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The Loss of Depth in Modern Movies

Second Unit

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Have you ever watched a $200 million blockbuster and wondered why it looks like a cutscene from a video game? It's because we have subtly entered the "Post-Visual Era", a moment where cinema has traded physical depth for a digital safety net.

In this video, we deconstruct the "Triple Whammy" systematically killing the cinematic image: Wide-open apertures, polite soft lighting, and flat color grades. From "Munchkinland" in Wicked to the "LED Prison" of The Volume, we’re looking at why modern cinematography has stopped committing to a "look" and started settling for a "wash."

Today we look at:

The Volume Scams: Why the LED wall creates poor lighting conditions in TV and movies.
The DVX Trauma: How our obsession with "bokeh" became a prison for directors, or Studio heads.
The "Wicked" Problem: Why 9 million real tulips look like CGI when you shoot in a wide open aperture.
The LOG Crutch: Why shooting for "data" is killing the contrast on-screen.

Timestamps:

00:00 - RIP Funeral of Depth
00:50 - Wide-open apertures/low f-stops remove depth
02:10 - When and why the shallow focus addiction started
04:48 - The "Soft Lighting" Epidemic & LOG Crutches
06:50 - Muddy Grades: The Death of Color Perspective
07:55 - The Rebellion: Bringing Back the Shadows
08:42 - Outtakes/Bloopers

20 Comments

@henriccarlsson9052 5 months ago

The color grading and lighting of Wicked is a crime against humanity.

@retrothing 5 months ago

The idea of shallow DOF as a shortcut to sigh looking “cinematic” goes back way before mobile phones. In the 90s/00s lower budget producers wanted to emulate shallow DOF, but with shoulder mounted video cameras with zooms, you couldn’t (unless like you said you set up really far from the subject). Someone invented the DOF adapter which is this massive gimmick you mount onto your video camera, and then you can mount 35mm SLR lenses. This really caught on when HD cameras that could do 24p came along. Just look up some of the crazy setups with a DOF adapter.

So I think that’s where we saw budget productions embrace this idea that shallow DOF didn’t look like a cheap video production anymore - an idea which exploded when the DSLR revolution started. I think shallow DOF was all about cheap production gloss before it was to conceal LED background screens or to elucidate the speaker for phone viewers.

@williammorrell 5 months ago

I think a missed aspect of using fast lenses wide open is that films can forgo expensive lighting setups requiring large grip teams and expensive trucks laden with gear. When time is short opening the lens up and getting the desired level in a scene is the path of least resistance and allows you to make the day. I've had to make this compromise as a DoP working on low to no budget shorts more often than I would like.

@wildlifefishingshow 5 months ago (edited)

Going back and forth from those washed-out shots to the absolutely gorgeous shot of Dracula and his shadow was jarring, lol

@silvertube52 5 months ago

I'm a stereo photographer, and 3D photography has always maximized depth of field. You want to viewer to explore the whole scene and all the detail. Shallow depth of field in 2D photography is often a way to imitate depth, but if you have stereopsis you want to see detail. The background doesn't have to be out of focus to know it's far away when you have stereoscopic depth.

@Joshua_Clarke_Film 5 months ago

It's important to note that while digital cameras are shooting in LOG the director isn't seeing that and the first colour correcting step is generally to "fix" the LOG look before anything else.

@JonahCoe-o2y 5 months ago (edited)

I would note, you mentioned the death of natural lighting. But many of the older films are lit with heavily artificial lighting. It was tungsten, hmi, and fluorescent, which does arguably produce a more pleasing, natural look, but artificial nonetheless.

@innercynic2784 5 months ago

I have to remind myself that back in the day nobody "saw" in black and white. Everything was in color and they lit and decorated to account for it. Today it's as much an aesthetic choice as anything. In many cases I'd say they're masking a fuzzy story with fuzzy optics.

@vycanon7057 5 months ago (edited)

Another great video! Even better than the last. I love the little details such as your talking segments having detail to contrast with the low depth of the samples used to help make the point visually.

@DarkSentinel52 5 months ago

honestly i feel physically ill when watching some of the modern movies due to complete lack of contrast in the lighting shadows and color grading

@GringoASMR 4 months ago

1:25, "these cameras didn't have full frame sensors"
illustrates point with a stills camera that does in fact capture images in 35mm 'full frame'.

@rcordiner 5 months ago (edited)

I was talking with the Virtual Production colour technician from Obi-Wan and Rebel Moon and he told me that they lit most of the show from the volume screen which didn't have enough nits to properly expose the image and they just went with it 😂

@kevincoelho3872 5 months ago

I agree with everything you say here. I work as a lighting technician in NYC and it feels so automatic for DP’s to ask for heavy diffusion in front of the lights. I walk through the set and can’t see my own shadow. That’s a wake up call. And yeah they’re always shooting wide open.

@paulsr54 5 months ago

excellent analysis!

@bonfyrestories 5 months ago

You make some great points. I also think many new directors struggle with blocking and staging, which are key to guiding the viewer’s focus without relying on a blurred background. No offense, but the colors in your video look a bit flat on my screen, and I’m surprised you didn’t boost the saturation and contrast during editing. On the plus side, your background is clear and easy to read, which works well.

@Phantom_Corps 5 months ago

The Fix it in Post Age

@logmars 5 months ago

Project Hail Mary and Sunrise on the Reaping give me hope especially in the sets and coloring departments

@ashritsai3744 5 months ago

I felt something was wrong with the way movies are being shot these days but I was struggling to articulate it, your video has provided the reason, thanks man, cheers brother 👍

@denismurin 5 months ago

There is a technical reason for a shallow depth of field combined with virtual production. There is a very high risk of moire when camera gets too close to the screens that specific subpixels start to resolve in the image and introduce wave-like flickering. Solution 1: keep your camera away from the video walls. Solution 2: blur the background. There actual guidelines about this when you work with VP.

@Tomhyde098 5 months ago

Whenever I watch a movie or show with a muddy color grade that is distracting I switch to my "black and white" preset on my OLED tv. Basically I turned color off, boosted contrast a little bit, and set the color temperature to warm. I watched Wicked this way and it actually looked a lot better than it's original color grade. It hides a lot of the issues that you talked about in this video