Racking focus in filmmaking and television production is the practice of shifting the attention of a audience of a film or video by changing the focus of the lens from a subject in the foreground to a subject in the background, or vice versa. It dated back to the time when cameras did not have reflex lenses so the operator would have to "rack focus" the camera by looking through the viewfinder, then sliding the camera over so that the shot would be in focus. The technique can be seen in as early as 1929 in the early talking picture Applause (film), directed by Rouben Mamoulian. [1] American director Richard Rush claims that he and cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs invented the technique, first used in the 1968 motorcycle film The Savage Seven. Rush owns the patent on a lens used in the technique.[2]