The Evolution of "You Can See Everything": How Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder Reimagined the Documentary Form
The creation of the documentary You Can See Everything was never destined to be a standard, orderly production. Conceived in the frantic, final weeks before Elizabeth Holmes—the disgraced founder of Theranos—was set to report to the Federal Prison Camp in Bryant, Texas, the project was a high-stakes gamble. With an 11-year sentence looming for the fraud that captivated the world, the opportunity to film Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, was fleeting.
What emerged from that pressure cooker was not just a profile of a notorious figure, but a profound transformation in the creative partnership between directors Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder. As the duo navigated the surreal environment of a couple living in the shadow of impending incarceration, they were forced to abandon their preconceived stylistic notions, ultimately reinventing their approach to vérité filmmaking in real-time.
The Genesis: A Project Built on Skepticism
The inception of You Can See Everything was marked by a distinct lack of certainty. As previously reported by IndieWire, Nathan Fielder—known for his masterful deconstruction of social norms in The Rehearsal and Nathan for You—was deeply skeptical about whether a meaningful film could be extracted from the quiet, isolated lives of Holmes and Evans.
The hesitation was so profound that Fielder negotiated a "kill switch" in his deal with A24, granting him the unilateral authority to abandon the project at any moment. Yet, the gravitational pull of the collaboration with Lance Oppenheim proved stronger than his doubts. Oppenheim, whose previous work like Some Kind of Heaven, Spermworld, and the acclaimed HBO series Ren Faire established him as a master of "docu-fantasy," offered a perspective on reality that intrigued Fielder. The two sought to explore the boundaries of nonfiction, much as Fielder had previously done with collaborator Benny Safdie on The Curse.
"Nathan was very adamant from the jump with me: ‘I’m going to produce this, you’re going to direct this,’" Oppenheim recounted on IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. "And then he’s like, ‘I want to be there, though, and I want to see how you do it. I want to see how you work.’"
Chronology of a Creative Pivot
The initial days at Holmes and Evans’s Del Mar beach cottage were defined by a struggle for control. Oppenheim arrived with a specific, rigid methodology. His previous films relied on a singular, curated lens—often anamorphic and centered on a solitary camera—to create a stylized, cinematic atmosphere.
"When we first got to the house, I was very adamant, ‘Nathan, you know, I work in a very specific sort of way,’" Oppenheim said. "I work with one camera. I like to shoot anamorphically—it does something to the image and process that I like—and he was like, ‘OK, yeah, let’s try that.’"
However, the reality of the subject matter quickly dismantled this framework. The anamorphic lens, which created a wide, cinematic aspect ratio, felt wrong almost immediately. The couple’s existence was claustrophobic, confined to the home by the constant threat of paparazzi and public scrutiny.
By the second day, the "one-camera" approach proved to be a "disaster," according to Oppenheim. The couple’s unpredictable movements meant that a lone, tripod-mounted camera operator was perpetually struggling to keep up, missing the subtle, human moments that were the heart of the project. It was during these forced pauses—where cameras were being adjusted or lenses swapped—that the true nature of the documentary began to reveal itself.
Holmes and Evans began addressing Fielder directly, asking him questions and seeking his opinion. The dynamic shifted; Fielder was no longer just a producer behind the monitor, but a participant in the room. As these interactions became more frequent, Fielder turned to Oppenheim with a radical suggestion: "Actually, you know what? We should direct this together."
A New Visual Language: From Fantasy to Rigor
The decision to co-direct was the catalyst for a total overhaul of their technical approach. The widescreen, anamorphic aesthetic was scrapped in favor of a 4:3 aspect ratio, which allowed the crew to focus more tightly on the faces of the subjects. This change served a dual purpose: it captured the micro-expressions that conveyed the couple’s internal states, and it subtly made their constrained environment feel slightly more expansive.
Fielder insisted on a multi-camera setup. The final system was robust: two camera operators, equipped with zoom lenses, were deployed to capture the shifting dynamics between the subjects for 14 to 16 hours a day. To ensure they didn’t lose the context of the space, Oppenheim operated a third camera with an ultra-wide 12mm lens.
"It was about living in these moments on faces, which is seemingly what is most interesting to us right now, just seeing the nuances, the microexpressions," Oppenheim noted. By removing the pressure of a traditional interview setup, the crew allowed the subjects to exist in a space that felt less like a production and more like an observation of a strange, unfolding reality.
The "Cognitive Dissonance" of the Subject
The filmmaking team found themselves in a state of constant, shared confusion. They were observing behavior that felt deeply alien, leading to internal debates about how to interpret the actions of their subjects. This confusion, however, became the film’s greatest asset.
By having Fielder on-screen, the filmmakers could articulate that confusion directly to the subjects. "It was them pulling Nathan in, asking him questions, asking him his opinion on things, and then him also realizing, once that started happening, maybe there was an opportunity to at least bring up the things he was observing that were confusing to him, that were also confusing to us," said Oppenheim.
This interaction effectively lowered the guards of Holmes and Evans. The lack of a "traditional interview" structure meant that the subjects didn’t feel they were being interrogated, which allowed the filmmakers to capture a form of vérité that felt remarkably authentic—or at least, as authentic as a situation involving such enigmatic figures could ever be.
Implications for the Documentary Genre
The result of this pivot was, in Oppenheim’s words, "the most rigorous form of a vérité documentary" either director had ever produced. The project represents a departure from the "docu-fantasy" style that characterized Oppenheim’s earlier work, moving away from subjective manipulation and toward a radical, present-tense observation.
The implications for the genre are significant. In an era where documentary filmmakers are often criticized for over-manipulating their subjects or adhering to rigid, pre-planned narratives, the success of You Can See Everything suggests that the most compelling stories may emerge from the friction between the filmmaker’s methodology and the reality they are documenting.
By learning the "language" of one another, Oppenheim and Fielder were able to break new ground, not by imposing their vision onto the subjects, but by allowing the environment to dictate the terms of the filmmaking. They stopped trying to craft a story and started trying to survive the experience of being in the room.
As the film reaches audiences, it invites them into the same space of cognitive dissonance that the directors inhabited. It is a work that acknowledges the impossibility of fully understanding its subjects, instead opting to present the audience with the raw, uncomfortable, and often fascinating act of observing them. For Oppenheim and Fielder, the project was a lesson in humility: sometimes, the best way to see everything is to stop looking for what you expect to find, and start looking at what is right in front of you.
