Question about filming technique
POSTED BY: est120
UPDATED: Monday, August 28, 2006 05:55
VIEWED: 3814
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I haven't seen the TV episode in question, but a previous poster mentioned a split diopter. I think it's an in-lens effect where the lens has two (or I guess three, although I wasn't aware there were such things) sections...think bifocals for a camera. That way, two subjects at different distances are in focus. Brian DePalma was a huge fan, and I remember listening to the commentary for Equilibrium with Kurt Wimmer and he talks about a split diopter shot in the interrogation scene.
I couldn't find a screenshot from Equilibrium, but I found one from Star Trek VI:
You can see both Scotty and Chekov are in focus on either side of the frame, and the giveaway that it's a diopter shot is the fuzzy line in the center of the frame. Hope this helps.
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That makes a lot of sense. I would imagine the cost would be far less with this type of lens. And when your always filming on sets with small rooms like those in spaceships it would probably be used quite often. Never heard of a diopter before. Try to remember that one.
Traveler
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Weighing in on the side of the focal-lengthers as opposed to the diopters...just thinking about Joss' attention to detail as evident in the commentary on Firefly, I have a feeling he'd talk to the DP (or make sure the director of that episode talked to the DP) about finding the perfect lens for that shot rather than using an effect. I'm not saying that effects are cop-outs; rather, this is my increasingly inarticulate assumption based on a theory on Joss' instinct for filming.
The reason I also advocate for the picky lens-theory rather than the in-camera effect is based on your statement that the shot looked "off". I haven't seen that epi of Angel, but I know that sometimes an extremely short or long lens can create a startling impression; one example from Firefly that I can think of is in the pilot episode, in the first dinner with the new passengers; there are shots that always stand out to me because the table looks wierdly enormous, and Simon and the Fed look very far apart - I believe this is probably because that shot employed a short lens which made objects appear farther apart. Longer lenses tend to "flatten" the look of an image, removing perceived space between objects and making it perfect for visual gags, such as one where a person in the foreground holds up a finger and a thumb and it appears as though she's pinching the Washington Monument between them (even though logic tells you it must be far in the background).
So perhaps to resolve your question you need to figure out in what way the shot appears "off" - is it because the grouping of characters is so close you know they can't be physically standing so near each other (perhaps because one appears too short, and thus must be farther away - even though a flattening of perspective eliminates the perception of space between)? In that case, your eye is being tricked by a long lens. Or is there too much space around them - do they seem lost in a deep shot? Perhaps that's the work of a short lens.
I hope this was useful or interesting in some way - I also hope I got my facts right. I'm still learning this myself! (And have also just inherited my own Minolta, with three pwetty lenses - one of which zooms!)
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