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Oprah and Barack Obama during an “in person” interview. (Photos: Google Images; Apple TV)
Oprah hatched a plan to do an “in person” interview with Obama about his memoir A Promised Land, all Covid-19 protocols observed.
First published in the weekly Daily Maverick 168.
A recent interview between Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama paved the way for storytelling in a whole new way and making a real connection with the public, in a physically estranged world, using the wonders of modern technology.
The scene couldn’t be more perfect. Two powerhouses, a media mogul (Oprah Winfrey) and a former president (Barack Obama), a roaring fire, a carefully considered color palette, and a lively and physically estranged in-person interview on the introspective and revealing memoirs of said president of his term as 44th. President of the United States of America. But wait. Oprah was at home in Santa Barbara and Obama was in a studio in Washington, DC, so how did they accomplish this feat of innovation and ingenuity?
Setting the scene
Inspired by the first episode of The Drew Barrymore Show in which Cameron Diaz, who was at home in Los Angeles, appeared to be in the same room in New York as her Charlie’s Angels co-stars Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, Oprah began plotting. a I plan to do an “in-person” interview with Obama about his memoirs A Promised Land – all observed Covid-19 protocols – using green screen technology, frequently used in movies like the Marvel Universe franchise.
“Through the miracle of technology, we can be face to face in the same room and we don’t have to wear a mask,” Oprah says naturally in the opening of the segment.
Quick to respond with an appropriate joke, Obama adds: “Looks like we have a fire!”
Of course, Oprah is the queen of the in-person interview. In the 25 years of The Oprah Winfrey Show alone, she interviewed more than 37,000 people and, by her own admission, she would have preferred a face-to-face interview to discuss the first volume of Obama’s memoir, but security protocols and restrictions travel came true. That, well, virtually impossible, or possible, as is the case here, and the result of the smoke and mirrors created on opposite coasts of the United States is a candid and engaging conversation about what the Obama presidency was really like for him and his family.
While Oprah favored an intimate setting like her living room for this interview, Obama said she could see it in space, as the sky really seemed to be the limit.
“We should have done this in outer space,” he jokes, in a behind-the-scenes clip. “We could both have been sitting on Neptune, in a bubble!”
Teams on both sides of the country were only able to pull off this technological masterstroke with great attention to detail.
Making magic happen
Typically an interviewer takes nonverbal cues from the interviewee, but in a virtual setting the conversation can be less natural and more forced, so the DC and Santa Barbara teams had to make sure the interview flowed naturally and that Oprah and Obama always seem to be making eye contact.
The monitors were placed under the camera lens so that both people could clearly see each other’s gestures, and the cameras at the eye line made it seem like the two were always looking at each other. The rooms that cross the coastline were replicated with identical furniture, and precise measurements of even the smallest detail, such as an ornament, ensured that the replication could be fully accomplished. The teams had to use the same cameras, lenses, lighting and audio equipment to avoid technical anomalies, and Obama was told not to wear green or white so as not to disappear on the green screen.
Once everything was in place, the signals were delivered over a high-speed fiber line, in real time, the conversation flowed and the rest, as they say, is literally history in the works.
“It really was like he was right in front of me,” Oprah stated in an interview on her magazine’s website.
Close encounters
A Promised Land is a beautifully articulated read, and Obama is a generous and scholarly storyteller, trusting his readers and leading them to their rooms.
This episode of The Oprah Conversation (available to stream on Apple TV +) is as engaging as memoirs because Obama is present, yes, virtually, but there is no distance here, thanks to technology, but, more precisely, to two consummate professionals They are doing what they do best: creating magic and sharing it with the world. DM168
Samantha Page is a former editor of O, The Oprah Magazine, South Africa, and editor of From Me to Me: Letters to My 16½ Year-Old Self (Jacana).
You can get your copy of DM168 at these Pick n Pay stories.
