ABSTRACT
Focus pulling, the adjustment of a lens’ focusing ring during the taking of a shot, can provide an effective way to underscore a character’s reaction at seeing something especially meaningful. The technique involves a variation of the traditional looking shot/POV/reaction shot editing pattern, where the POV starts blurry but is then progressively brought into sharp focus, before cutting back to the character’s reaction shot. Slow motion and an empathetic music cue are often used in conjunction with this technique, because without them the audience could mistake the focus pull as visualizing the subjectivity of a character with vision problems, instead of reflecting their psychological or emotional state at that moment. Because of the highly unusual stylization produced by this technique, it should be reserved to showcase only extreme reactions to something or someone of significant relevance to the story.
