The video-booth observations of visitors to the National Gallery are to be shown on RTÉ television, reports Rosita Boland.

It's the last day of November, and visitors coming into the National Gallery via the Clare Street entrance are doing a double-take as they pass a bright red booth in the foyer of the Millennium Wing. Temporarily shored up against the glass wall of the gallery's restaurant is a tiny, high-tech recording studio and video booth. It's here because RTÉ has teamed up with the National Gallery to celebrate the gallery's 150th anniversary, in a project called Moving Pictures.

From November 10th, the booth was available to any member of the public who wanted to spend a few minutes there recording their reasons for visiting the gallery and their thoughts on their favourite paintings. By the time the project finished on December 5th, 400 people had been filmed. A selection of these will form part of tonight's special Christmas edition of The View. All the footage will be preserved in RTÉ's archive.

Fidelma King, who works in the Visitors' Department of the gallery, is standing outside the booth, acting as a polite tout. She hands out flyers to passing visitors, explaining what the project is about. They peer through the slit of glass in the video booth and ask questions. King asks them if they would like to come back to record a piece after they have been around the gallery. Some people instantly scamper up the stairs, looking horrified at the idea of being captured on camera. Others look intrigued and say they will come back later.

The soundproofed booth itself is like a posh version of a passport-picture booth. It's bigger, and there is carpet on the floor, and a comfortable chair. There's also a microphone and a lot of the intensely bright lights necessary for filming. Opposite the chair is a passport picture-type window, within which the camera is situated.

Behind the enclosed area where the visitor sits is the tiny recording studio itself. This has been home to Liz Faulkner, a freelance producer, for three weeks now. From here, Faulkner talks to the people in the booth through headphones. The person in the booth can't see her, but she can see them on three different screens.

"It's good, because people feel like they're on their own," she says. "That tends to make them a bit freer."

Forming part of the back wall of the temporary studio is a glass panel looking into the restaurant. Does she get a lot of people peering in the window at her as they ferry their plates to and fro?

"Not as many as you'd think, but some do." Faulkner indicates the glass, listing off the imprints there with the briskness of a forensic scientist. "There's an ear-mark, there's a small handprint, and that's a cheek-mark."

People in the booth are recorded for a maximum of four minutes. The first person of the day who shows up to be filmed is the artist, Robert Ballagh. He goes in to take his seat.

Like everyone else, Ballagh is asked the same key questions that Faulkner has so far asked 278 other people. Everyone is asked their name and where they come from; where and when they were born; how often they come to the gallery; whether they have any particular memories associated with the gallery; what they like about the place; their favourite painting there, and why.

Ballagh says he first visited the gallery as a child with his father. Now the gallery serves as a visual archive for him.

"There's not a month passes by that I don't pop in," he says. The paintings that interest him change frequently.

"One constant is Vermeer, but at the moment it's two paintings by Metsu [ Gabriel Metsu's Man Writing a Letter and Woman Writing a Letter]. There is a calmness about them. They are little gems. Terrific narrative."

The second person of the day to be recorded is Mary O'Reilly. She's here as part of a special needs group visit with St Michael's House, from Coolock, led by Barbara Anne Mullan. The group go to IMMA once a month, and about four times a year to the National Gallery. They were here yesterday and have come back specially today so that O'Reilly can record her piece - on her 21st birthday.

She grins into the camera.

"My favourite painting is 'The Sleeping Beauty Princess' [ The Sleeping Princess, by Edward Burne-Jones, on loan from the Hugh Lane]," she says carefully. "There are flowers in it. And a princess."

Prompted by Faulkner as to why she likes this one, she replies: "My father told me the story of the sleeping beauty as a kid. The picture makes me feel happy."

Philomena Daly has been a regular visitor to the gallery for 25 years. She speaks at length of her affection for the gallery. Her favourite painting is William Leech's A Convent Garden in Brittany.

"I need that picture to be in the gallery," she declares with feeling. "It recharges my batteries. I have to come and see it every few months. There is an energy off it. I feel full of joy and as if everything is right with the world when I see it - as if the world was a garden."

One of the things that Faulkner has noticed over the weeks of filming is that some people are very reluctant to disclose their age.

"People are very funny about giving their age," Faulkner marvels. "Lots of them don't want to."

As someone involved in an archived programme, her intention in asking this question is pragmatic: she wants to track the age profile of those participating. But many people consider this to be personal information they're not keen on divulging. The very next person Faulkner interviews is Cherry O'Keeffe, who deflects the age question with firm dignity.

"I was born in Cork - quite a few years ago," she says without blinking, straight to camera. Faulkner smiles, and shrugs - she knows when she's beaten.

The booth has also had a number of child visitors, most of whom came in on their own. Among the youngest was five-year-old Eleanor Coleman, who didn't have a specific favourite, but who liked any paintings "with doggies in them".

Ciara Mohan, aged seven, did have a special favourite: Thomas Hickey's Portrait of Two Children. What she liked was "the ribbons on their dresses" and the fact that she thought "they could be my friends".

Among the stories that have come out of the filming was that of the woman who came to the gallery on a first date.

"She said her favourite painting was John Lavery's The Artist's Studio, because they came back to the gallery together and her boyfriend proposed to her in front of it," says Faulkner.

During the filming, Faulkner has heard wonderfully esoteric reasons for people nominating their favourite paintings.

"There was one woman who said she liked going to see paintings with washing in them, and that she went to lots of galleries searching them out. Her favourite painting here was Ann Yeats's Women and Washing. She said she just had a thing about washing."

* The View Presents . . . Moving Pictures is on RTÉ 1 tonight at 10.15 p.m.