OK, you’ve won an Oscar for best documentary for a film that wanted to save the world – “An Inconvenient Truth.” So, Davis Guggenheim – how do you follow that act?

Simple. Go in another direction all together and make a rock’n’roll movie.

In Guggenheim’s case, the film is “It Might Get Loud,” a portrait of three generations of guitarists – Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, The Edge of U2 and Jack White of the White Stripes, etc. – talking about their love of the electric guitar. Guggenheim chatted about the film recently in a telephone interview.

Q: How did you pick those particular guitarists to focus on?

A: I really wanted Jimi Hendrix but he wasn’t available. I checked. I thought about putting an empty seat for Hendrix when the three guys got together.

Q: Why three?

A: I knew that if I followed every guitarist around, I’d be deluged with footage. I didn’t want to have so many that I could only do two minutes of, say, Eric Clapton. So then I thought, well, if I could get three guitarists – one from each generation – that would be interesting. I also wanted three guys who wanted to talk, who were open to telling their story about how this came to be, about the emotional side of it. Documentaries, for me, are about people’s willingness to open up.

Q: Who was on your wish list?

A: These guys were my first three choices. Isn’t that amazing?

Q: Were they immediately interested?

A: Each of them opened up to the concept very differently. But ultimately the concept is what made them do it.

I almost made a mistake. We assumed that Jimmy Page would never do it because he doesn’t give interviews, he’s never been in a documentary. But we said, well, let’s try. It was a process, starting with his manager – and then he said yes.

Q: Can you talk about that concept?

A: I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if we heard Jimmy Page and The Edge and Jack White do all the talking? And for most of the movie, they’re the only ones you do hear.

I started from the point of view that this movie has no ex-girlfriends, band mates or rock historians. I was not trying to avoid controversy; I just wanted to make it super-personal.

Q: How long did you shoot?

A: I shot on and off for a year. I’d be in Dublin for a week with The Edge and then I’d go home and edit what I had. I’d be in London for a week with Jimmy Page and then go home and edit what I had. It was a personal process. We were kind of making a movie together. Like, I’d say to Jimmy, hey, what if we filmed you playing records at your house? So Jimmy brought us into his house and did just that.

Q: Same thing with your opening sequence?

A: That opening thing, with Jack making the electric guitar out of a board, two nails and a piece of wire – he said, “Watch this.” and he just did it. He told me later it was based on the diddley bow. Poor black sharecroppers would string barbed wire between two nails and pluck it. And that’s where Bo Diddley got his name. Jack just added an electric pickup.

Q: How hard was it to get the three of them together in one place?

A: We filmed them together for two days – two glorious days. We called it “The Summit” because it was so complicated to arrange. They were all flying in from different parts of the world. The Edge has a lot of equipment, electronics and pedals. Jack brought a couple guitars and a Silvertone amp he bought at Sears for $80.

Q: Did they know each other before?

A: No. And they’re three extremely different people. The first couple of hours were tense and I was thinking, This is a terrible idea. Then, out of nowhere, Jimmy got sick of talking, picked up a guitar and played “Whole Lotta Love.” It was like he threw down.

Q: Could you tell what you were getting while you were filming it?

A: The crew will tell me if it’s any good. They’ve seen it all so they get bored quick. When the crew is excited, you know you’re on to something. When Jimmy played “Whole Lotta Love,” you could feel the energy in the room.

Q: What made these three guys the right subjects?

A: Like directors and actors, there are a lot of guitarists who are good but don’t know how to talk about it. But these guys do. Some guys are really interested in reinforcing the legend. They want to keep piling it on. But these guys were about the music. They’re all still searching, figuring out what it means to be an artist. They’re all still writing songs. There were questions they asked each other. You need people who are open to doing that. If you don’t have that, you don’t have a movie.

Q: How active were you in shaping what they did?

A: I go with the flow. A lot of documentaries go after the scoop, try to trick people or trap them. I want to help people tell their own story, to coax them to be so comfortable they end up telling stories they didn’t even remember they knew. The process brings it to life. You get them to tell their story.

Q: How has reality TV changed people’s perception of documentaries?

A: I think reality shows make documentaries better. People who watch reality TV know it’s not real, that it’s all cooked up in advance. And they know when you’re pulling their leg. But they go along with it in a kind of “I can’t believe they’re doing this” way. It’s night and day to what I do.

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