But most important, the filmmakers have found children whose stories are gripping and who have the ability to express their feelings so strongly that they are compelling camera subjects.
While you do have to make a few unfortunate compromises with Vue, the package is one of the most compelling camera solutions I've seen in a while and, best of all it, works.
In reality the devices -- compelling acting, camera angles, and musical instrumentation -- are simply abstract effects producing varying modulations of pleasure or displeasure within its audience.
And, to Ms. Momber, the streets no longer look as compelling through a camera lens.
Sir David, who was 74 and died on board the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship where he was to give a speech, was not only a compelling figure on camera; he was a great strategic thinker within the broadcast industry who helped change the rhythm of television in 1983 as one of the co-founders of TV-am.
I know that every parent thinks their kid is the most adorable in the world, but I've been shooting for almost 30 years, and I've shot a lot of people, and I can objectively say that she's a really, really compelling character on camera.
Haneke does precisely this in The Piano Teacher in arguably the film's most compelling moments, the camera lingering on her face as she listens to the student who is trying to seduce her while he performs a piece by Schubert at an audition.
What makes the film compelling is that the camera unflinchingly records the personal stories of some of the parents: an affair; a divorce; a bout with depression; assorted cries of frustration at the educational system, the social ostracizing, the general unfairness of it all.
In the A.V. Club, Noel Murray also finds small details compelling, such as the camera's focus on the paper towel Buffy uses to cover the vomit on the carpet.
That "I Dreamed of Africa" fails to engage us in the reality of these people's experience -- despite a compelling story and a camera-ready landscape -- illustrates that in this age of stale, overpublicized fantasies, it requires a subtle hand to convey the dream logic that leads people to forsake their given lives for the sound of a single word: Paris, Africa, America.
Interview them and ask "What is it that is so compelling about pumpkin pie?" Cameras are a great buffer.
