A slow dolly into a dark room. Suddenly, we meet somebody in the foreground, turned away and completely out of focus. The camera slowly brings this stranger into focus, an excruciating and drawn-out reveal.
In the industry, we call this a rack focus. Racking focus guides the audience through the scene, holding our attention and suspending our disbelief until the most poignant and cinematic moment for clarity.
What is rack focus? How can you hone your skills in the art of the pull?
Rack Focus Basics: Definition, Common Uses, and Strategy
Rack focus is a technique in filmmaking that takes advantage of a very shallow, narrow focal plane. The wider the aperture of the lens, the scanter your plane of photography will be.
Sometimes, you want everything in the frame to be totally sharp—the worst feeling in the world is snapping a great shot of a friend, only to find the eyes out of focus, to name one frustrating example.
Other times, for a more dramatic, mysterious, or romantic effect, you may choose to focus on only one area of the scene at a given time. Shooting with a shallow depth of field in this way isolates the subject of the shot, blurring any distracting or irrelevant details in the foreground or background.
Rack focusing, by definition, is the act of shifting focus forward or back while shooting a shot. It's one way to hide something in plain sight, such as a plant that doesn't pay off until the end of the scene. It allows you to hang Chekhov's gun right on the wall, all without spoiling anything for the audience prematurely.
How to Nail a Rack Focus Shot
It's easy to rack like a maniac when you're just shooting for fun. It's a little bit more difficult to coordinate an entire crew around this endeavor and still end up with a solid rack. There are several moving pieces; having a plan will be imperative to your success.
Let's take it one step at a time. You're the cameraman, pulling focus for yourself. You've got two actors in front of you, one in the foreground and the other further away.
Let's say that neither of them is moving and the camera is mounted on a tripod. Before shooting, you'll need to grab marks for focus. You can use paper tape to document them if you're pulling on the barrel directly.
First, find your focus mark for the actor closest to you. Mark this point on the dial of the follow focus or the barrel. Do the same for the second actor, as well. Give them a couple of practice pulls, and you're ready to go for real.
What If the Actors Are Moving Around?
In this rack focus example, another type of mark comes into play: T-marks for the actors, taped to the ground. These are nothing more than two strips of tape, forming a capital letter T. Place them anywhere you need an actor throughout the scene.
Actor marks ensure that they're hitting the same spots every single take, keeping everybody on the same page. Each of these marks will correspond to one on your follow focus or lens barrel.
Now, the entire troupe shares a single dance. Everybody has a cue to hit, and, after a few practice rounds, you should be able to pull things off smoothly.
If the camera is also moving, you'll need marks for your dolly or your operator, as well. It's the same basic process—plan out the scene spatially and run through the entirety of the action that you're covering a couple of times.
Racking Focus Keeps Them on the Edge of Their Seats
A top-down diagram like the one above may help you visualize your space and use it to its full potential. Rack focusing is a classy move; the more effort that you put into your own rack focus shot, the more professional and polished it's going to be.