A cameras focal length can be adjusted by two things; the aperture, and the focus. In this exercise, we were challenged to experiment with using the focus to mess around with the focal range between two subjects. The aim was to focus from a closer subject to a further one, and back again. Here’s the final result.

Even though it was a simple task, overall, I felt it was a general success, and an important lesson. Using different focal lengths is useful for when it comes to prompting the viewer to really, well, focus on a specific thing.

I did notice, however, that it works better when the subject in focus is more animated than the subject out of focus.

Don’t get me wrong, this clip works really well, but when it comes to shifting focus, I found myself still focusing on Cody in the background just as much on myself in the foreground. Even though the focus shifted from him to me, because both of our movements were synchronized and of similar value, I found that the focus never really shifted from him to me. Instead, it felt like the focus became evenly split between the two of us, which wasn’t exactly the effect we were going for. But oh well, it was still bloody hilarious.

So, overall, I guess I learned two things from this. Firstly, focal length is important when it comes to shifting focus, and secondly, the subject in focus needs to be more animated than the subject out of focus, because otherwise, you get a slightly different effect than you were going for (which is still pretty good, but yeah).