Category Archives: rack focus

Lights, Camera, ACTION!

Rack Focus Bernard Dick says directors use rack focus to conceal a character’s identity before a big reveal. Imagine a scene where the villain is walking towards his victim. A director might first have the victim in the foreground as … Continue reading

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Innocent Sunflower Girl and Daniel LaRusso

Rack focus Dick describes rack focus to be when the background is “a blur and the foreground sharp; then the background will be sharp and the foreground blurry” (pg. 93). The purpose of this technique is to conceal someone’s or … Continue reading

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Blog #2. Fleshing out film jargon with examples

On Monday (2/4) and Wednesday (2/6), we are reading excerpts from Bernard Dick’s classic textbook The Anatomy of Film. Many of Dick’s examples reference movies that are unfamiliar to contemporary audiences. Your next blog assignment asks you to track down YouTube … Continue reading

Posted in american montage, associative montage, Blog #2. Fleshing out film jargon, contrast cut, form cut / match cut, linear temporal montage, long take, parallel cut / cross-cut / intercut, rack focus, subjective camera | Tagged | Leave a comment