On Stories Told Through the Camera.

Or Why a Beautiful Shot Can’t Replace Heart

 

A confession about the craft, about people, and about those small, almost invisible things that make the difference between a recording… and a story.

 

 

These days, everybody films everything.

Grandmother immortalizes little Fifi wagging her tail, mommy records her toddler flinging porridge across the table, people who love crappy singers take videos of — yes, you guessed it — crappy singers, and teenagers… well, they point their phones at anything that moves, hoping something — anything — might go viral.

And, of course, let’s not forget the influencers. Those local celebrities so deeply convinced of their own importance that they keep filming themselves while lecturing you — more or less “professionally” — about what real “quality content” means.

Yeah… I know you rolled your eyes at the influencer part.
So did I, just thinking about it.

Long story short, when it comes to filming, we’re living in full audiovisual democracy. So much “democracy”, in fact, that it’s basically audiovisual anarchy.

And yet… have you noticed something?
The more people film, the fewer stories we actually see.

An interesting irony, isn’t it?
Cameras everywhere — expensive, sophisticated ones — 4K, 6K, 8K, logarithmic curves, LUTs, the whole arsenal… and still, almost nothing meaningful gets said.

Kind of sad, really…

 

Motto:
“You think; therefore, we are.”

 

When Everyone Films, but Few Actually Say Something

I’ve filmed pretty much everything a journalist can possibly film.
Beer factories, canning lines, and those press conferences where the speakers were so aware of their own bull***t that even they seemed annoyed by themselves.

I’ve filmed school inaugurations, hospitals, art galleries, cultural centres — usually surrounded by battalions of politicians, party clients, various freeloaders, and the obligatory flock of priests.

And then there were the accidents — with or without casualties — some so brutal that you could barely show anything from the scene without violating every ethical rule in existence. Oh my God, the stories I could tell…

But yes, I agree with you: sometimes, a press conference held by a certain “rising star” politician was harder to endure than reporting on a helicopter crash or a bus torn apart by a train.

 

A Moment of Honesty

There was, however, one period that stood out — the time when I worked as a reporter and editor on “Police in Action” at Prima TV.
Believe it or not, that show was 100% honest.
A true “what you see is what you get” production.
Everything that made it into the final cut was exactly as it happened.

Of course, I was lucky to have an extraordinary team — Cristi, Sorin, Ruxandra, and Mihaela — people with whom I told real-life stories about villains and victims, about misery and survival, about the absurd ways life can break or redeem someone.

And I was even luckier to work with a few police officers who were… let’s say, a bit unusual. One of them, whom I jokingly nicknamed The Tomcat, had actually begun to understand what it meant to tell a story on TV — especially a story about something violent or tragic.

I still remember filming that guy who had been hunted by every police unit in Romania — the one we caught running through a forest near Brașov before he was finally handcuffed and taken in.
Or the young people destroying themselves with drugs in Ferentari, on Aleea Livezilor.
Or the homeless who lived, like characters from The Mysteries of Paris, in the underground tunnels beneath some of Bucharest’s most iconic buildings.

Yeah… that was an interesting time in my life as a journalist.

 

The Journalism Years: Between Truth, Hypocrisy, and the Need for Fresh Air

So that’s how I began — in front of the camera as a reporter, and later behind it as a writer, video editor, and eventually, producer.

Well, to stick to the historical truth, I started my journalistic career as a photo reporter for a newly established newspaper, in the wake of the Romanian Revolution. Then, it was the radio years and, eventually, I got into television and video production.

With this small correction out of the way, let’s get back to the topic.

It felt nice, it felt cool, we were young and wanted to change the world. That feeling that you can make the difference, the feeling that you’re part of an elite team, that you’re doing something important… I miss that feeling dearly, maybe more than I want to admit…

But, in all fairness, I can definitely say that it wasn’t all fun and games. After roughly fifteen years in the business, I’d had more than enough.

Enough hypocrisy.
Enough moral decay.
Enough of being forced to swallow all of it just to do my job.

So, with a bit of luck and a small dose of madness, I boarded a plane to Miami, Florida.
In other words, I left behind a career in which I had earned professional respect in order to jump into something completely new, exotic, and risky — on the other side of the planet.

But it turned out to be a good move.
A very good one.

It was the beginning of an adventure that took me across half the world, filming people on vacation for one of the world’s largest tourism corporations.
I won’t mention their name — that giant doesn’t need my advertising.

 

From the Maya Ruins to Monte Carlo: Years of Filming People on Holiday

At one point, I’d become the envy of many former TV colleagues back home.
After all, I was traveling around the world with a camera on my shoulder. Among the Maya pyramids of Mexico, Belize, and Honduras… and then crossing the Atlantic for cruise itineraries that connected Istanbul, Izmir, and Marmaris with Rome, Athens, Dubrovnik, Monte Carlo, and Barcelona.

Then I’d leave the Balearic and Canary Islands behind and head back to the Western hemisphere, where I filmed weddings and tourist excursions up north — in St. John and Halifax, Canada — before moving south through New York, Boston, Rhode Island, and Portland, all the way down to Virginia, South Carolina, Texas, and finally, the Caribbean.

Oh yes, Texas! Nice memories, nice people, good food, and friends for life.

And oh yes… the Caribbean.

Bahamas, Bermuda, Grand Cayman, Jamaica, Mexico again, Panama, Puerto Rico, and both the British and U.S. Virgin Islands.
And that’s just what I can remember while my fingers are writing these lines, as flashes of exotic islands and themed cruises play in the back of my mind.

And no, I can’t give details about those themed cruises here — my former colleagues know exactly what I mean, I don’t want to make this an 18+ blog.

Moving on, there were weddings, underwater shots during scuba diving trips, footage filmed from submarines, and flamboyant Las Vegas–style productions I’d shoot either handheld or remotely from PTZ cameras in the studio.

Yeah… I’ve done almost all of it.

 

Professionals and… “Professionals”

Okay, maybe that impromptu résumé got a bit long — but I wrote all that so you’d understand that I actually know what I’m talking about.
And not just because I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Communication with a dissertation on Photography and Photojournalism, but because I’ve lived enough — professionally and personally — to have earned the right to an opinion.

I’ve met more than enough so-called professionals, even from big TV networks, who — when you really look closely — weren’t worth much.
You know how it is: lots of people, very few actual people.

I’ve known folks who, through sheer dumb luck or because they had the “right person in the right place,” managed to drag their incompetence all the way to retirement. Some of them literally to the finish line.

Meanwhile, others — the good ones, sometimes the truly exceptional ones — carried the dead weight: the political appointees, the boss’s nephews, the mistresses, the incompetents promoted by other incompetents.

Same story everywhere.
Just under different logos.

 

The Story Isn’t in the Gear

So after years and years of interviews, cameras, lenses, microphones, broadcast and newsroom, talk shows and live news reports, I reached a very simple conclusion: a story never begins with the camera — it begins with the person.

Just like when I take photographs: the image exists first in my mind, and only then on the sensor.
Or on film — lately I’ve been feeling the pull of analogue photography more and more.
Sure, digital made everything faster and smoother, but somewhere along the way we lost the poetry of the latent image on film… the mystery of the darkroom, where photos slowly came to life in those trays of developer.

Technique helps — of course it does.
But technique without a guiding thread — one that comes from the soul, not from formulas and algorithms — is like Christmas dinner without grandma’s sweet bread: you have everything you need, but you’re missing the warm, essential thing that makes you want to stay at the table.

The truth is, every story starts with an idea.
Or a feeling.
Or that small, inner spark you sense when you look at someone.

A bride biting her lip as she adjusts her veil.
A CEO breathing a bit too often before a big presentation in front of the members of the board.
A child stepping onto a stage and inhaling deeply, gathering courage.

That’s where the story is.
In that moment before the moment.
In the tension that never shows up on the histogram.

Not in the ISO, not in the aperture, not in the white balance.
Not in the gimbal, crane, or — these days — the drone.

But in the person.
In their eyes.
In their heart.

And yes, you have to see that moment — but it’s not hard.
You just have to care.
You have to get closer — not physically (we’re not filming endoscopies), but emotionally.
To be attentive.
To be present.

Because people — when they are truly alive — let their truth slip out through the smallest gestures.

 

The Sixth Sense

And there’s something else.
Good productions — whether short or long, news pieces, commercials, wedding videos, corporate films, or vacation highlights — are never about what you’re filming.
They’re about how you tell the story.

On one hand, you can film a boring office building — “boring as hell,” as English speakers would say — and still craft a beautiful story out of it.

On the other hand, you can film the most spectacular dream wedding… and it can be pure drudgery from start to finish.
A slog to shoot, followed by an even bigger slog in the edit — a montage that feels as long as a day of fasting, where you have to use “heavy pumps,” as I used to say, just to push through and deliver a final product to a couple you already suspect won’t make it to two or three wedding anniversaries.

Yeah… after filming hundreds and hundreds of weddings, like I have, you develop a sixth sense for these things.
You can tell — from the way they look at each other, from their body language, their facial expressions, their energy — whether they’ll become a real family or they’re just two people who decided to legalize their relationship.

It’s not cynicism.
It’s experience.

 

The Jazz of Editing and the Rhythm of Emotion

Coming back to today’s thread: the real difference is made by rhythm.
By the breathing of the story.
By the alternation between calm and agitation, between movement and stillness.

Editing is not precise surgery.
It’s a kind of jazz.

You leave space when you feel there should be silence.
You cut sharply when the story needs a spark.
You improvise when things start dragging — and sometimes that improvisation creates something unforgettable.

It’s a flow, not a tutorial.
It’s a small slice of someone’s life, compressed into a few minutes without losing its soul.

And — very importantly — every story, no matter how small, needs an ending.
A moment when you feel the heart settling back into place.
When things round out.
When the story closes, the way a door slowly shuts on an empty hallway after the last guest has left.

It can be a gentle smile, a firm handshake, a relieved breath, or a bright glance.

Like that time I filmed a wedding in Mexico and did a private screening for the couple.
Both of them burst into tears.
The hair on my arms rose like in a horror movie — you know, that super-close-up frame on the victim’s eyes while the monster creeps up behind them, blurred in a terrifying bokeh.

“Did I really mess this up so badly that I made them both cry?!”
That’s what flashed through my mind.

But their hug a few seconds later — plus the envelope with a very generous bonus that the groom slipped into my pocket — calmed me down and made me realize their tears came from an entirely different place.

It was a sublime moment.

 

People Remember What They Felt — Not What They Saw

This is the right moment for a verdict — one I’m not afraid to make.
The true secret of videography is this: people don’t remember the frames.
They remember how you made them feel.

I’ve seen hundreds of videographers obsessed with their lenses.
With their gear.
With Kelvin degrees, technical specs, charts, measurements — everything that’s cold, exact, and quantifiable.

But audiences don’t love the cold.
Audiences love the warm.

It’s a beautiful paradox: if you want to create something truly memorable as a videographer, you must learn to be… a little un-videographer-like.

You have to take the camera out of your mind’s hand and put it into your heart’s hand.

And when you do that — when you film with kind eyes, with empathy, with an attentive soul and a bit of patience — the story will never hide from you again.
It gives itself away.
It reveals itself.
It comes forward.

Because real stories aren’t “made.”
They’re felt.

 

To Err Is Human

Let me give you a very personal example — one where I almost messed things up badly, from a mistake so small it could have come from a total beginner. No way from a veteran, like me.

Really?

Well… read on.

I was filming a wedding in Jamaica, and I really put in the work for that one.
Shots from the luxury hotel where the wedding took place, walks with the couple on the beach, a trip through the mangrove forests along the Black River, interviews before and after the ceremony, romantic music for the B-roll — you know, the whole thing.

Honestly, it was a delight to edit.
I even finished it in record time.
And since I was proud of how it turned out, I decided to show it to the couple before the cruise ended.
I was expecting a nice “bonus” for my efforts.

Well… that’s when the “poetic moment” happened — a rookie mistake, pure and simple.
And if the couple hadn’t liked me, or the way I filmed, or the way I edited their wedding, that tiny mistake could’ve cost me my job.
Or even landed me in legal trouble — the couple was American, and, as we all know, Americans have a sometimes exaggerated reflex of taking things to court.

 

The “poetic moment”

Ok, so enough keeping you in suspense: at the end — in the final chapter — instead of titling it “A Wedding to Remember”, I accidentally wrote “A Weeding to Remember.”

And of all places in the world…
I did that in Jamaica.

And let’s just say Jamaica is famous for the abundance and — according to “the connoisseurs” — the quality of that… botanical product.

So yeah.
Picture the scene.

I was in the broadcast room on the cruise ship when I showed them the preview, a couple of days before we were back from Galveston, Texas, the port of departure.
As soon as that title appeared on screen, I saw the groom raise an eyebrow and the bride smile like a schoolgirl about to get into mischief.
Then they looked at each other… and burst into laughter.

The loud, uncontrollable, belly-shaking kind of laughter.
The kind that hits you like a boxer going for a KO.

Meanwhile, I was sweating like I’d just stepped out of the shower.

The groom grabbed the remote, paused the screen on that title, and prolonged my agony.
Then came another wave of laughter that made the room shake.

Eventually, when they managed to breathe again, they hit “Play” and watched the last part of the wedding film.
They told me they loved it — and their faces confirmed it.

And while he slipped an envelope with a generous bonus into my pocket, the groom whispered that I should “fix that little title issue,” because his mother-in-law didn’t exactly share their sense of humour.

Then he handed me a whiskey — for some reason, he carried a bottle of Jack Daniels with him — which I definitely needed, even if I was on duty. I had a good gulp straight from the bottle.

Of course, when I delivered the final DVDs, I added about a dozen extra copies, plus a few items from the Gift Shop — I had a friend there who owed me a favour anyway.

To this day, whenever I remember that Jamaica episode, I can’t help but laugh.
And it always reminds me that no matter how good you are in your field, a bit of humility never hurts.

It was truly epic.
And luckily, it all ended well — because it really could’ve turned into… an “interesting” situation.

 

In Lieu of a Conclusion

In our perfectly technologized world, everyone has a camera — but very few have an eye.
These days, hardly anyone walks around without a smartphone, so yes, we all can film.
But not all of us understand why we film.
Or what for.

And even fewer realize that the difference between a recording and a story is the same as the difference between a crappy singer and an artist.

One mumbles notes like a dog stepping on its own tail, stretching the song endlessly with more and more shout-outs, trying to justify the money spent on the latest BMW.

The other carries a living message, communicating on several layers at once.
And the audience — educated or not — feels it.

In other words: the crappy singer makes money.
The artist — and the people watching — simply feel alive.

So if you’re a videographer and you want people to remember what you’ve created, don’t just give them images.

Give them emotion.
Give them truth.
Give them what makes us human.

The rest is technique.
And technique, for better or worse, is becoming more and more accessible.