Unlikely Confession Cam

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A Documentary shows a Confession Cam interview from someone unlikely to cooperate with the production of the documentary. Often used in Faux Documentaries, but can be used for real just as often if the producers are diplomatic.

Naturally, this is a Sub-Trope of Confession Cam.

Examples of Unlikely Confession Cam include:

Film - Live Action

  • In Surf's Up there is an interview with the sea urchin that injured Cody during his wipeout.

Live Action TV

  • Hell's Kitchen: In the first season, Chef Ramsay and Jean Phillipe would be interviewed in the confessional.
  • The Canadian TV series Masterminds features the criminals describing how they pulled off their heists if they have completed their prison sentence and are still alive at the time of production.
  • An episode of Restaraunt Makeover features one member of a couple who doesn't want to participate in the show. She gets in the confessional anyways.
  • An often-forgotten conceit of early episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 was that the series was really footage from a mad-scientific experiment which was being broadcast illegally. Since the bad guys were the ones doing the broadcasting, that would mean the whole show was this trope.
  • Subverted in the Grand Finale of Life. They resurrect the Faux Documentary from season one (where the unseen producer of a documentary about Charlie talks to his friends, ex-wife, etc.) talking with Big Bad Roman. Then Roman shoots the documentarian, grabs the camera, takes us on a tour of his Supervillain Lair and shows us that he has Reese hostage. He then sends the video to Charlie.
  • In the American version of The Office, characters will talk openly to the cameras about things which are embarrassing, secret, and in some cases even illegal.
    • Lampshaded in one episode when an ex-employee asks why they bothered to track her down and interview her for something that happened years ago.
  • Parks and Recreation has the characters talk openly about things like Tom's green card marriage and the Mayor's many indiscretions.
    • One episode involves Leslie becoming concerned about her loss of privacy when she becomes the target of paparazzi. This is odd, since apparently doesn't mind a film crew following her around 24/7.
    • And then there's Ron Swanson. Why would a man so obsessed with privacy that he would throw away his computer after finding his address on Google Earth allow himself to be filmed, let alone talk directly to a cameraman (other than tell him "Get that thing away from my face!")?

Western Animation

  • A couples times in the Total Drama series, Chris or Chef, the two non-competitors would get in the confessional.