Blurring Effect

[rmccam]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post here. I hope I'm putting it in the right place.

I've noticed from time to time a deliberate blurring effect in films and music videos. It's not natural depth of field blur but more of an artistic choice to help guide the eye or create some interest in a shot. Most recently I saw it in John Wick. If you watch from about 0:35 to 0:55 you'll see it in several shots:

http://youtu.be/2AUmvWm5ZDQ

I'm just wondering what the most likely tool to do this is? Is it literally just a blur effect with a mask or something? Or do you think it was done in-camera with a tilt-shift lens or glass in front of the lens or something? Or is there a Video Copilot, Boris, Red Giant, etc., effect that's a go to for this sort of thing? I would just be concerned with too much artifacting when messing with the image too much. It sounds a bit ridiculous to ask, I know, but are there any tutorials for these sorts of effects?

Thanks in advance!

[Cornucopia]

All that I saw were in-camera effects (aka it was shot that way): Defocus, Rack Focus, and shallow DOF. Standard lens.

These things COULD be done in post if the cameraperson+director didn't have the foresight to prepare & execute the shot correctly. At that point, yes you would add a blur effect using key-framed roto'd masks, almost always done MANUALLY without plugins (well, maybe one to help with the roto & mask, or to give you good bokeh). In other words, a LOT of extra work just because someone wasn't prepared at the time of shooting.

What a cute puppy!!

Scott

[budwzr]

Looked to me like the cameraman did it. They use focus/defocus to direct your attention.

[rmccam]

I wouldn't have guessed that but I guess it makes logical sense. I wonder what's causing that kind of smearing effect at 0:39? You see it in the watch and bracelet on the night stand. You can also see it at 0:44 when the guy is on his knees dragging out the dog. I suppose why I'm not sure that it's just a standard lens being defocussed is because in that shot at 0:44 it's out of focus on the right side of the frame, then when the guy moves his boot into to the center side of the frame in comes into focus while everything else stays out of focus. His boot would be on the same plane as everything else that's out of focus. Unless it's a tilt-shift lens, or a lens baby or something?

It's kind of like the shot of the girl in front of the window in this:

http://youtu.be/JkJCcw3Y3zk?t=1m18s

The focus is centered, not based on the plane of distance. I just always assumed it was in post but I guess that doesn't make sense from an organizational standpoint.

Thanks again!

[poisondeathray]

A spherical lens was used in some scenes

I liked the movie overall, but not a fan of those spherical shots

EDIT: see here

What were your lens choices?

We had the idea of using both anamorphic and spherical lenses, so we got hold of a set of Hawk's Vintage '74 anamorphics and combined them with Cooke S4s. Originally we planned to use anamorphics for the first section and sphericals for the second, but once we were shooting we felt that the camerawork was enough to separate those two worlds and we ended up using the anamorphics mainly for day work and the sphericals for night work. The Vintage '74s are beautiful but they flare a lot and at night we thought that would become too much. In daylight they gave us a hazy look and reduced the contrast, which helped make the day scenes seem much more cinematic to me.

http://www.arri.com/camera/alexa/news/news/alexa-xt-on-john-wick/

[smrpix]

The night stand might well be post-blurred. While most of the work appears to be done in-camera, there's no rule against using every technique at your disposal and in your budget. Basically all post-production tools, from NLEs to color-correctors to high-end graphics systems have the ability to mask and blur. Every tool you mentioned in your first post is a possibility - absolutely.

edit; except video copilot which is a series of tutorials.

[rmccam]

That's interesting about the lens differences.

I guess it's tough to say for sure how they did it but I do appreciate the slight artistic flair shot to shot. You don't see that very often in an action film.

Thanks everyone.

[budwzr]

Today's cameras have a lot of effects built in, available to the camera operator. Problem is, those fX are baked in to the shot, and camera operators are not picky editors. So the shot better be good. In this case it looks more like a slow reaction, not very artistic.

Personally, I don't like it. It's too slow. Looks more like a last minute correction.

[smrpix]

You don't see that very often in an action film.

I STRONGLY disagree with you here -- but in a friendly way.