The Interview Process (Reading and Lectorial)

This week’s reading has covered conducting and shooting interviews to draw on an individuals unique and captivating story – with the hope to portray something significant. There are many aspects of interviewing, with careful planning – you can create something successful –

• Initial interviews should be listening and reviewing/refrain from answering deep questions in this section as you want the reality to come out on camera
• Choosing a setting is particularly important (eg: home/workplace/friend’s house) to settle the individual that is being interviewed
• There are many types of interviews such as vox-pops (interviewing members of the public), group interviews and singular interviews. Shooting in these different ‘modes’ creates dynamic (eg: a married couple or best friends)
• As an interviewer, you have to carefully plan the film’s central purpose, set limits on production and ask the right questions to get the most out of your film – articulating what you want to portray.
• You must also brief the camera operator (ie: signaling methods for zooming etc.) and image changes
• You also have to prepare the interviewer to say what they want in their film, making it a natural process (rather than ‘acting’ for the camera) – a tip here is to signal them that you are going to interrupt their natural flow of conversation to ask a question etc.
• Camera placement is also important (eg: on axis/off axis placement). On Axis is when the camera is placed directly forward facing the subject whilst off axis is when it is slightly to the left or the right, the individual staring right below the lense.
• You also have to question whether the interviewer should be on camera or off camera, depending on the situation
• You also have to probe themes to the subject so they can speak openly about something that may be sensitive (lead by example…. if you are relaxed, your subject will be relaxed)
• You also have to frame questions in a certain way to leave them to be open (ie: what do you think of education? rather than “is education a good thing?”)
• Catchall Questions are also popular (ie: what has been your most exciting experience in the last year?)
• Aim for Feelings, rather than facts (provoke, but do not tread around a certain topic)
• Crossing Thresholds is a rare moment in interviewing, where you witness the interviewee realise certain types of information that is new to them (a ‘realization’ or ‘lightbulb moment’) that is captured on camera
• “and” or “go on” can harness this further
• Interviewer has the upper hand, however, interviewing is a partnership.

This week’s lectorial followed on from this reading discussing ideas surrounding interviews. The lectorial took place in a two-part setting – with both a guest speaker and Brian their own points regarding interviewing. The first part of the lecture, taken by Louise Turley was about the “art of the interview” and the ‘who, what, where and why”. I found this particularly interesting to link to the reading – especially putting into context real life situations (ie: someone getting nervous on camera). Her insight and reality into interviewing individuals was refreshing and she gave us some good tips about not only being the interviewer, but also helping the interviewees reach their full potential on camera. Brian’s part of the lecture focused on similar concepts, going over the narrative and documentary form and the key elements of forming a story, after all – an interview is telling a story of an individual, just in a different way.