DePtH and Perspective

  I was very excited to read this article because it will be of extreme use in my current animation project! This article goes over the 5 best ways according to Director/Cinematographer Matthew Rosen. Creating depth in film and animation is all the work of illusions. In other words tricking the audience in believing that the two dimensional images they are viewing really extend past their field of vision or are three dimensional.

  the first two means of creating depth were high contrast lighting and focus. High contrast lighting when used heavily can give the project depth, while using lighting and shades conservatively can make the project seem 3d. Focus is used by tricking how our brains naturally work.Weather you realize it or not your eyes automatically focus on whats closest to you, so by blurring the closest object on screen it appears farther away making your brain think the object in focus is the object that is closer, getting your attention and creating depth.

 The next suggested technique is perspective or simply angle. Having the right angle on something can change its appearance to the audience. For example a 4ft brick wall 10ft away from a camera appears to be nothing more than a short dividing wall, but if the camera is placed directly on the wall looking up, it will appear as a massive dividing structure much bigger than it actually is.

 The 4th means of providing depth is known as parallax, or motion. moving the camera actively in the shot weather its quickly towards the object in focus or slowly panning away this technique adds depth by using a changing angle and focus to keep attention.

 The last way of creating depth is occlusion. This is where an object in the foreground temporarily blocks the view of the object in the middle or background that is in focus. Doing this makes the audience aware of the cameras position and gives a relative idea of distance from the object in focus, creating depth.

These are all very useful bits of information! I can't wait to apply them to my own work.