Keep following – lots of awesome stuff happening!

The mirror is out of focus because the combined distance of the man on the bed over to the mirror plus the distance from the mirror over to the lens is beyond the depth of field created by the parameters of the optical setup: the focal length of the lens and the aperture used. In other words, that lens, at that t-stop will only see point A in the foreground to point B in the background as in focus. The RED Epic, and no camera for that matter, will ever “see” it as a mirror and treat it differently. I am afraid that is just an incorrect misconception. It is simply a matter or rays of light bouncing off a reflective surface and therefore travelling further to reach the lens. It is the lens that does all the work.

Your split-screen idea is certainly the front-runner for ideas to solve this predicament, but here are a couple other ways you can ensure both the man and woman are in focus:

1) Increasing the t-stop to increase the depth of field so it extends as far as the bed. The cost of this is that more light will be needed and not all lenses work their best at high t-stops.

2) Using a split-field diopter filter (for example: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41JQS3C4XML._SL500_SS500_.jpg). You can effectively change the optical setup for one side of the frame so that both sides will be in focus on the camera’s sensor. A famous use of this was in All The President’s Men (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hS99thMfFBs/TabIe6HsCgI/AAAAAAAACeo/oA2WA1oibcE/s1600/atpm.jpg) whereby the television set on the left is kept in focus while Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) works in the background. The difficulty of this is in successfully hiding the center edge of the filter to a natural edge in the set.

Then again, there is always an argument to say “why do we need both in focus?”. There may be strong support to, let’s say, leave the man out of focus if all we want the audience to do is focus on the woman and her reactions. If we can hear his lines and the visual narrative is more about how she feels, then I would advise my director is leave him out of focus.

The human eye is naturally attracted to brightness, contrast, movement and focus, and as Directors and DP’s we wield this tool to play visual psychology on our audience. By directing the audience to gaze upon an actor/actress for a purposeful length of time, allows the audience to emotively connect.

Anyway, I am rambling now – I apologise. It honestly depends on the tone of that moment in the script. Best of luck with the shoot. I have had the pleasure of working with Lauren before and I think she’s great!