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Eyelines in talking head interviews
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[Simon Ubsdell] “What you seem to be saying, and forgive me if I’ve got this wrong, is that the creative process is so nebulous and undefined that there are any number of right answers and frankly anything goes if that’s what you want to do, which seems to be the exact opposite of what Mark was saying.”
There is some misunderstanding here.
I see it as a practical matter. I set up to shoot an interview. I think about the content, the objective, and (when I have time) I try to get to know the person I’ll be shooting. AT THAT MOMENT I have to make a decision about camera positioning and framing.
Sometimes, I can control that carefully. Sometimes I cannot. If I CAN control it – there isn’t just ONE right answer. My AIDS interview example attempted to demonstrate that. I had no clue the content would end up being be so raw and searing. So what’s the point of abstracting about what the PERFECT framing might be for that context? It’s a variable. So the best we can do is establish an educated guess in advance of the unfolding story.
That’s what shooters face in the real world. I come to an interview with a head full of standards and ideals – but if what I see in the monitor doesn’t really work with those – I have to adapt. And I often have to adapt AWAY from the preconceived “ideal.” You posted a link to the very engaging Steve Audette Frontline piece. It didn’t escape me that nearly all the reaction shots of the reporter had her framed midline without much “look space.” Did that make the content less effective? Hardly.
Could somebody criticize THAT camera work? Surely. Would that be useful. I suspect not.
That’s my point in a nutshell.
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[Oliver Peters] “Obviously the off-axis angle adds a bystander or voyeuristic element to the perception. The in-the-lens approach implies that the subject is talking directly to you. But is there really a right or wrong to doing this?”
My simple plea is for some intelligent and thoughtful appraisal of the way the viewer responds to different eyelines and the appropriateness of particular eyelines for evoking particular effects in particular contexts, and I’ve explained that above for one very particular type of example.
Seeing someone speak to you straight down the lens can be intimate, friendly, unnerving, scary, depending on the context. But the reasons for why this approach evokes these particular types of reaction are really not too hard to work out. You just need to try and remember what it feels like in the real world … which ought to be pretty obvious unless you’re a sociopath or have some other condition that means you just don’t understand how to read other people! Then you factor in the context.
To say that it’s all subjective and hence there are no useful answers is pointless defeatism to my way of thinking.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Bill Davis] “I see it as a practical matter.”
From the POV of the editor, we often have no control over the choices the director or shooter made. For example, I’ve edited single-subject interview pieces where the B-camera is on a slider going back and forth. Whether or not I can even use the shot depends on whether that shot is really at the right point when I decide I need to cut to it.
My approach is to edit for content and then make the visual edit work. So, if I have two angles, I’m going to cut back and forth to avoid jump cuts. As a result, the choice of A or B camera on any specific line becomes a bit arbitrary.
Naturally, sometimes you really do want to end up on a certain angle for the proper impact. Then you end up resorting to a punch-in or dip-to-white or something else earlier in the piece in order to get the camera choreography in the right position.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Bill Davis] “Could somebody criticize THAT camera work? Surely. Would that be useful. I suspect not. “
This is the bit I don’t get. Why isn’t it useful to analyse the effect of this?
You don’t need to tell me about the difficulties that one faces on the actual shoot because I’ve experienced them myself over many years, and yes, everything is a compromise of one sort of another and it’s pretty much impossible to get things just right – and frankly I’ve coming away from every single shoot seeing a hundred things I could have done better.
But my point is that I try to learn from analysing my mistakes, and the mistakes of others, as well as looking at what other film-makers do really well. And at the same time I try to think in terms of first principles about what makes a certain type of shot work better for a certain purpose than another.
You seem to be suggesting there’s something illegitimate about that … which is what I’m having a hard time getting my head around.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
I always think this is a fantastic example of what it means to have someone talk “straight down the barrel”, but then Spike Lee is a film-maker who thinks very carefully about everything he does and tends to know exactly why he’s doing it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE0ne430gbA
Simon Ubsdell
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[Oliver Peters] “Obviously the off-axis angle adds a bystander or voyeuristic element to the perception. The in-the-lens approach implies that the subject is talking directly to you. But is there really a right or wrong to doing this?”
Above and beyond the aesthetical considerations most interviewee’s are uncomfortable talking straight into a camera. To get a great interview, which trumps any consideration of eyelines or anything else technical, is the primary concern during production. Unless you have a setup where the host is supered over the lens, it’s very hard to get a civilian to have a meaningful conversation with a piece of glass — just like the audience wants to read the interviewee’s eyes, the interviewee wants to read the interviewer’s eyes.
for years it had been SOP to have the interviewer sit/stand as close to the camera as possible to obtain the most direct connection for the audience. In modern times the use of a reverse angle on the interviewer nodding in apparent agreement with the subject, often shot after the interview was over, became anathema to a younger audience – it seemed a badge of insincerity. With the advent of multiple camera interviews the use of a second, “profile” angle was born to help hide the jump cuts and give a bit of “style” (bad is good)to an interview. From this it was merely another step to have the profile camera become the only angle – what can be more hip than intentionally screwing with the “rules” – and then to mess with any sense of proper framing while doing so. We have now arrived at the point where bad angles and poor framing are no longer being used to imply “hipness” they are merely indicators of a lack of visual education. My guess is in a few years young viewers will become entranced with the latest gimmick – on axis angles and classical framing – and we can go to our graves with a smile.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Simon Ubsdell] “You seem to be suggesting there’s something illegitimate about that … which is what I’m having a hard time getting my head around.
“There’s nothing at all illegitimate about that, and I too support your war against terrible talking head angles. Too many people would rather be shooting something “sexier” and bring inappropriate camera work and techniques to the subject. And they are inappropriate when they detract from the intent of the content. You can argue that creativity is always nebulous, and try whatever “creative” thing you pull out of your rear in a given moment, but if you don’t have a specific reason other than showing the world you can be arty, then you’ll probably do something that is irritating to viewers, regardless of whether or not they are the kind of crowd that frequents Creative Cow. My wife, for instance, has hated the same poor interview shooting as I have in recent documentaries we watch, even commenting on it before I’ve had a chance to. She is absolutely not the kind of audience that is thinking about technique or style or any of that, but knows when she gets annoyed by something presented in a visually lackluster way.
[Oliver Peters] “The Errol Morris solution is to shoot with the subject directly looking into the lens and has designed a rig accordingly. He also accepts and sometimes revels in the jump cut during the interview.”
I actually like the Error Morris look, save for the jump cuts, but in my own particular taste of shooting, I came about with a compromise in which I get the eyeline tight. This requires the interviewer to sit right next to the camera (and not talk with their hands lest they hit the camera) so that the eyeline is ever so slightly, but I really like how it looks.
I also tend to make the second camera angle really close to the main, making the two cameras sit as close to each other as is physically possible. I find the second camera angle is horribly abused these days in a way that is not clever, artistic, or interesting, but annoying and distracting and screaming LOOK AT ME! I’M BEING CREATIVE!
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[Herb Sevush] “My guess is in a few years young viewers”
I think you mean young videographers. I don’t see audiences driving these techniques.
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Preach the truth, brother Simon!
One of the misuses of angles that makes me get all stabby, is making inappropriate, out-of-context use of a profile cut-away during a standard interview type shot.
You know the shot: it’s originally meant to give a “behind-the-scenes” feeling to a portion of the narrative, and establish some sense of the location where the person is speaking. But I see it put into use in many, MANY inappropriate situations, where a more conventional b-camera wide or tight shot to match the main camera would have made more narrative sense. This started happening about the same time as the original wave of fashion for “shaky-cam” came on the scene. For the same “eyeline” reasons Simon has already explained, this side-on cut-away disturbs the semiotics of the scene by suggesting, inappropriately, a third person viewpoint where none is really needed or desired.
The side-on cut-away can be a useful tool, applied thoughtfully and sparingly. But today’s practitioners seem unable or unwilling to do either. Different isn’t always better. There’s a visual grammar to editing shots, and this mis-use is like adding a verbal tic or stutter artificially.
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[Simon Ubsdell] “My simple plea is for some intelligent and thoughtful appraisal of the way the viewer responds to different eyelines and the appropriateness of particular eyelines for evoking particular effects in particular contexts, and I’ve explained that above for one very particular type of example.”
I finally watched the piece in question. And I have to say that based on what this piece is, I’m not sure how much validity there is to the criticism. This is not an in-depth emotional video. This is quick-cut interviews – primarily talking head driven. And as such, having slightly off-axis interviews or different framing adds visual interest. In fact, I thought there should have been more of that kind of thing. And perhaps you are reacting to the, “One of these things doesn’t belong” element, which is admittedly problematic.
This is not to say there aren’t videos where the off-axis look doesn’t work well. It’s just not this piece. My .02.
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