Make the Person Forget the Camera is There

I read the “Staged, Staging, Stages” article by Dave Wertheimer. I had done some video shooting last weekend, so this article acted as a stinging reflection to look back on my experiences with the camera.

By a stinging reflection I mean what is stated in the title of this blog. The trick of the trade, as I have heard many times, was to “make the person forget the camera is there.” However, when I was shooting video at a parking lot where John Crokatt was working, he was so conscious of the camera that he kept looking back and forth to find out whether I thought he was doing a good job. He was willing to do things over and over again, if I told him to.
Although he had agreed to being interviewed, he seemed a bit uncomfortable with the camera at first. I felt very helpless, because there was not much I could do to make him feel more comfortable, more like himself. It could have been because he was an old man (74 years old), but still I wanted to make him feel better, which would obviously make my video story much better, too.

However, after about 20-30 minutes, as we began talking about his family and his job off the record, he really seemed to forget that the wireless microphone was there, and I was able to start shooting with a question to which he gave a smooth answer to. I was really glad that I had developed into such a phase with my interview subject.

Now, here is the question: In that first part of the interview where he was mumbling and pausing, and also was willing to pretend over and over again that it was the first time he heard the question or did something, should I have allowed that for a better quality? I think not, and I am proud of not pulling off such a “stage video” of my own; to work with what I have to make a story will definitely help me more to be a better journalist in the future.