Citizen Kane is famous for being one of the earliest movies to use deep focus, where foreground and background and every layer of what’s before the camera is in equal focus, and probably the pioneer in how to use this technique to extraordinary effect. 3D, however, takes this a step further when it’s done well. When everything is in focus in a 3D movie, the layers of what we see are even more apparent to our eye, and correspond much greater with how we see our daily world than the flat image of regular movies.
This can look pretty fantastic. You think of the huge wide shots of Pandora in Avatar where we are able to take in a completely new world without the camera forcing our eyes to one area of the frame. This is an exciting thing for a viewer, to be able to take in all this information and beauty as if it’s actually in front of us. The 3D movie then becomes much more realistic, when this deep 3D focus is put to use, which adds to the immersive quality of the movie. And this isn’t only applicable to action sequences; for deliberately composed moments, comparable to scenes in Citizen Kane and elsewhere, this added depth to an image puts the onus on the direction to convey the most important image on the screen by action and composition rather than by a cheaper trick like rack focus. We’re trusted to see what we’re supposed to see despite being given more choice. It’s more like real life.
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