The Wachowski Brothers’ latest film, “Speed Racer,” is going to feature a special effect never before seen in film. According to an interview, the film will be shot with the entire frame in focus. This means there will be an infinite depth of field. Neither the background or foreground will be blurred at all. The effect can be likened to a cartoon in which we always see the background in focus, and, as I’m sure the Wachowski Brothers well know, is revolutionary to the special effects world.
There is no indication of the type of camera being used to shoot the movie. All we know is that it is high-definition video (not film), footage is stored on a hard drive, and that it had guards around it at all times. Yes, guards. Here is what Susan Sarandon, who was being interviewed, had to say:
They’re using some high def thing that comes with guards and it’s beyond anything I’ve ever…. I saw 10 minutes before I left, they did a special thing for me cause they’re just wrapping and having a party tonight, they were still working after I left. They’re doing something where they’re layering film so that the front and the back are in focus like a cartoon and they’re also doing two dimensional and three dimensional stuff and mixing and everything is very, very saturated with some new kind of film, so they actually have to treat the actors in some way so we can hold our own with the background. So it’s every color that wasn’t in The Matrix is seriously in this film.
This is all news to me, but maybe some of you out there who are more involved with the movie industry can speculate as to what camera this is.
