Mondo Knows Facts
Citizen Kane kept foreground and background both sharp
Cinematographer Gregg Toland used fast wide-angle lenses and heavy lighting To hold a face close to the lens and a doorway at the back of the set in the same sharp image, Gregg Toland stopped his wide-angle lenses well down and lit the set heavily. The technique, called deep focus, lets one shot carry action at several distances. Orson Welles and Toland used it throughout the 1941 film. It sits in Mondo's movies & tv collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Tags: cinematography, 1941, lighting
Citizen Kane kept foreground and background both sharp: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Cinematographer Gregg Toland used fast wide-angle lenses and heavy lighting. The figure is taken from BFI, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a movies & tv fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Movies & TV shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.