Ellen Kuras: Swing-Tilt Lenses

From American Cinematographer, 4 Little Girls by Eric Rudolph (January 1998)

"We used swing-and-tilt lenses to selectively focus on certain parts of the images to enhance the narrative. When we shot news clippings, we would sometimes start sharp on the first couple of lines of the article and then rack from soft focus to sharp focus for the headline. We did this so the viewer would first get an idea of what the article was about and then get rolled into the impact of the headline, which states the facts in a few bold words. We thought this was more effective than having viewers just read a series of headlines. With photos and some of the documents, such as the death certificates, we would rack-focus to the date of the bombing or the cause of death to give a more emotional feel to the image. We were constantly looking for those sorts of opportunities in the pictures and documents."

-Ellen Kuras, ASC