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Eyelines in talking head interviews
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Here’s another one that really manages to annoy the heck out of me …
.. and that’s shooting from an angle below the natural eyeline so that you’re looking up the interviewee’s nose …
… which contrives effortlessly to convey “supercilious, condescending, patronising”, in other words the exact reverse of what you’re actually trying to achieve in the main.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
Hang on.
Have you ever sat at a conference table and listened to opinions of individuals in a group setting and had the slightest bit of trouble assessing the veracity of the speakers – even those not DIRECTLY across from you?
To me, that all this is. This framing makes me a neutral observer. And it seems perfectly natural.
(Perhaps because I’ve been at so many similar conference tables working in groups and it mirrors my experience?)I agree that “intimacy” is enhanced when the eyeline is direct. But there’s a LOT of content I watch where I neither need or prefer such intimacy. I merely need to observe and listen to the information.
Neutral detachment is, in my opinion, a PERFECTLY legitimate way to present factual information in a video – and since I’ve been watching 1-shots framed this way for literally decades, I understand (and I believe the larger television audience understands after 30 years or more of conditioning watching countless “interview” style shows such as 60 minutes et al, that the audience completely understands that the person I’m watching is likely being questioned by an off camera reporter or facilitator.
Which may be why it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
YMMV.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Eyelines do matter. As does the height. Looking up or looking down does convey an opinion of the film maker. When people talk in a group setting things are different and all bets are off because they are talking to the group and the audience becomes a more detached observer.
An interview that cuts from a conventional eyeline to a side on says subconsciously that this bit of dialog is not important, so go and look at your phone or tablet until we cut back. It is so often gratuitous and lets the short attention span of the viewer take them out of the story. Why you would want to tell your audience to pay less attention I don’t know. Why are we training a shorter attention span into our audience anyway?
I like the double camera approach if possible of wider and closer from the same angle. I have a bracket that locks a second BM4k to the bottom one and allows me to frame both. It is entirely different to just shooting wide and punching in as that still looks like a jump when the perspective doesn’t change.
Old school maybe but Simon is right about the subtle messages you are conveying to the audience.
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[Bill Davis]”Have you ever sat at a conference table and listened to opinions of individuals in a group setting and had the slightest bit of trouble assessing the veracity of the speakers – even those not DIRECTLY across from you? ”
Yes and being there, the eye can read a hell of a lot more than a restricted camera angle can. Including taking in how others are reacting, again not possible with a fixed point of view. And we are just talking about visuals and not the whole hidden world of pheromones, sounds that are off mic etc etc.
In spite of all that when someone address you directly or the person next to you you will pay more attention. Being side on allows you to pay less attention. So even in real life you react differently even with the enhanced cues.
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A very timely subject for me, since I had just watched a number of student documentaries where the eye lines were very disconcerting. After reading the comments above I went back to a favorite of mine, a Frontline story “League of Denial” edited by Steve Audette. In it the eye lines are very close to the lens, but never on it. I know Audette wrote up how it was shot and edited, but I can’t find the link now. Anyway, it is far different looking from the example above.
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No quarrel with the idea that a more direct eyeline is more engaging. But my experience is that more engagement is not always desirable. A few years back I was shooting interviews of people who had (decades earlier) been early pioneers in treating the local AIDS infected community. One interviewee being honored was a woman who had lost her teenage son as the result of a transfusion back before the virus had been identified and who had spent the rest of her life fighting to improve things in the early “at risk” populations. Even tho I literally stopped taping three times to let her get her emotions under control during her telling her story, the pain was still so intense that The LAST thing I needed was the enhanced emotional connection a direct shot would have captured. That’s all I’m saying. Emotional engagement is ONE tool in a shooters quiver when recording interviews. Not the best or only one. I’m probably 500 interviews down the road and that’s my 2 cents. Feel free to disagree. But notice that while direct “head on” mirror boxes that allow easy interviews with perfect direct to the audience eye lines have been around for decades (one of my producer friends built a nice one in around 2005 we used for a while) you don’t see many of them in regular use. But you DO see constant interviews in the classic “near but off-camera” style. Maybe there’s actually a reason for that.
That’s all.Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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I wonder if this is partly a generational thing. If you are under 30, you strongly associate close / direct eyeline with youtube webcam video whereas eyes off to the side means cinema, innit?
I know that the Guardian pays very poorly for articles. It wouldn’t surprise me if the videos are made by unpaid (young) interns.
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[Bill Davis] “No quarrel with the idea that a more direct eyeline is more engaging. But my experience is that more engagement is not always desirable. A few years back I was shooting interviews of people who had (decades earlier) been early pioneers in treating the local AIDS infected community. One interviewee being honored was a woman who had lost her teenage son as the result of a transfusion back before the virus had been identified and who had spent the rest of her life fighting to improve things in the early “at risk” populations. Even tho I literally stopped taping three times to let her get her emotions under control during her telling her story, the pain was still so intense that The LAST thing I needed was the enhanced emotional connection a direct shot would have captured. That’s all I’m saying. Emotional engagement is ONE tool in a shooters quiver when recording interviews. Not the best or only one. I’m probably 500 interviews down the road and that’s my 2 cents. Feel free to disagree. But notice that while direct “head on” mirror boxes that allow easy interviews with perfect direct to the audience eye lines have been around for decades (one of my producer friends built a nice one in around 2005 we used for a while) you don’t see many of them in regular use. But you DO see constant interviews in the classic “near but off-camera” style. Maybe there’s actually a reason for that.
That’s all.
“Simon wasn’t talking about direct eyeline, he was talking about incorrect “off Camera” style
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Yes, Bill, you’re perfectly right in saying that directness of engagement is sometimes best avoided rather than sought, and context is all, but I gave a very specific example where the eyelines were very clearly defeating the whole point of the exercise.
The Guardian is pleading with me to hand over money every month and someone thought the best way of convincing me was to have the interviewees direct themselves not to me the viewer, but to someone somewhere well off camera.
If you want my money, Guardian, then please have the courtesy to speak directly to me! By refusing to engage with me, you are making it much less likely that I will open up my wallet – you’re actually annoying me instead. (Incidentally, getting people to hand over this subscription money is probably vital to the Guardian’s continued existence, so this is hardly trivial!!!)
I think my point is pretty relevant because 99% of the talking heads shot around the world every day involve someone trying to convince the viewer of a point of view and very frequently, as in this case, persuade the viewer to part with their cash.
OK, maybe not 99% … but the reality is that most talking heads are a lot more humdrum and simply mercantile than your example (where your choice was clearly a good one), and the people shooting them are “getting them wrong” usually because they just don’t understand what they’re doing, or rather because they’ve unthinkingly absorbed a misguided convention.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Claude Lyneis] “I went back to a favorite of mine, a Frontline story “League of Denial” edited by Steve Audette. In it the eye lines are very close to the lens, but never on it. I know Audette wrote up how it was shot and edited, but I can’t find the link now. Anyway, it is far different looking from the example above.”
Is this the article you were referring to with Steve Hullfish interviewing Steve Audette?
https://www.provideocoalition.com/art-of-the-cut-with-steve-audette-of-frontline/
It’s a really fascinating read with some amazing insights into the thinking of an exceptional film-maker.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com
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