This type of shot is most commonly known as a Deep Focus Shot.
Deep focus is a photographic and cinematographic technique using a large depth of field. Depth of field is the front-to-back range of focus in an image — that is, how much of it appears sharp and clear. Consequently, in deep focus the foreground, middle-ground and background are all in focus. This can be achieved through use of the hyperfocal distance of the camera lens.
When deep focus is used, filmmakers often combine it with deep space (also called deep staging). Deep space is a part of mise-en-scene, placing significant actors and props in different planes of the picture. Directors and cinematographers often use deep space without using deep focus, being either an artistic choice or because they don't have resources to create a deep focus look, or both
In the cinema Orson Welles and his cinematographer Gregg Toland were most responsible for popularizing deep focus. Their film Citizen Kane (1941) is a veritable textbook of possible uses of the technique.
In the 70s, directors made frequent use of the split-focus diopter. With this invention it was possible to have one plane in focus in one part of the picture and a different plane in focus in the other half of the picture. This was and still is very useful for the anamorphic widescreen format, which has more depth of field.
A split diopter is half convex glass that attaches in front of the camera's main lens to make half the lens nearsighted. The lens can focus on a plane in the background and the diopter on a foreground. A split diopter does not create real deep focus, only the illusion of this. *
(Nobby adds: this is why you sometimes see a thin, blurred line separating the foreground from the background)*
Nobby also adds: You rarely see deep focus shots being used in modern films as the advent of hand-held cinematography, along with the abandonment of established filming 'rules', has led to a desire for newer films to represent our way of seeing. We can't focus on two planes at once (unless from a great distance) and this is why 'shallow focus' (blurred backgrounds) are more prevalent. That said, the use of crash zooms has been creeping into shots lately, and this serves to draw the viewer out of the scene, as a zoom is the one thing the human eye cannot do.
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