need help on a shot

[ickle_jim]

Im new to the whole making films thing and are making a short scene from a horror film at the mo. One of the shots i would like to do is ....

a person center of frame, where the focus of the background changes but the focus of the man stays the same

sorta has the blackground "melt" away for a dramatic effect.

Ive asked at a few other message boards but no one has been all that helpful! I got some loony telling me to use blue screen and shoot the background seperate. Perhaps with some half decent editing package on the computer you can do that sorta stuff but i dont have access to that sorta stuff.

Basicly a semi-decent camcorder and a study tripod is all ive got access to at the mo. I guess the shot might be impossible to do with that alone, which is fair enough but please no one suggest a blue screen! [img]mad.gif[/img]

[steven_craig]

ickle_jim is this what you mean

get the actor to stand at where they would be when they walk in (end mark) foucs on them.
tell them to go out to their starting marker.
the background should be out of focus... if not put a little mark on the focus ring and the camera, then knock the background out of foucs...

shout action

when the actor walks in just move the focus ring to align the two pencil marks

best of luck

[ickle_jim]

lol it probably doesnt help that i know nothing at all about filming theory, im still in the phase of pionting and pressing record. So hmm you lot are confusing me...

What i want is the man standing still and remaining in focus while the background "angle" changes. Erm, the depth of the background?

Ive heard someone else mention that rack the focus thingy, what does that mean?

Sorry for being such a stupid person [img]redface.gif[/img]

[deanl]

Hey there.

Can you name a shot in another movie that looks like the one you have in mind?

Despin out.

[ickle_jim]

not off hand sorry [img]confused.gif[/img]

[eddie]

hello

this is probably going to sound too complicated but Ill post it anyway - might be useful - might work, might make an interesting effect....might not....

You might be able to take advantage of 'depth of field':
Basically when its dark your camera has a wide aperature. When the aperature is wide the depth of field is small - so you could focus on the actors face with the background out of focus.

When its bright your camera has a more closed aperature. When the aperature is closed the depth of field is long - so you could focus on both actors face and the background.

You'd need manual settings on your camera, and you would need to experiment, but it *might* be possible to do the following:

get the light levels right (probably quite dark) and aperature very wide on the camera to focus only on your actors face.

Then for the effect you would need to do 3 things at once:

increase the amount of light
decrease the size of the aperature
change focus - so you are focussing on everything....

Who knows, it might work.....

[deanl]

Hey there.

Wait a second.... Do you just want to rack focus from the forground to the background? Or are you after the forground staying in focus at all times while the background changes and goes from infocus to blured?

Or do you want an actual special effect in the background?

A rack focus is easy enought but any other kind of effect like that using cheap lenses aint gonna be easy.

Despin out.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 29, 2002 12:44 PM: Message edited by: Despin entertainment ]</font>

[Alex]

It sounds like you are describing the famous shot that Hitchcock used in some of his movies. The camera dollies in while the lens zooms out, or the lens zooms in as the camera dollies out, this creates an effect where the background changes aspect ratio/sharpness while the foreground stays the same.

Another technique to consider is the use of lighting dimmers.
Keeping the camera in autoexposure mode, start with very dim lighting on the foreground object and the background object, then brighten the foreground (and background as well with probably a separate light) via a dimmer, the result is your camera's autoexposure will begin to iris down, creating more depth of field.

This effect will work better with the lens somewhat zoomed in, as that will create less depth of field for the beginning of the shot, and will throw out the background more dramatically. Playing with focus issues on wide angle shots are almost impossible with smaller camera gear because smaller cameras that have smaller chips, (1/4 and 1/3 inch chip) have greater depth of field in general.

By the way, the easiest of all might be to have the closer part of the shot already lit, and then simply fade in the background light onto the actor in the background, this effect mimics the idea of "rack" focusing to the background via illumination.

[saltmarsh]

Sounds like a Dolly Zoom like super8 bloke said in a previous post...so the background gets distorted and the person in shot stays the same.

If you dont have a dolly you can rig something simple up like sitting your tripod on a trolley and running the trolley between 2 tables or something so it goes in one direction...zoom in on the person...and then while moving the dolly rig forwards, adjust the zoom out so that the person stays in the same part of the frame at the same size, and the background will get thrown way out of depth and look really cool. Experiment with moving in and zooming out, and the other way around.

You could pull the shot of handheld if you were very very steady handed or had a lot of luck on your side.

Good luck!

saltmarsh

[GREATwarEAGLE]

Perhaps if you explain why you want this to happen. What exactly is the desired effect. Or is it just for the sake of style without meaning? If that's the case I'd search for a Brian DePalma message board.