Let’s take a look at how Francis Ford Coppola uses depth of frame to pull the audience into the hectic Vietnam battlefield in his war epic Apocalypse Now.
It’s extremely important in these battle scenes to always have action going on in the background and in the foreground. Helicopters way off in the back and soldiers wiping frame. In order to capture the craziness of what’s happening the viewer has to experience this as well. Coppola has hundreds of extras way far in the background each with his own task even in the medium shots of characters. If the medium shot of a character had little going on besides the character talking when it cuts back to wider shots of the battlefield there’s a lack of continuity and the audience begins to notice the disconnect between the actors and the battlefield, they would fell separated.
In this wide shot of the boats coming to shore as the camera passes from right to left, it passes by soldiers and victims (red outline) who are out of focus. Why do this when the actors are nothing but a blur? because having something occupy the foreground pulls an audience into the battlefield on a ground level, rather than have them feel like they’re watching it from high above.
Even in his close-ups Coppola manages to put layers into the shot increasing the viewers’ ability to be drawn into that world. In this last shot here the bars of the cage appear in the foreground, they accentuate the fact that the protagonist trapped, the viewer’s vision is obscured just as Martin Sheen’s would. If how
If how depth of frame can affect a movie hasn’t become clear to you yet, let’s look at a movie that doesn’t use this technique.
While it may have been intentional the effect still stands. In Moonrise Kingdom Wes Anderson went for a very specific look. He lays characters out flat with flattened backgrounds. There aren’t leading lines down the frame either. Notice how many straight lines go flat through the frame? Despite being shot on location Moonrise Kingdom looks like a series of sets as opposed to a real world. One of the ways Anderson achieves this is the lack of foreground, middle ground, and background in his shots. This is entirely what Anderson was going for. However, if this look is not what a director is looking for, not having depth in his frames will inhibit his movie.
Depth of frame is one of the most effective methods of establishing a sense of place. Next let’s look at two movies that both take place in and try and capture the essence of, New York. And how using depth of frame leads to one’s success, and by not using it, the other’s failure.
Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese
The Producers, Susan Stroman
Can you spot the difference between these two very similar shots? The Producers’ shot is incredibly flat, it looks fake, there are no layers. However the shot from Taxi Driver is so much more because of its layers, the wipers in the foreground, Travis Bickle in the middle ground and New York pedestrians out the window with these nice diagonal lines through the layers. Obviously, there is more at play, like lighting and sound, but depth of frame is still a large factor. *Note: The Producers is using this effect intentionally, however the lack of depth still stands on what your movie will look like without it.
Even during a dinner scene, Scorsese puts a bustling New York on full display in the background. The table starts in the foreground and eases into the middle ground.
The shot in the producer does have windows but what’s outside is static and looks flat. This shot looks like a set, which it is, but it had been shot with more depth that would not have been readily apparent.
A strong suit of Taxi Driver is that it throws us right into New York, we feel like a pedestrian in the street alongside Bickle. This feeling is exemplified by this shot the camera is placed in a position that a person would be. With the car mirror in the foreground. We feel, as an audience, the spectating action that Bickle is committing.
Again this shot from The Producers is flat empty, there easily could have been pedestrians walking on the sidewalks, in the foreground, but there isn’t. Does this feel like New York at all? This frame is basically empty without the subject. A well-framed shot would have shot from a view looking somewhat down the road as the cab pulls up to stop with pedestrians walking by the left side of the camera on the sidewalk as well as across the street.