Careers A–Z · Camera
Focus puller
The focus puller — formally the 1st AC — keeps the image sharp on a moving subject with a moving camera, usually without looking through the lens.
You also run the department on the day: the truck, the prep, the kit order, the loader and the trainee.
The basics
Also known as, and where the grade sits.
| Focus puller | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Focus puller informally; 1st AC on the call sheet and the rate card. |
| Level | Senior assistant, and in practice head of camera’s floor operation. |
| Reports to | The camera operator and the DoP. |
| Comes after | Clapper loader / 2nd AC. |
| Leads to | Camera operator — or a long career staying exactly here. |
The job
What does a focus puller do?
At prep you check every body, lens and accessory the show will use. Collimation, back focus, lens tests. You find the soft lens before it finds you.
On the floor you take marks in rehearsal, measure them, and pull live through the take. Actors drift, dollies move, operators reframe. On a fast prime you are correcting against a depth of field measured in inches.
The unglamorous end: you carry the department’s anxiety for the whole shoot. Every soft frame is yours, prep weeks are long and unphotogenic, and much of the day is squatting beside a lens in the rain.
The requirement
What is a focus puller good at?
Temperament matters as much as technique, and the technique is hard.
Judging distance
Estimating to a tolerance most people cannot see, then trusting it.
Memory
A run of marks and a lens map, held with no second look.
Hand feel
Smooth, correctly weighted movement on a hand unit, at speed.
Nerve
Calling your own soft take. Finding out in dailies is worse.
Running a department
Prep, kit orders, the truck, two people to train.
Kit
Tools of the trade.
| What | The actual items |
|---|---|
| Wireless follow focus | Preston FI+Z and HU4, ARRI WCU-4 and Hi-5, cmotion. Motors, receivers, checked spare batteries. |
| Lenses | Cooke S4 and S7, Zeiss Master and Supreme Primes, Panavision primes, Angenieux Optimo zooms. |
| Measuring | Cinetape, laser rangefinder, cloth tape — and the ability to work without any of them. |
| Test kit | Collimator or projector, focus charts, back focus and flange depth tools, lens support. |
| Monitoring | On-board monitor and wireless video, and enough understanding to diagnose a fault. |
The unit
Who does a focus puller work with?
| Who | What passes between you |
|---|---|
| Camera operator | Frame and movement. Know the reframe before it happens. |
| DoP | Stop, lens choice, filtration, how the look is protected shot to shot. |
| 2nd AC and trainee | Your department. Build, marks, paperwork, training. |
| Grips | Dolly speed, track, crane arcs. Focus and movement are one problem. |
| Rental house | Prep, faults, swaps, and the technician who takes your call at seven. |
Routes in
How do I become a focus puller?
Almost nobody arrives directly. You are promoted into it by people who watched you.
Up from loader
The overwhelming route, then first pulls where a mistake is survivable.
Second unit
Where first-time pullers get tried with a net.
Commercials
High shot counts, short days, fast feedback.
Rental technician
Techs who know optics cold cross to assisting.
No degree is required, and this is the grade where a course is least likely to be the deciding factor. Time on a hand unit makes a focus puller.
What gets you tried is an operator or a DoP willing to carry the risk.
Nearby
The grades either side of this one.
Focus and grip work are the same physics. Read both.
Camera department guide
Everything free and worth paying for in this department, in the order to take it, with the books.
Never been on a set? Start here. Offered a first day? Read this first. Want to know where this grade leads? Where people have gone names people who trained here and the productions they went to.
