Errol Morris Interview WP: How do you get your subjects to relax when you interview them in a studio, not in their usual settings? EM: I'm not sure. I think it's creating a climate where people feel comfortable and willing to talk. Maybe I'm a good listener. I'm certainly a non-threatening listener, or at least I like to think that I am. I am genuinely receptive to what people want to say. I don't go into an interview with some fixed agenda, this is what I need to hear, this is what I expect to hear, what I'm going to get the person to say. I try to avoid that altogether and to let interviews take whatever direction that they take. I like surprises. I like to be surprised in an interview by what I hear. And to the extent that what I hear is what I expect I will hear, the interview actually becomes quite boring. WP: Do you write up any questions beforehand? EM: Sometimes I do. I like to think that at least I'm prepared, that I have things in mind that should be covered. But I may write out extensive questions beforehand and then make no use of those questions at all during the interview. It's just a way of preparing yourself, of doing your homework. WP: Do you still use the Interrotron? EM: I still do, yes. WP: Could you explain how that works? EM: Well, it's based really on teleprompters. Teleprompters are almost always used, if not always used, so that someone can read text and look into the camera at the same time. So you have a politician or a newscaster who has to read copy and he wants to look at his audience. Well, the copy is put on a half-silvered mirror right in front of the lens. It's a television screen and the image on the television screen appears on the half-silvered mirror. The person can actually be reading and looking into the lens at the same time. Those words appear on the mirror, are reflected on the mirror. You read them, you look at them, you're also looking into the lens. But my idea--and it's a simple idea, although I don't think anyone else has ever done it--is to take two of these prompters--two cameras, two prompters--set them up in a studio--although in fact they could be set up in separate rooms altogether, or if you like, even on separate planets--and cross-connect them. So, cameras have video taps, right? You may be recording film in a motion picture camera but you can also look at what the camera is recording through a video tap--through a monitor. And so, I take the tap from the A camera, which is on my subject, and put it on the B camera prompter, and vice versa. So essentially there's a camera on me, a camera on my subject, prompters on both of those cameras, and we're looking at each other's live video images as recorded by the respective other camera, if that makes sense. WP: So the people you interview see you on a monitor but they look directly into the camera? EM: Yes. WP: So you can look at each other directly? EM: Yes. WP: And that's very unusual, because when we see interviews in other films the subjects are at an angle usually. EM: Yes. And I'm in front of a similar contraption, exactly the same deal. There's a camera on me, and I'm looking at my subject's live video image and looking right into the lens of the camera. WP: And evidently your subjects are comfortable with this because you continue to use it. EM: Well, when I first used it, which was in Fast, Cheap, the concern was: will people really tolerate this sort of thing? What happens is you bring someone into this studio, sit them down in front of this weird contraption, and ask them talk to a live video image. Will they just run screaming from the room? And the answer is no. They love it. And my production designer after the first use of this device said well, the beauty of it is that it lets people do what they do best, namely watch TV. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7    N E X T : Editing Fast, Cheap...

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