I was taken by a short film (okay, short video, if you insist) referenced in today’s New York Times app.
It’s about a man standing along the route of the Kennedy assassination, who was carrying (and under) an umbrella on that sunny day in November, 1962. A thought-provoking production by Errol Morris, and not what you might assume.
What really caught my eye, though, was a credit at the end of the video for the “Interrotron Tech”.
A what? It turns out that rather than an adjunct to waterboarding (what was suggested to me by the name), it’s a variation on the teleprompter where the subject of the interview sees the image of the director (that is, the person performing the interview) in front of the camera lens the same way a person giving a speech or working a newscast sees text – and the setup is replicated for the director, who sees the interview subject.
The point of this? Says Morris, this actually allows a true face to face interview – eye contact – through the camera. The conversation is carried on by two people who are looking at each other in the eye, just as you and I might when talking, but the interviewee is looking at us. Morris invented this, and has used it for several of his works.
What a fascinating word, though.
KMP on Technology 