Two people with opposing views face off against each other in a televisual-style interview environment. This is Nick Fuller’s debut short film, The Truth Seekers.
The political television interview is a fascinating blend of performance, strategy, and technical prowess. with the interplay between interviewer, subject, and production crew helping to create compelling narratives that captivate audiences. They can also be constructed to entertain, shock, and appeal to a certain demographic or bias and, in this post truth world, they seem to becoming more about garnering clicks and engagement than making any political points.
Nick Fuller’s debut The Truth Seekers is an enthralling piece of social commentary that, despite not breaking any new ground, manages to remain compelling, entertaining, and if you enjoy the politics, very interesting. The basic premise of the film is that of a political magazine show, where our host’s name is in the title of the programme and his job is to hold politicians to account. In this case, it is Stephen Yardley host of ‘Here and Now with Stephen Yardley’. Yardley is a mixture of Robert Peston and Anderson Cooper and he is played with a great combative streak by Daniel Tatarsky. His subject is politician and conspiracy theorist Marissa Rawlings (an excellent Gehane Strehler) who manages to bat away Yardley’s barbs and accusations quite effortlessly while managing to attack him with some strong arguments of her own. These two performances alone are worth watching the film for, but in his writing, Fuller has also managed to get us to ask some very important questions.
The Truth Seekers is basically a two-hander that consists of an interview set in just one place, although Yardley’s producer (played by Robin Kristoffy) does pop up a few times to guide him. Yet despite its location limitations, Fuller and his cinematographer Mark Wiggins work overtime to make things cinematic. Their use of camera angles plays a significant role in influencing the audience’s perception of the interview. By positioning the camera at different angles, they create a sense of intimacy, distance or dominance; low-angle shots make Yardley appear powerful, while a high-angle shot can make Rawlings appear vulnerable and vice versa. Robin Bharaj’s editing helps to improve this by choosing which parts of the interview to cut to and how he sequences them together which creates a sense of tension, drama, and suspense. As a team, they are able to highlight contrasting statements, and key moments, and build to a climactic confrontation. Where they, much like the TV news shows they are looking to emulate, can manipulate the audience’s perception of how the interview went and which way it was leaning.
Thanks to some really powerful performances from our two main actors and a script that feels right on the nose The Truth Seekers is a very well-made film. If you are struggling to come to terms with recent world events, if you can’t quite get your head around news being considered entertainment while opinions are being delivered as fact, then this 12-minute short film is definitely the one you need to seek out.
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