DOF.

For Field Exercise #1 in our cinematography workshop we had to create a non-sync sound narrative film in which we had to play with deep focus versus shallow focus.

The initial idea I started off with was to film Yukari at the aquarium and document her day there. Film her looking at the fish, and film close-ups and establishing shots of the fish in the tanks while playing around with shallow and deep depth of field. The source of my idea came from an Instagram post of one of my high school friends at an aquarium in California, and I thought the Waikiki Aquarium would be a perfect location to film this exercise.

Processed with VSCO with hb2 preset

The key emotion I wanted my audience to feel was rawness. Feeling as though they are there with Yukari looking at the fishes also. The story of this exercise is much of a documentary. Documenting Yukari’s time at the aquarium and the type of fishes she sees. The theme of the piece I discovered after finishing this video is happiness and curiosity. We see Yukari’s intense interest in the way she observes the fish. As well as several smiling and laughing shots when she looks at some of the smaller fish.

The strength of this project is the variety of clips, and the varying shots of deep depth of field and shallow depth of field. Some problem area includes the lighting; everything is fairly over exposed so I should have turned down my ISO. In addition, some shots were shaky and slightly out of focus, in which was distracting from Yukari and the fish. The learning process with this video is my true understanding and execution of the difference between shallow and deep depth of field. As well as understanding and executing a non-sync sound narrative.