Are Blurry Backgrounds Ruining Movies?

I guess we're on a tear this week or feeling nostalgic or something, and our YouTube algorithm is only happy to feed into that, because today we have yet another cinematography video essay about the current look of film and television projects.

I think many us are in search of a way to stand out in our cinematography, because today, a lot of it feels a little flat and lifeless.

So today, we stumbled on a video from ExtraMint, which looks at the aughts era and how different the cinematography was just 20 years ago.

• YouTube www.youtube.com

Does Everything Have to Be Blurry?

In posing the question of why 2000s films look so different, ExtraMint notes the prevalence of Y2K futurism and also filmmakers' willingness to just try the cool, stylistic shot, even if the technology wasn't fully there yet.

But the video also makes a pointed observation about how we've become weirdly obsessed with blurry backgrounds.

"A lot of the time, the only thing in focus is the person that's currently speaking," he says. "You don't get to see any of the intricately detailed interiors and environments."

The video makes the case that this was far less common in 2000s filmmaking and that it's a big part of why older films can still feel more grounded than some of what's coming out today.

What's the opposite of this approach? Deep focus.

What Is Deep Focus?

Deep focus is an approach that keeps the foreground, middle ground, and background all sharp simultaneously.

Technically, you get there with a narrower aperture (higher f-stop numbers) and wider lenses.

The classic reference point is Citizen Kane , where Orson Welles and cinematographer Gregg Toland used it to build frames that felt architecturally vast and narratively layered. It's been a tool of serious visual storytellers ever since (Kubrick, Kurosawa, Welles).

If you'd like a deeper dive, learn more about how focus choices shape storytelling before you default to whatever your camera does naturally.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Credit: New Line Cinema

The Lord of the Rings as Proof

ExtraMint uses The Lord of the Rings trilogy as the marquee example, and, hey, I'll take any excuse to talk about that miraculous trilogy.

Even in intimate two-character scenes, the background stays fully readable. A shot of Aragorn and Arwen in Rivendell shows you foliage, stone carvings, the costumes, and altogether more of the world Peter Jackson built.

"Instead of locking you out and blurring everything," ExtraMint says, "it invites you to explore just as you would in real life."

Deep focus mimics how human vision works. We don't walk into a room and see one person in sharp relief against a smeared backdrop. We take in the whole space. Your cinematography can reflect that when appropriate.

Try It on Your Next Project

Fair warning, but this will take more deliberate work with modern cameras than it did on 35mm.

Large-sensor digital cameras, which most of us are shooting on, have shallower depth of field by nature, so you're sometimes fighting your own equipment to keep the background sharp. You'll need more light, and results will vary by lens. Understanding your hyperfocal distance is a good starting point.

If your locations have interesting details (and they should, because production design is storytelling), stop hiding them. Shallow focus is a tool, and it's pretty, but it shouldn't be the default. Use it when you want to emotionally isolate a moment.

But if you want your world to feel real, let audiences see it.