I noticed that the picture of the movie went out of focus a lot of times, or went blurry quite often in odd places. I am guessing it was an artistic choice of the director, but why would you do that? It really took me out of the movie personally, as I did not feel it was emotionally called for or had no purpose? Anyone else think so, or am I missing something?
The cinematography on Act of Valor (2012)
- Thread starter harmonica44
- Start date
I Googled "act of valor out of focus". The first result was a Q&A on the Director of Photography's blog.
While I thought the shallow depth of field worked well for the most part, the shots that were out of focus were quite distracting, especially when watching on a cinema screen.
I saw an interview with some of the guys who worked on this movie. Shane Hirlbut (DP on thism film ) has been a champion of using DSLR's since they first started shooting video. They said when they started filming this movie, video DSLR's were so new, they didn't have the support equipment they have today. They didn't have view finders, and external monitors, or follow focus systems. So a lot of the time, they were filming with only the view finder on the back of the camera, with no peaking or zebras to help with focus. While maybe the director is saying it was an artistic choice, it wouldn't surprise me that is what he's saying now, to avoid a more complicated answer.