Video Portraits

A portrait frame that happens to move. The subject holds still, looks at the lens, and the only changes are a blink, a breath and whatever the face does when it is left alone.

Stillness is what makes it strange. The audience expects a photograph, keeps waiting for it to be one, and reads every small movement as significant.

A close-up or medium close-up, locked off, held for longer than feels comfortable. The camera does not move and neither does the framing.

Light is usually simple and even, in the manner of a stills portrait, and the background stays plain so nothing else in the frame is moving.

Use it for title sequences, for gallery and exhibition work, and for social pieces where you want somebody to look at a face and keep looking.

Do not use it where information has to be delivered. Nothing happens in this shot, and that is the design.

A close-up is the size, and a video portrait is the size plus stillness and a held duration. Add camera movement and it becomes an ordinary close-up.

An interview looks off the lens and speaks. A video portrait looks into the lens and usually says nothing.

Andy Warhol shot hundreds of Screen Tests at the Factory from 1964, each one a silent roll of a single person asked to sit still and look at the camera. They are the reference for what a face does when it is given nothing to do.

The model adds a drift, a push in or a slow pan, because movement is what it associates with video. Ban camera motion explicitly and say the frame is locked off.

The second failure is a performance. Say the subject is still and neutral, blinking and breathing only.