POV: What kind of crew did you use?
Rogier Kappers: For our main journey, we filmed in Super-16, so we were with a small crew consisting of me as director, a cameraman, a soundman and a production assistant. In the countries where I did not speak the language, like Spain and Italy, there was also a translator with us.
I also had a DV camera with me when researching Lomax's route. In the end, I used quite a lot of the material I filmed with on DV, and I mixed that with the Super-16 material.
Filming on Super-16 is very expensive but the material looks beautiful. When you're filming on DV, however, it's much easier to film at the spur of the moment. You can keep a low profile with a small DV camera, making it easier to catch certain moments -- like arriving for the first time to a village -- than when you're coming with a whole crew and filming it on Super-16.
Super-16 creates more separation between you and the people you're filming. I combined those two ways of filmmaking, one could say.
POV: What did you use to record sound?
Kappers: When I shot on DV I used the digital sound of the DV camera itself. Everything was recorded on a DAT in stereo.
POV: What was your approach to interviewing your subjects? How much research did you do? Did you contact them in advance?
Kappers: I conducted pre-interviews with all the interview subjects who knew Lomax. Out of the pre-interviews I made a list of questions or subjects I wanted to know about and include in the film, so most of the time I already knew what the subjects would tell me, and then I would also ask them to elaborate on certain things, and then I went deeper with my questioning.