Tete-a-Tete

“Tete-a-Tete” is an experiment: no warm, welcoming program host, no pre-recorded inserts, no guests, no performing artists, no decor. Instead, the viewer is plunged right into a live telecast featuring five women ranging in age from 23 to 72 in an unusual, close-up conversation on everything from porno and ghosts to vigilantes and share trading. Five women in black in a production having an aspect ratio of 16:9 and featuring extreme close-ups – all to create a sense of nearness, presence and concentration. For three weeks, 12 programs featuring five very carefully selected hand-picked women were telecast live. What would happen when five women who didn´t know each other were suddenly made to share lives and TV programs with each other for three weeks? Would they quarrel, or become friends for life? Would they vie with each other for the spotlight, or see to it that it shone on them all? The masked format, in combination with severe cropping, imposed new demands. The camera operators had to forget horizontals and pannings, even though that meant occasional shots of only an ear, a tuft of hair, a forehead, or, - horror of horrors – an all-black image for a few seconds. Occasionally, fresh new shots augmented the live feeling. The programs were broadcast four evenings a week – Tuesday to Friday – for three intense summer weeks. The production department was swamped with viewer response. More than anything else, it was the format and image cropping that provoked emotional outbursts. The intensity of the women in the first program vis-a-vis each other appealed to many viewers. And younger men felt that they had, for the first time, been privy to that women talk about among themselves.