technique · 1 recipe
Focus-Pull Dolly
A focus-pull dolly combines a real camera translation with an independently timed shift of attention between depth planes.
Selected recipe
Focus-Pull Dolly
This is the default recipe for the Dolly with Focus Transfer family.
Free short AI video prompt
A starter line you can copy. The full timed recipe, still-image and production prompts are on the shot card.
Prompt rule: Combine actual fixed-focal-length translation with an intentional near-to-far focus handoff. Keep perspective change and focus change independently observable; no dissolves.
Focus-Pull Dolly: A focus-pull dolly combines a real camera translation with an independently timed shift of attention between depth planes. Keep the subject readable; motivate camera and light.
Technique guide
- When to use
- Passing object clues to character reactions also brings the audience physically closer.
- How it works
- Calibrate time and distance separately for path and focus. First, keep the close object clear as a reference, then while moving, transfer the focus to the distant face and maintain a clear landing point.
- Common mistakes
- Only move the machine without selective focus handover Use dissolving superimposition instead of optical defocusing
How to read this page
Focus-Pull Dolly is one technique in Camera Movement. The definition states the single mechanism the frame has to show. The technique guide covers when to use it, the steps, the usual mistakes, how it differs from the neighbors, and what a successful take looks like.
The clip above is one reading, made with a third-party video model. Another model, or the same model on another day, can land on a different frame. It is an example, not a promise that a prompt will match it.
The free short prompt is a starter sentence. The shot card is the timed recipe: scene, start and end frames, action, light, and color. Three sample cards are free on the site. The rest are part of GrokCine Pro. A second name for the same shot keeps its own URL and points back at this definition.
When you write a prompt, keep the one mechanism in the definition, then name the subject, the motion, and why the light is there. Do not stack a neighboring technique into the same sentence. If the name or the example is wrong, send this page's URL from the contact page.
Prompt versions
Same technique, different prompts. Version A is the latest prompt; older versions are the exact prompts that kept clips were made from. Each version shows every model that used it.
Version A · latest：Stair carpenter · chisel
Version A · Scene of this version (English, verbatim)
While the camera advances, focus can travel from a near chisel to the face of a stair carpenter in a workshop.
The full prompt of every version comes with the member recipe.
sha256 75f7fbcaf1d5
Recipe
8 seconds · single take
In a stair-builder's workshop, a carpenter stands at the bench behind a chisel lying flat in the foreground, half-built stair treads stacked behind.
Shot cards
The full recipe for Focus-Pull Dolly is a shot card
The full recipe for Focus-Pull Dolly is a shot card. The start and end frames, timed action, lighting and color specs, a camera parameter table, copy-ready still-image and video prompts and negatives are open to GrokCine Pro members on the web.
Related families
- Pan Shot (Whip Pan)
Pan Shot (Whip Pan)A pan turns the camera around its vertical axis from a fixed station, changing horizontal direction without sideways travel. - Tilt Shot
Tilt ShotA tilt pitches the camera around a horizontal axis from one fixed station, changing vertical direction without changing support height. - Dolly Shot (Push In)
Dolly Shot (Push In)The camera translates on a smooth supported path, changing viewpoint and spatial overlap rather than only image scale.
More in Camera Movement
References
Sources we studied for this technique. External links; we don't embed them.
Articles & definitions
- Wikipedia: Focus pulling
Wikipedia · Web
Focus pulling changes the lens focus during a shot to follow a subject or shift attention.
- Wikipedia: Camera dolly
Wikipedia · Web
A wheeled cart or track platform that carries the camera for smooth moves toward, away or alongside the subject.
Videos
- Dolly from wide to extreme close-up with focus pull
@hanoverpictures · 2021-04-25 · X
"A team working in perfect sync": camera move from wide to extreme close with focus following.
- Creating a rack-focus shot
@VeeruUday · 2023-03-01 · X
Creating a rack-focus shot: focus moves between planes during the take.