Many movies try to grab your attention to certain things but not all the time does it work. Maybe someone will be trying to find an escape in a room and the camera focuses on the vent or maybe someone lost something while getting ready for work and they can’t find their brush and the camera focuses in on the brush. Why? So that the audience knows what is going on in the movie or TV show without the actors saying any words. This is known as rack focusing.

Rack focusing is when the focus of the camera is changed while the film is rolling. Rack focusing is more noticeable when the object is close up i the frame. Not only is it a form of film analysis, it is a very well put together technique that clearly states what is going on and why. If a movie focused on a man on a bride and then wanted to switch the frame to the lighthouse tower in the background without editing, they would use rack focusing to show a clear image of the lighthouse.

I found a good example of rack focusing. The video below shows the CSI crew putting a vase back together. You can see the shot is focused in on the vase and rack focuses to the woman in the background while she is trying to find the missing vase piece. The shot then rack focuses closer to the camera to the man holding the missing vase piece and quickly focuses back on the woman. I picked this video because it used quite a few examples all in a short period of time to give a better visual explanation of what rack focusing is.