Director Journal | The Camera as Psychological Projection

The camera is a psychological projection of the character — a direct manifestation of how they perceive the world and their place within it.

This idea has been quietly shaping my work for years, long before I had the words to articulate it. I used to think I was simply drawn to slow movements, overexposed light, or bodies drifting in and out of frame. But the more I direct, the more I understand that my gaze is not aesthetic for the sake of aesthetic. It is relational. It is about a body in space, and how that body negotiates its existence.

I don’t use the camera to record actions. I use it to record states of being. A character’s inner life leaks into their posture, their breath, the way their weight falls onto the floor. And when the camera begins to follow this inner movement — not the plot, not the dialogue — something opens up. The frame becomes a mirror. The image becomes a trace of consciousness.

When a character feels overwhelmed, the camera in my films drifts into overexposure, as if their senses cannot contain the heat of the moment. When they retreat emotionally, the camera keeps its distance, refusing intimacy. When they begin to confront something truthful, the lens moves closer than what is comfortable — not to intrude, but to acknowledge. These decisions are not rational choices made on a shot list. They are responses, almost choreographic in nature, to the emotional weight that lives inside the body of the character.

Maybe this connection comes from my background in dance. I was trained to feel before I think — to let the spine speak before the mouth does. In dance, emotion doesn’t appear on the face; it appears in the curve of the back, the collapse of the knees, the slowing of breath. I bring this into directing as well. Before I design a scene, I observe how the character carries their history. I notice where their tension sits, where their silence gathers. The camera becomes an extension of that noticing.

I often guide actors not by telling them what to feel, but by directing them toward a certain bodily intention — a shift of weight, an orientation of the sternum, a line of gravity. These small adjustments change everything: the emotional tone, the pacing, even the timing of a breath. And the camera, when placed with sensitivity, can capture that subtle shift in a way dialogue never could.

To me, filmmaking is not about controlling the frame. It is about entering the psychological atmosphere of a character, and then allowing the camera to breathe within that atmosphere. The movement of the lens is a kind of empathetic listening. A shot is not merely composed; it is felt.

When people ask me why my films tend to unfold slowly, or why my scenes linger, I always hesitate. The truth is: emotional reality rarely moves fast — it often arrives late. Internal change happens quietly, often underneath language. To witness that kind of change, the camera must learn to wait. It must soften its gaze. It must pay attention to the kind of details we are trained to ignore — a shift in standing posture, a flicker of restraint, a breath withheld for half a second longer.

In this sense, directing becomes a form of embodied psychology. And the camera, rather than being an external observer, becomes a participant in the character’s interior world. It struggles when they struggle. It retreats when they retreat. It becomes overwhelmed when they are overwhelmed. It learns to see the world through the character’s emotional logic, not the audience’s.

I believe cinema can be intimate without being loud. It can be expressive without being literal. And a camera, when treated not as a tool but as a living extension of attention, can reveal truths that words cannot touch.

This is what I chase when I direct.

Not perfection. Not coverage.

But a moment when the camera and the character breathe in the same rhythm

—and the world inside them becomes briefly visible.