Great stuff, Thomas. Thanks!
Mike observes below, "some people want to look in the camera no matter what you tell them."
And for a very simple reason: that's how people speak to each other. That's how people WANT to be spoken to. It's how honest people speak to each other.
My problem with traditional "look over there, don't look at me, don't look into the camera" approach is that it's fundamentally alienating. I'm
watching a conversation between someone and...who? His psychiatrist? His costumed superhero alter-ego? Elvis? No matter. I am by definition excluded. The subject isn't talking to me. I'm an eavesdropper.
Note that this is how I shot hundreds of interviews. I just hated it, and hated myself for not coming up with a creative way out of it. My excuse at the time was that I was a solo shooter, at best 2 of us, and that we were in the wilderness...and not looking at the camera was "the way" to do it...but I was wrong.
The one and ONLY time to have a subject look off camera is if the other person is ALSO a focus. Like Oprah. Even away from the audience, she's more compelling than almost anyone she talks to. I WANT to see a conversation between her and her subject...but I KNOW why I'm seeing the subject not speaking to ME.
re: Errol Morris, he came up with 2 innovations, only one of which we've talked much about. Looking directly at the camera as an aesthetic choice rooted in ethics, politics, and basic human behavior is one part, but the other is keying to a white background. He's literally getting EVERYTHING out of the way of an eye to eye discussion.
Now, this is obviously an affectation. Nobody outside a movie set for a mental hospital speaks in a purely white room...but it's an example of artifice serving a larger truth. He uses that very word to describe it, while also acknowledging that he was far from the first to use white backgrounds. But that combination is a large part of what makes his work - not just in documentaries but in commercials too - so very compelling.
As he says, "My interest is primarily in what people are saying, and in not detracting or distracting from what they're saying, because that's at the center of what I'm doing."
It's a good article, with lots of great links to really amazing articles,
so check it out when you've got time to play....
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
My Blog:
"Is this thing on? Oh it's on!"
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