kind of . . .: the interrotron

Sunday, March 25, 2012

the interrotron

As a former TV News intern, tiny-eyed photo loser, and failed-actor-who-believes-in-her-talent-but-stinks-at-auditions-due-to"camera-freeze," I want to think about being, filmed or photographed. For some people, it's no big deal. For others, there's a discomfort that's hard to name.

Watching Morgan Spurlock's 6 minute trailer(ish) bit on Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope, I lasered in on his nod to documentarian Errol Morris' tool for encouraging emotive face-to-face interviews that have become Morris' signature style. The tool is the "interrotron."

images via Steve Hardie

The interrotron lets a filmmaker appear in a frame into which the interview subject speaks. In effect, the subject speaks "directly" to the filmmaker, radiating an intimate realism that is often missing when a filmmaker asks a subject to simply "talk to the lens." In the latter scenario, subjects often appear to be highly aware that the actual person asking the questions hovers just above or otherwise off-center of the lens. And so, eyes shift, heads adjust and readjust, and the easy sense of fidelity to truth jolts haltingly, flailingly forward (see bad auditions), unavailable for meaningful resonance with audiences.

I'll be building on this initial post, researching the interrotron and attempting to rig one for my own work as a documentarian and an academic interested in performances of self. This may involve many experiments with the camera that'll teach me how to better perform with/in it, and I may be soliciting tapes from you. Also, I hope (!) to interview Chris Crocker. I got to chat with Chris at this year's Sundance Film Festival. After screening his film, Me At the Zoo, I asked him as we walked out toward the lobby ...