Morgan Spurlock’s Tip to Get People to Open Up During a Documentary Interview

American documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock shares his tip to interview people and get them to open up.

Morgan Spurlock made a name for himself 15 years ago with his documentary Super Size Me at a time where documentaries were a minor genre that followed a classic format and didn’t bring much money in theatres.

As documentary evolved and gained a larger audience and traction, so did Spurlock who proved, with over 60 credits as producer and 20 as director, that he was much more than a one-trick poney.

Interviewed by Tim Ferriss about his work and field, Spurlock was asked to share what he would advice would-be documentarians to get people to open-up during interviews, and here is what he said:

First, talk about things that they care about, talk about things that are meaningful to them in the beginning, things that they love. You don’t want to go ride in to “So, what’s it like to have cancer?” You don’t want that to be the first question, you want to work up to this. It’s a relationship. You’re building a relationship with someone over the course of a conversation and you want to have them trust you. And part of what you also want to do in that conversation is offer up things that are similar, in kind of where they’re coming from or experiences you’ve had that put them in a comparative level. Then you kind of build up and build up and then you can start chipping away at the information you want but you need to take the time to build that relationship.

Documentary-making is an art that asks for a high level of empathy and a capacity to ask the right questions, remain silent and capture on time. This magical triangle is hard to hit and even the bests can miss an amazing sequence, but coming with a vision on how to start a conversation and get your subject to warm-up to a very unnatural situation (being filmed is not yet considered the norm…) is a good way to ensure you’ll get genuine and honest footage.

Photo credit: Samule