technique · 1 recipe
Deep Focus (Deep Depth of Field)
Deep focus keeps a substantial continuous range of distances legibly sharp within one shot.
Selected recipe
Deep Focus
This is the default recipe for the Deep Focus family.
Free short AI video prompt
A starter line you can copy. The full timed recipe, still-image and production prompts are on the shot card.
Prompt rule: Stage a practical continuous near-to-far range and keep focus stable while testing all essential planes at delivery resolution; do not promise unlimited depth or hide a split-focus seam.
Deep Focus: Deep focus keeps a substantial continuous range of distances legibly sharp within one shot. Keep the subject readable; motivate camera and light.
Technique guide
- When to use
- Allows the audience to simultaneously observe the nearby helmet, the mid-range fire truck, and the firefighter closing the door in the distance, and follow the person's complete action along the depth direction.
- How it works
- Limit the main information to a practical range of 1.5 to 6 meters that can be verified, rather than placing the lens at infinite distance. Use a wider angle, appropriate aperture, and sufficient lighting to establish the range, and check the intermediate layers. Have the person move along the passage beside the fire truck without passing through the vehicle, and keep the focus from jumping back and forth on a single layer.
- Common mistakes
- Only two clear areas, with a noticeable break in the middle. It requires unconditional clarity from as close as 10 cm to infinity.
How to read this page
Deep Focus (Deep Depth of Field) is one technique in Focus & Depth. The definition states the single mechanism the frame has to show. The technique guide covers when to use it, the steps, the usual mistakes, how it differs from the neighbors, and what a successful take looks like.
The clip above is one reading, made with a third-party video model. Another model, or the same model on another day, can land on a different frame. It is an example, not a promise that a prompt will match it.
The free short prompt is a starter sentence. The shot card is the timed recipe: scene, start and end frames, action, light, and color. Three sample cards are free on the site. The rest are part of GrokCine Pro. A second name for the same shot keeps its own URL and points back at this definition.
When you write a prompt, keep the one mechanism in the definition, then name the subject, the motion, and why the light is there. Do not stack a neighboring technique into the same sentence. If the name or the example is wrong, send this page's URL from the contact page.
Prompt versions
Same technique, different prompts. Version A is the latest prompt; older versions are the exact prompts that kept clips were made from. Each version shows every model that used it.
Version A · latest：Archivist · archive store
Version A · Scene of this version (English, verbatim)
An archivist wearing a burgundy cardigan returns a pale blue map tube to a tall storage room. Foreground shelves, the central worktable and distant drawers give the camera stable depth markers.
The full prompt of every version comes with the member recipe.
sha256 86cb3f116024
Recipe
8 seconds · single take
A small-town drama, the day the station is told it will close: at noon in the fire station, a brass-trimmed fire helmet hangs on a peg in the near foreground, a red engine gleams in the middle of the bay, and a firefighter in her thirties with rolled sleeves closes the rear bay door deep in the background; hose racks line the walkway beside the engine.
Shot cards
The full recipe for Deep Focus is a shot card
The full recipe for Deep Focus is a shot card. The start and end frames, timed action, lighting and color specs, a camera parameter table, copy-ready still-image and video prompts and negatives are open to GrokCine Pro members on the web.
Related families
- Shallow Focus (Shallow Depth of Field)
Shallow Focus (Shallow Depth of Field)Shallow focus restricts the sharp depth range around a chosen subject while nearer and farther distances become soft. - Rack Focus (Focus Pull)
Rack Focus (Focus Pull)A rack focus deliberately transfers sharpness between two distances during a continuous shot while the composition remains stable. - Split Diopter
Split DiopterA split-field close-up attachment focuses one image region nearer while the uncovered region retains a farther focus distance. - Bokeh
BokehBokeh describes the character of defocused detail, including highlight shape and transition edges, rather than merely shallow focus.
More in Focus & Depth
References
Sources we studied for this technique. External links; we don't embed them.
Articles & definitions
- Wikipedia: Deep focus
Wikipedia · Web
Foreground, middle ground and background all in focus; small aperture, wide lens, lots of light.
Videos
- Citizen Kane: an "impossible" deep-focus sequence
@vikare06 · 2025-03-01 · X
Citizen Kane deep-focus scene.
Images & stills
- Criterion Channel: Deep Focus, the cinematography of Gregg Toland
@criterionchannl · 2018-11-29 · X
"Deep Focus: The Cinematography of Gregg Toland" series.
- Gregg Toland shooting depth-of-field tests
@TolandBook · 2023-04-12 · X
Toland shooting depth-of-field tests with a Mitchell BNC.
- Citizen Kane: newsroom deep-focus image
@CitizenScreen · 2021-12-04 · X
Citizen Kane newsroom image typifies Toland's extensive depth of field.
- The Best Years of Our Lives: Wyler/Toland deep focus
@TomDohertyfilm · 2021-11-12 · X
Wyler/Toland deep-focus compositions in The Best Years of Our Lives.