Black Bag

Black Bag (Feature film) — a polygraph examiner and lie detector hired for film. Consultant on the polygraph sequences, and appeared in the film.

Hiring a polygraph for a feature is different from hiring one for a format. On a scripted film the instrument is a prop that has to behave like an instrument: the pens must move for real, the traces must survive a close-up, and the actor has to be wired correctly or the shot reads false to anyone who has seen the real thing.

That is why productions bring in a polygraph examiner as a consultant rather than renting a machine. Someone has to sit with the director and say which questions would genuinely deflect a trace, where a cutaway breaks continuity on the chart, and what an examiner would actually do in the room. On this one that consultancy extended to appearing on screen.