Diorama

The scene reads as a handmade model. Small buildings, small figures, visible craft in the materials, and a world you could reach into.

Miniature scale makes an audience protective. A city they could pick up is a different city from one they are standing in, which is why the look suits both whimsy and dread.

The narrow focus band is what sells it, as the note says. A real camera close to a small object has very little depth of field, so a sharp strip with soft ground above and below it is the signature of looking at something small.

Materials have to show their making. Card edges, paint texture, glue, the seam where two pieces meet. A perfectly finished miniature reads as a full-size location.

Light it like a table, not like a street. A source close to a small model falls off fast across the scene, and that visible drop from bright to dark over a short distance is another size cue.

Use it for a world you want the audience to hold at arm's length, for establishing shots in a stylised piece, and for anything with a storybook register.

Skip it when the audience has to be inside the scene. A miniature keeps them outside it by design.

Tilt-shift applies the miniature focus cue to real, full-size footage, so the buildings are genuine and only the optics lie. A diorama is actually built small, so the materials, the craft and the lighting fall-off all agree with the focus.

The test is the material. Real buildings with fake focus is tilt-shift. Card, paint and visible making is a diorama.

Blade Runner (1982) built its city as miniatures with practical lights in them, and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) shot its spacecraft as models on a stage. Both used long exposures and small apertures to hold the whole model sharp, which is the opposite choice from the shallow band that makes a modern shot read as small.

A full-size scene comes back with deep focus. Ask for a narrow band of focus across the model with soft areas above and below it.

The second failure is a flawless miniature that reads as real architecture. Name the craft materials: card, paint, glue, visible seams.