170 Video Production Handbook occasionally, the director may actually want to puzzle or intrigue the audience in order to create a dramatic or comic buildup of tension. the camera enters a quiet room. the viewers are left wondering; they see a threatening shadow of someone standing there, but a moment later they realize that it is only coming from garments on a coatrack. they have been fooled. But, in most situations, if the audience is left puzzled, wondering where the shadow is, or what it is supposed to be, or why they have been switched away from something they found interesting to this new unexplained scene, then something is very wrong. some directors do this all too often when they try to introduce some variety or do something different. the shot cuts to a building reflected in a puddle, or some wayside flowers, or a dog sleeping beside the road, or to some other image that seems to have nothing to do with the story. even shooting the subject through a decorative foreground screen can be puzzling at times. if a shot is appropriate and moves the story forward, it can be as unusual as the director likes. But if the audience is distracted by it or begins to think about how interesting the shot is rather than focusing on the subject, then the experi- ment has failed.