Akira Kurosawa: Watch with a detached gaze
"While the cameras are rolling, I rarely look directly at the actors, but focus my gaze somewhere else."
Director Akira Kurosawa:
During the shooting of a scene the director’s eye has to catch even the minutest detail. But this does not mean glaring concentratedly at the set. While the cameras are rolling, I rarely look directly at the actors, but focus my gaze somewhere else. By doing this I sense instantly when something isn’t right. Watching something does not mean fixing your gaze on it, but being aware of it in a natural way. I believe this is what the medieval Noh playwright and theorist Zeami meant by ‘watching with a detached gaze’.
(Source: Priceless Filmmaking Advice)
More on this notion from radicalreversibility.org:
In Zeami's writings, especially his treatise on Noh theatre, "watching with a detached gaze" or "detached perception" (riken no ken) refers to observing without fixing the gaze on a specific point, but rather with a state of receptive awareness, . It's not about passively staring into space, but about seeing with a heightened sensitivity to the entirety of the performance or landscape. This concept is explored in Zeami's Fushikaden, which dates back to 1406.
