"The best creative decision I ever made."

Sometimes things just go right.

For Robert Stone that moment came when he was directing his first documentary, Radio Bikini, which is about the US military tests of the Hydrogen bomb on the tiny Pacific atoll of Bikini in 1946.

While interviewing Stone for my new book, he told me the following story:

He was conducting his first interview for this first film--with a sailor named John Smitherman, who was present during the tests and had been ordered, along with many other sailors, to clean the radiation off the ships after the bombs had been detonated. They were given no protective clothing.

More than 30 years later, Smitherman was dying from radiation poisoning. Stone made the bold decision to film the sailor in extreme closeup for the entire interview. Smitherman was grotesquely deformed by the radiation. He had lost three of his four limbs, and his last leg was swollen to three times its size. Only his face looked normal, and that's what Stone chose to focus on, to the exclusion of all else.

Smitherman, not realizing the audience could not see the rest of his body, told his dramatic story without ever referring to his deformities, assuming they spoke for themselves. Only during his last question, did Stone ask his cameraman to zoom out very slowly so the audience would finally see what had become of Smitherman.

Stone spent a decade working on the film, shooting many other sailors. But the final cut includes interviews with only two people--the chief of the island and Smitherman.

He first screened Radio Bikini before a small audience at the Edinburgh Film Festival. As the final credits rolled there was silence. Stone assumed the film was a flop. Then one person began clapping, and then another, and then another, until the entire audience was standing. The ending, when viewers finally realize what has happened to Smitherman, is so powerful people are stunned. The film went on to critical acclaim and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Stone has gone on to direct several other excellent documentaries, including one of my favorites Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst.