Focal Points

Deep focus in film, as in the depth of a shot, creating dimensional layers. What about deep focus when one points the camera towards the interior? Not just the surface level of interest or engagement, or the foreground, but a focus that comprises various layers. For example: You, in the present moment, are screaming at someone, who has tripped one of your triggers. There is a close-up on your face, beet-red, mouth contorting as you scream, and the middle-ground shot is that of two cars, a red car cutting off a blue car, and you are the driver of the blue car, this near-accident occurred earlier that morning, and in the distant background we a small child, stamping his feet, shaking his fists, and rage-weeping. How to shoot a deep focus of the interior life? How one incident is connected to another, a protean collage, a complex scale of moods and emotions, a trigger-sensitive interplay. Deep focus capturing past, present and future in a single dynamic shot.

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About John Biscello

Originally from Brooklyn, NY, novelist, poet, performer, playwright and filmmaker, John Biscello, has lived in the high-desert grunge-wonderland of Taos, New Mexico since 2001. He is the author of six novels, Broken Land, a Brooklyn Tale, Raking the Dust, Nocturne Variations, No Man’s Brooklyn, The Last Furies, and No One Dreams in Color; a collection of stories, Freeze Tag, two poetry collections, Arclight and Moonglow on Mercy Street; and a fable, The Jackdaw and the Doll, illustrated by Izumi Yokoyama. He also adapted classic fables, which were paired with the vintage illustrations of artist, Paul Bransom, for the collection: Once Upon a Time, Classic Fables Reimagined. His plays have been staged and performed both nationally and internationally.
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