How does a filmmaker decide which aspect ratio to shoot in?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, but what if I wanted to CUs instead of MCUs? Some movies have CUs and still don't look like TV. Like this scene here in Collateral has CUs. I couldn't attach a still for some reason but there are CUs at 2:21 into the clip:

Collateral - Jazz Club Assassination [1080p HD] - YouTube

How do they do CUs like that and not have it look more like TV?

[Brian Drysdale]

Use anamorphic lenses and shoot film.

Failing that:

Don't over light your scenes, use open ended scrims etc on C stands to control your light so that you don't have a distracting highlight as seen on the side of your male actor.

Use a wide aperture on your lenses to control the DOF.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thank you very much. Do I have to shoot anamorphic to look cinematic though? I was told to shoot anamorphic before, but a lot of DPs just don't have anamorphic lenses, so do I have to shoot with those lenses to avoid looking like TV?

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

...they're in an institution that controls their lives.

As a prime example, you've included the trailer for THX 1138 -- bravo, sir. I applaud you. Well done.

That's the second-best movie George Lucas ever made... the first being American Graffiti, of course.

[Ryan Elder]

I can also blur the background more. I shot with a deep DOF so the actors would not go out of focus at any point, but if shallow DOF is better I can. However, if it's not a close up, and a mastershot, with lots of actors moving around, is a deep DOF where you see the background walls in focus as well, bad?

How do you make deep DOF look good like in Citizen Kane, if you want more actors in focus?

[Brian Drysdale]

The answer is usually lighting, that's been the traditional reason for the difference between cinema and television drama. However, modern TV dramas are much better in this regard and the market for Independent feature films is broadcast TV and streaming services like Netflicks and Amazon .

The modern trend is to have a shallower DOF, but deep focus has been used on extremely cinematic films. They use the same stop for the both the wide and closer shots, pulling focus as required.

Selecting cameras that have more colour space and dynamic range and record log or RAW will give you more control over the look when grading.

[Paul R Johnson]

Blimey Ryan, we thought you got the basic stuff sorted. For many people depth of field is the key feature of real movies from the past because of the physics of film setting well, everything! You do not select a deep DoF to make focus easy, that's why focus pullers were/are essential members of the camera team in movies, but rare in TV. Shallow DoF also needs real lenses, not autofocus doesn't it!

However, the other essential identifier of movie style is lighting. Carefully applied and controlled lighting, done by somebody with an eye for detail. Somebody who understands the needs of camera stock. Now we do clever stuff with camera tweaks with loads of profiles, and before that the lighting cameraman (note the 'lighting' in the title) would consult with the director and spend time choosing the right stock for the right look. Pick a stock that doesn't pull out details in the shadows, and the lighting budget goes up to lighten the dark areas, or pick one that works well on bright keys means outside you'll have loads of reflectors.

Don't get caught up on his DoF thing as an effect, it's not, it's just an identifier. Each scene and maybe each shot has DoF selected deliberately. In movie land, each camera move also has a lighting reset applied to it. The lighting in these examples is worthy of a credit. In your examples everything is flat and reminiscent of the lighting in doctors surgery waiting rooms. Flat bright and even. Shadows draw the eye to the brightest areas, shadows create tension. Look up the steps each medium can resolve from black to white and compare them. Compare the DoF of movie cameras and lenses and their video equivalents, then compare the one you used. The clues are easy to see. Every piece of kit, every location, every set, and how the people use them will dictate the end result. See if you can compare Star Wars with red dwarf and spot the differences. Red dwarf is shot for TV in space ships some very similar shots to Star Wars, yet the differences are blinding. It is NOT about blurring the background, it's about using the physics that makes the background blur. I have never recreated shallow DoF in the edit, I don't know how I would even do it realitistically.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Ryan Wray

How do you make deep DOF look good like in Citizen Kane, if you want more actors in focus?

Actually that particular movie cheated its way to deep focus. The best-known deep-focus shots in Citizen Kane were achieved by process photography. In other words, optical trickery. You have to keep in mind that Orson Welles -- who was only... what, 26 years old when he made that movie? -- Orson Welles was a talented magician, as in, an actual magician with a top hat and rabbit and all, who basically transferred his keen ability in sleight-of-hand first to stage, then to radio, and then to cinema. And he had a lot of fun doing it. That is, up until the point that he put Ambersons in the can and went to South America. After that it kinda went downhill. But I digress.

There is a ton of learning to unpack in Citizen Kane, but the most spectacular deep focus shots, like the spoon for instance, would not be easy for you or me to replicate. Each of those three elements -- the spoon, Susan, the door -- each is a separate pass with the plane of focus adjusted for each, which are all combined together for the deep-focus effect. And that's just Orson winking at you as he plays with his giant electric train set, his very first feature film. The whole movie is a long series of optical illusions. And it's also Gregg Toland. If you liked Kane, then you should see Grapes Of Wrath from the year before... that's a more conventional Gregg Toland, working under a stolid John Ford, but the look and the lighting of Wrath has a lot in common with Kane.

[Brian Drysdale]

Here are a few thoughts on Kane and deep focus:

https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/how...ane-your-film/

[Ryan Elder]

Oh yes, I know Orson Welles cheated the deep focus, it's just I thought I could get deep focus without cheating, since I was using the Sony A7s II, which has a lot of exposure in the gain to work with.

However, let's say deep focus is not good, and I should just get a good focus puller and shoot with a shallow DOF. Why didn't Welles shoot with shallow DOF and get a focus puller instead?

Isn't the point of deep focus photography to be able to have the actors in focus at all times, so the viewer doesn't have to be directed where to look, and they can decide for themselves I thought?

[Chris Hurd]

For a serious and in-depth examination of "how they did it" with a chapter devoted to its cinematography, I strongly recommend this book: The Making of Citizen Kane by Robert L. Carringer.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Ryan Wray

Why didn't Welles shoot with shallow DOF and get a focus puller instead?

You mean why didn't Toland shoot with shallow DOF. The answer is basic deep focus serves a particular purpose, just like shallow focus. As Paul states above, it's an identifier. In the famous spoon scene, in which Susan Alexander attempts suicide, all three elements of the frame (the spoon with the bottle, Susan, and the door) carry equal importance, so Welles and Toland devised a way to have all of these things in sharp focus together.

I think the better question is, why didn't Toland rack it? The answer might be that pulling a rack wouldn't have been as effective (even with Charles bursting through the door the instant it comes into focus... that's the modern way this stuff is done). A rack looks great when it goes from point A to point B but when there are more than two elements involved, I think it's "over-directing" the audience a bit too much. When you see this scene for the first time, you sort of have to figure it out yourself because there's no rack focus to guide your eyes. In my opinion, it's better that way.

Keep in mind that even though this was Orson's very first movie, RKO pretty much took the leash off and turned him loose, so he and Toland had the freedom to explore a lot of interesting and unconventional ideas. I believe a large part of why they shot with such deep focus is that it was an unusual practice at the time; neither one of these guys was interested in doing something "the usual way." Orson wanted to experiment and Gregg Toland was happy to oblige. From a visual perspective, it was an excellent collaboration.

By the way, there was indeed a focus puller on Citizen Kane. His name was Eddie Garvin. He did a lot of work with Gregg Toland including Grapes of Wrath and The Best Years Of Our Lives. He also assisted on Magnificent Ambersons. Most of his work is not credited on the screen, but he was definitely there.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

why didn't Toland rack it?

"You mean why didn't Garvin rack it."

Yes, I can be a smart-ass even to myself sometimes. In fact, that's probably when it's most appropriate.

[Chris Hurd]

Here's the man in his own words:

Realism for Citizen Kane

Toland, Gregg, American Cinematographer

During recent years a great deal has been said and written about the new technical and artistic possibilities offered by such developments as coated lenses, super-fast films and the use of lower-proportioned and partially ceiled sets. Some cinematographers have had, as I did in one or two productions filmed during the past year, opportunities to make a few cautious, tentative experiments with utilizing these technical innovations to produce improved photo-dramatic results. Those of us who have, I am sure, have felt, as I did, that they were on the track of something really significant, and wished that instead of using them conservatively for a scene here or a sequence there, they could experiment free-handedly with them throughout an entire production.

In the course of my last assignment, the photography of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, the opportunity for such a large-scale experiment came to me. In fact, it was forced upon me, for in order to bring the picture to the screen as both producer-director Welles and I saw it, we were forced to make radical departures from conventional practice. In doing so, I believe we have made some interesting contributions to cinematographic methods.

Citizen Kane is by no means a conventional, run-of-the-mill movie. Its keynote is realism. As we worked together over the script and the final, pre-production planning, both Welles and I felt this, and felt that if it was possible, the picture should be brought to the screen in such a way that the audience would feel it was looking at reality, rather than merely at a movie.

Closely interrelated with this concept were two perplexing cinetechnical problems. In the first place, the settings for this production were designed to play a definite role in the picture - one as vital as any player's characterization. They were more than mere backgrounds: they helped trace the rise and fall of the central character.

Secondly - but by no means of secondary importance - was Welles' concept of the visual flow of the picture. He instinctively grasped a point which many other far more experienced directors and producers never comprehend: that the scenes and sequences should flow together so smoothly that the audience should not be conscious of the mechanics of picture-making. And in spite of the fact that his previous experience had been in directing for the stage and for radio, he had a full realization of the great power of the camera in conveying dramatic ideas without recourse to words.

Therefore, from the moment the production began to take shape in script form, everything was planned with reference to what the camera could bring to the eyes of the audience. Direct cuts, we felt, were something that should be avoided wherever possible. Instead, we tried to plan action so that the camera could pan or dolly from one angle to another whenever this type of treatment was desirable. In other scenes, we preplanned our angles and compositions so that action which ordinarily would be shown in direct cuts would be shown in a single, longer scene - often one in which important action might take place simultaneously in widely separated points in extreme foreground and background.

These unconventional setups, it can readily be seen, impose unsurmountable difficulties in the path of strictly conventional methods of camerawork. To put things with brutal frankness, they simply cannot be done by conventional means. But they were a basic part of Citizen Kane and they had to be done!

The first step was in designing sets which would in themselves strike the desired note of reality. In almost any real-life room, we are always to some degree conscious of the ceiling. In most movies, on the other hand, we see the ceiling only in extreme long-shots-and then it is usually painted in as a matte shot. In the closer angles, the camera seldom shows the ceiling, or even anything suggesting it. On the contrary, conventional interior lighting-effects, since the light is projected from spotlighting units perched high on the lamp-rails paralleling the sets, come from angles which would be definitely impossible in an actual, ceiled room.

Bolded parts are mine, as they relate to this discussion.

There's more to it than just this excerpt, which is a short part of a longer piece. It's a re-print of Toland's original 1941 article that was re-published in the August 1991 issue of American Cinematographer.

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Ryan Wray

Isn't the point of deep focus photography to be able to have the actors in focus at all times, so the viewer doesn't have to be directed where to look, and they can decide for themselves I thought?

The viewer is being directed, but not by the shallow DOF, but by the composition, the action of the actors and the lighting. Humans are attracted by movement and whoever is speaking in a scene.

A number of films still use deep focus in some shots, if not the entire film; https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/de...ovement-angle/

However, you seem to be using deep focus for utilitarian reasons (not needing to pull focus), rather than for creative reasons.