Filmmaker Uses Camera Eye

A Canadian film maker has replaced his false eye with a camera so that he can record documentaries without people realising they on camera.

Rob Spence, who is a 36 year old documentary maker from Toronto, has noticed that when you are having conversations with people, they change significantly when they know that they are being filmed. He is hoping that by using the hidden camera, it will not only allow him to film from a great angle but he can do it in secret. He realises that this could be a problem, but is happy to reveal to people afterwards that they were being filmed and then ask them to sign a consent form. He would obviously not use any material that people would not agree to being shown as he is very aware of the ethics of doing it. It is likely that some of his material will be wasted but it is likely that the material that he gets will be much better quality than that which other film makers mange to get hold of.

The film maker lost his right eye when he was a teenager, in a shooting accident at his Grandfathers farm and now sees his disability as a great advantage. He now likes to call himself ‘eyeborg guy’ and feels like he is upgrading himself by using his camera eye. He is proud that he is able to update his body, something which most other people are not able to do. He built the camera partly himself and it is placed inside a false eye so cannot easily be detected. It is a wireless device which contains a tiny three volt battery and he was helped by Steve Mann who is a professor at MIT and an expert in this type of technology.