Mercado pp xiii-12

As I was reading the introduction, I found it interesting that I never thought about minute details in the shot of my camera as important. In one of my short films for my video editing class I used a public space on campus as a location, and didn't think about all the extra details in the shots. There was a guy doing his homework on the light table behind my actors, a girl casually walking passed to one of the studios behind the camera, and there was a whole lot of posters that were prominently displayed next to my actors but I never thought about all these things as something that my audience would think of as important to the film. I just thought it was an interesting thing for them to notice while watching because I knew not to see them as important but they didn't. I just thought of it as an unfortunate circumstance of filming in a public space.
I also really appreciate having focal length explained to me as I've never understood it before. Professors that taught me how to work with live action film would tell me its an important thing to know but then never explained it. And all of my animation professors would say that it wasn't all that important to know because I draw every shot. But I think as an artist that acts as a camera, knowing how the focal length of a camera works helps me understand how to best draw shots.