I tried something experimental on a smaller shoot this month: using a display-equipped pair of smart glasses to keep a remote client looped into framing decisions without them needing to be physically present. It half worked, and the half that didn't work taught me more than the half that did.
The setup, roughly
A phone mirrors a rough live preview to the client remotely through a standard video call, while I wear the display glasses to see quick text notes the client can send back without me having to check a phone screen between takes. In theory this keeps me hands-on with the camera the entire time while still incorporating live feedback, instead of the usual pattern of stopping to check a phone every few minutes.
Where it genuinely helped
Quick directional notes, "wider," "more to the left," "get the sign in frame," came through fast enough to actually act on mid-shot rather than after reviewing playback. For a client who couldn't travel to the shoot, that's a real improvement over the usual asynchronous review-and-reshoot cycle that eats an extra day out of a project timeline.
- Short directional notes work well through a glasses display
- Anything requiring nuance still needs an actual call, not text overlay
- Latency between the live feed and client feedback was the main friction point
Where it broke down
Any feedback more nuanced than a short directional note became a genuine distraction, glancing at a paragraph of client notes while trying to operate a camera is worse than not having the notes at all. I ended up pausing for a real voice call for anything beyond a quick correction, which somewhat undercuts the whole premise of the experiment. Promising for a narrow category of feedback. Not yet a replacement for stopping and actually talking to a client when something more substantial needs discussing.