarostami are also renowned for using deep focus in much of their work. Some like to use deep focus purely as a stylistic choice, although some employ it as they believe it gives a more accurate representation of reality. After all, when looking at something in real life, you can choose how far to focus, whether to look at something in the foreground or the background. Deep focus helps to give that level of choice.

One could go on for hours about the intricacies of focal length, light gauges and so on (well I couldn’t, but some could) when discussing deep focus, but the best way to understand what it means is to look at some examples.

Le Regle de Jeu

Here, in Jean Renoir’s Le Règle de Jeu (The Rules of the Game), you can clearly see that the couple through the doorway in the background are in focus as well as the two men in the foreground.

Citizen Kane

This scene from Citizen Kane is one of the best examples of deep focus and the uses it can have beyond the purely aesthetic. Here we can see three different planes all in focus. We have the mother in the foreground, the father a little further back in the doorway and then a young Charles Kane in the background outside viewed through the window. So just why is deep focus so instrumental in this scene and, consequently, the film as a whole? Well, we have Kane’s mother in focus signing the control of her son’s life away, and because of her positioning in the frame along with the character’s eyelines, we are drawn to this act. Normally, however, Kane playing outside would be out of focus, but by using deep focus, combined with the positioning of the window and the contrast in colours, we are also drawn to watching him play; the last few moments of him truly having child’s life. Having both these important events in focus links them semantically, providing the real crux of the story.

Deep focus is not used nearly as much as it was, especially in Hollywood films, primarily because the way films are made has changed. Lighting is lower to make working conditions more comfortable, shot length is shorter, multiple angles are now shot thanks to the ability to have more cameras on set, and you could argue that Hollywood films tend to focus less on the smaller details of filmmaking as the average moviegoer may well miss them. Still, the above example from Citizen Kane goes to show that deep focus can be an effective technique that can really enhance not just the look of a film but various other aspects too.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

12 thoughts on “What is… Deep Focus?

  1. vinnieh says:

    Excellent post, loving these what if? posts. Keep up the good work.

  2. Mark Walker says:

    Great stuff again Chris. Informative little posts like this are priceless. Well done mate.

  3. mettelray says:

    Interesting. It would definitely be something that can be used to carry a lot of meaning.. Like, not focusing on things in front of us but also seeing things further in the distance as something that play a crucial role and have meaning to things that are happening in the front. Semiotics (my former field of studies) would have a lot to say about this and there’s probably a lot that has already been said about it.
    Great read!

    • Thank you. Yeah I’m sure there is loads on the subject, I barely scratched the surface when I was researching this. Both deep and shallow focus can be used to great effect to convey all sorts of different meanings, it’s all about being creative!

  4. I think our eyes need to be trained to notice deep focus in older films simply because we have grown accustomed to short focus. Great post!

  5. Excellent post and very informative. Love it.

  6. ckckred says:

    Nice post. I’ve seen this before in movies but never thought of it too deeply until now.

What do you think?


WordPress.com Logo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Google+ photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: