A piece to camera is the television and film term used for when a presenter or a character speaks directly to the viewing audience through the camera.
It is most common when a news or television show presenter is reporting or explaining items to the viewing audience. Indeed, news programmes usually take the form of a combination of both interviews and pieces to camera. There are three type of "piece to camera" (PTC)- 1. opening PTC - when presenter opens-up the news, and introduce himself/herself to the audience. 2. bridge PTC - information that presenter gives to bridge the gap between empty space. 3. conclusive or closing PTC - ending of news where the presenter acknowledge itself and the cameraman, place and the news channel.
The term also applies to the period when an actor, playing a fictional character in a film or on television, talks into the camera and hence directly to the audience. Depending on the genre of the show, this may or may not be considered as a breaking the fourth wall.
Famous quotes containing the words piece to, piece and/or camera:
“To introduce a new play only six weeks after another has been banned is also a way to speak one’s piece to the government. It proves that art and liberty can grow back in one night under the clumsy foot which crushes them.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“The post-office appeared a singularly domestic institution here. Ever and anon the stage stopped before some low shop or dwelling, and a wheelwright or shoemaker appeared in his shirt- sleeves and leather apron, with spectacles newly donned, holding up Uncle Sam’s bag, as if it were a slice of home-made cake, for the travelers, while he retailed some piece of gossip to the driver, really as indifferent to the presence of the former as if they were so much baggage.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The camera can represent flesh so superbly that, if I dared, I would never photograph a figure without asking that figure to take its clothes off.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)