I love meetings. Honest, I really do.

It’s like theater. Or movies: being in a room with a group of people, sharing a common reality, figuring things out together. Those are the good meetings.

And the bad ones?  The boring ones. The tense ones. The ones where it feels as if something else is going on that no one is saying out loud — I particularly like those. I don’t play cards or board games, but meetings are my kind of puzzle. I find myself trying to figure out what’s really happening. 

I like them so much that I trained as a group psychologist and added it to my professional life, alongside documentary filmmaking.

But there’s a problem.

I like live meetings. Being in the room. Seeing how people react. Feeling the shifts in energy.

Recorded meetings don’t do that. They’re framed. Limited. You only see what someone else decided you should see. 

Here is a sample of a town board meeting as it appears on the official website of The Town of Pine Plains, NY, where I live.

There is nothing wrong with it. But if someone from the audience speaks up, you can’t see them.  You don’t know who else is in the room. You don’t get a sense of presence. Above all, it doesn’t reward curiosity.

So, as a documentary filmmaker I began to wonder:

Is there a way to bring people into the room—even if they’re not there?

Here is my attempt at an answer.

Below is the same meeting, filmed in 360°. It shows the entire space and allows the viewer—at home, on any device—to explore it.

With 360° video, you’re not just watching—you’re choosing.

You can pan and tilt around the room, follow whoever you want, and explore the space as if you were there.

In a sense, you’re creating your own documentary. 

And that changes the experience. It opens a small but meaningful gateway to participation—and, potentially, to democracy.

How to watch in 360

Once the video starts to play

• On a computer: hold down the mouse and drag it across the screen
• On a phone or tablet: drag your finger (landscape mode works best).

This is a 360° video. Drag with your mouse or swipe your finger to explore the scene.

You may be surprised by what you notice.

Application for Journalists

This 360° video of a local citizen protest shows another use.

For the viewer, it offers freedom: the ability to look around and follow the action.