Cameraperson to Person
A video essay commissioned by RealTime about Kirsten Johnson’s 2016 film Cameraperson.
Critics and editors such as Matt Zoller Seitz, Koganada and Kevin B Lee have produced video essays, an experimental form of audiovisual criticism currently blooming in the digital sphere and all manner of academic and popular circles. In this video essay produced especially for RealTime, Sydney-based critic and video editor Conor Bateman shows how Kirsten Johnson has hijacked conventional forms of editing, montage and dialogue to contribute something entirely new to documentary cinema. – Lauren Carroll Harris
“Kirsten Johnson’s 2016 documentary ‘memoir’ Cameraperson employed a singular, almost indefinable structure to tell its story. Bateman heads to his editing timeline to break it down in this ingenious exploration of a monumentally great film.” – Daniel Clarkson Fisher
“There’s structure in poetry, as this video essay argues with the evidence on screen: Kirsten Johnson’s work autobiography shows the unacknowledged director behind the cinematographer, and this video essay shows the editor behind her.” – Irina Trocan