What is a Focus Puller?

The Wolf of Wall Street

(2013)

​​​Video from the filming of The Wolf of Wall Street

The Focus Puller (the man in white behind the camera) remotely controls the focus of the camera. The device is called Preston. The person does all this without a monitor, because the film was shot on film and there is no technology that would show a clear image from a film camera. He, as a professional, can determine the distance from the camera to an object by eye, but as an auxiliary device he also uses the Cinetape radar, which shows the distance.

Such scenes are often run through several times so that the cameraman and his assistant understand what and at what moment they are filming. The focuser performs an extremely important job, because it is impossible to view the material shot on film on the set.