Extreme Close-up

What this is about

Westerns built duels out of them; thrillers build dread. The ECU abandons normal human distance, so the audience feels handled — which is the point, and the risk. Technically it is unforgiving: focus depth of millimeters, every eye twitch magnified, macro or long lenses, often a steadied head or focus rehearsals. In the German size ladder this is the Detail applied to the face. Plan ECUs as their own setups; they rarely succeed as a quick push-in at the end of another shot.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• Focus is the craft here: rehearsed, marked, sometimes remote-controlled.
• ECUs of faces and detail shots of objects are cousins; intent separates emotion from information.
• A few per film keep their power; every genre has its own tolerance.

With TillyGen

In TillyGen an ECU line carries its own setup in the schedule, so its extra rigging time is planned, not stolen.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.