Six feet under

[Tom Shirm]

I'm recently been re-watching six feet under in it's entirety (Christmas sales!). Great stuff, but they often use this wierd shot. It's a two shot, normally with a large distant between characters in the foreground and background. The thing that's interesting about the shot is the depth of frame is quite shallow on each of the characters face or details, yet both are sharpnin focus. The blocking looks to tight for it to be green screen work, but I cannot think of any other explanation, save some sort of magical split lens.

 

Has anyone one else noticed this? Thoughts?

[David Mullen ASC]

They used tilt-focus lenses a lot on that show.

 

See:

http://www.arri.com/prod/cam/tfocus.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_photography

[K Borowski]

If you get Starz, check out their serialization of "Crash" for another use of tilt-shifts on TV. It is a 16mm show though, unlike 6'.