Authenticity is a Team Sport
The Art and Practice of Authenticity
Watching CNN’s David Culver work is a master class in conversational authenticity -- addressing the viewer (camera) as if they are on the scene and experiencing that world with you, as opposed to watching it all from afar.
Here are a couple of clips. The first is all David -- essentially a monologue in a location where nothing much is happening and there’s nothing much to see. The second is in a location where there are things to see and note everywhere he turns.
From a delivery standpoint, it’s impressive how consistently authentic David’s delivery is in both. Authenticity is authenticity. It doesn’t change based on circumstance or format, and most of David’s pieces run on-air and on social.
Here’s what to note.
His eye contact is dynamic, not static. Culver manages eye contact the way you’d manage it with someone standing and looking around with you. Instead of locking on the lens, he looks away frequently to think, gesture or observe the things around him. This integrates his connection to the camera with the act of surveying the world around him. It’s one of the main reasons that this feels more like a conversation than like a performance or presentation.
He’s physically free and active from head to toe. There’s no stick mic, so he’s free to use his hands in whatever way comes most naturally to him. And, maybe even more important, he never stops moving. Even when he’s standing in one place, he’s shifting his weight and making himself comfortable -- just like he might if he were standing in conversation with someone at a meeting or party.
He works in close proximity to the camera. The actual distance is dynamic and varying, but his ongoing impulse is to come closer, as if he is speaking at close range with a companion who is on the scene with him. His volume level is notably consistent with that.
He has a secret weapon. His producer/photographer, Evelio Contreras.
The Viewer as Companion-On-Site
As good as David is in his own right, the impact of these hits is driven as much by producer/photographer Contreras as it is by the reporter. Through Evelio, the viewer experiences the report not as an observer from afar, but as a companion-on-site.
Here are some thoughts on how he does it.
He keeps it tight. In a note to me about their work together, Culver says, His focus is always on intimacy and proximity with the people in front of the camera. He frames things to allow the viewers to feel like they are right there with us, not watching from a distance.
The tight proximity, of course, has a direct effect on Culver’s delivery. He addresses the viewer as if they are standing right next to him because, in the person of Evelio, they are standing right next to him. In fact, Culver says, I never script, because that almost always makes it sound stiff. I want it to feel like I am just talking to Evelio, explaining what I am seeing and experiencing. Working in close proximity makes that easier.
He can be the viewer’s voice as well as their eyes. Culver also says that, when they are not live, Evelio will sometimes ask him questions. It’s a simple but profound practice that helps keep David’s delivery intimate and in conversation mode.
He makes the viewer’s point of view as variable as the reporter’s. In the same way that David keeps his eye contact moving on and off the camera, Evelio keeps shifting the viewer’s point of view from David to the scene around them.
He never stops moving. Even when he is focused on David in closeup, he keeps the camera subtly moving, just the way a listener standing next to David in conversation might subtly move and shift their weight as they were listening. It seems simple, but following on a time when so much news photography has been about locking the camera down and freezing the viewer’s POV on talent, it’s a profound and important shift.
This all matters because the Super Power of television news has always been its ability to show us places and people we otherwise could never see or know. Social media hasn’t changed that. It’s exploded it. And with more choices than ever, viewers can be more discerning about who they watch than ever.
The Super Power of this kind of authenticity is the way it invites us to go beyond just watching the story to experiencing it along with the reporter. When delivery becomes a conversation instead of a performance, the viewer becomes a companion instead of just an audience. A fellow explorer instead of just a distant observer. It’s like saying, “Come with me” instead of just “Watch me.”
And who wouldn’t prefer that?