Shot and counter shot

A lot of us have been introduced to the wonderful world of "The Office" on NBC. Some even more fortunate ones among us have had access to the original British series from which it is inspired. I dare assert that the essential idea which the British version brings to light is an absolute revelation. A new way to view comedy and a certain grisly neo-realism which makes it all the more avant-garde and cutting edge. A lot of these rough exterior qualities are smoothed out in the American version, much to my dismay. It has been made a little more tractable and gag-oriented, something which Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant particuarly wanted to avoid. Further, while the original brit series had just 12 episodes over two seasons, the american version has been commoditised and has too many episodes to retain the cutting edge which defines the concept. It still manages to succeed commercially, due to Steve Carrell's antics (for lack of a better word) and still grabs awards because of the novelty of the original concept.

And novel, it certainly is. This is where I'll lend credibility to the title of this blog. Let me start with a fundament al question and try to proceed with reason, as far as my wits permit. So, What is cinema? Okay, a medium through which you tell a story using light and sound. What is a camera? It is a device which acts as a medium which transports images and perhaps, sounds from one place to another. Now, lets invoke (guess who?) Einstein (hey wait, I have got a lil complaint?? Yeah, just hold on). Einstein's essential thesis is that the very act of observing affects a physical system. Thus we can never really determine the configuration of a system with certainty (pat on the back to Heisenberg). Let us extend this to the world of cinema and cameras. What would you do if you were being seen? You'll put on your makeup and act oh-so-nice and behave well and even say "excuse me" when you sneeze. But if that camera was candid. Well, you would do few or none of the above things . Even worse, you might me caught with your pants down, quite literally. So we see that the process of cinema has for the large part been using an "invisible" camera. What I mean by that is : We are being told a story, seeing characters "pretending" to do this or that. BUT, these characters are "acting" like they cant see the camera! Its like the camera dissolved itself and there was just this tube which transmits images of what is a fantastic reality, if you know what I mean.

This essential thesis behind the making of cinema encourages pretense. Its not like the camera is picturing you candidly. You are fully aware of what is happening. You rehearse the dialogues. You are supposed to be talking to the audience when you really are talking to a camera. The dynamic is just one-way, from actor to camera. There is no counter dynamic caused by the presence of the camera i.e. the actor does not respond to the presence of the camera or even acknowledge its presence. There is SHOT, which is the camera capturing the character's actions but there is no COUNTER SHOT. Simply put, you'll never have a guy on camera saying "Is the shot over??".

This is where "The Office" makes a departure. It makes an attempt to encapsulate this effect. At the beginning of the first episode, we are told that these are documentary tapes of activities in an office of a company called Wernham Hogg. Well, nothing new there? Well, yes there is! All the people you see are fully aware that these cameras are watching them. The whole "story"(for lack of a better word) is told by means of these not-so-candid recordings and extra interviews conducted with the people of the company. The series was conceived to bring out the ennui and boredom in an office environment. So there are a lot of scenes of blank inactivity and fairly mundane conversations. But to uncork the comic element, there are a core group of characters whose lives we follow. These people are not unlike the people we see in a normal office environment but mildly caricaturised to really get the comic parade going. But a lot of the humour is created from the viewer's prerogative and the resonance that he can establish with the tone of the series.

To me, it seems to be absolute genius to come up with two great avant-garde ideas. One, to make a departure from the gag oriented comedies which have become slightly repetitive and eminently reproducible. Two, they have managed to exhibit this special dynamic between viewer, actor (though that word begins to have a strange meaning here) and the camera. Each of these three becomes an integral part of the whole experience.

Hope I haven't destroyed your appetite by miring the whole idea in (what seems to me like) reason. Go ahead and enjoy one of the finest works of comic moving pictures. And if you like this, you might also like The Ricky Gervais Show, a podcast which has a quirky and distinctly absurdist perspective of human life. More on my thoughts on this show sometime later.


yeah yeah Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt - Ricky Gervais