As a pretty introvert person (again?), making a documentary alone, interviewing someone, even in mother tongue, is what I afraid of, and won’t think about. But this week’s guest lecture by Louise Turley, an ABC producer, had made me a fresh start on having interviews, also letting me start to worry about the next project brief – the interviewing self-portrait… Interestingly, the lecture began with very simple questions, the 5Ws way of thinking (with smaller font size, want us to be more concentrated right?).
Who?
At first, we have to figure out who’s the target audience of our documentary film, for the upcoming one, our tutors, classmates and friends who we are going to share the video with absolutely. What we have to do, is to make 0ur interviewing clip easier to understand, be more straightforward but also being a creative one. Comes to creative, it seems would be another difficult question to consider with.
What?
Next, would be questions we are going to prepare. Always begin with a little research on your interviewee, it could be by observing them (Like their daily life), chatting with them directly, or start with becoming their friend. For questions, there are 3 common types of question in the world of interviewing: Open-end, Close-end (Y/N type, which are not that recommended), and the Leading one, that with purpose, leading the respondent to answers you want to hear from them. By the way, in terms of editing convenience, don’t forget to ask interviewees respond it in full sentences, including what had just questioned them.
Where?
The place we are going to have the interview. Their living or working place would be a better option i guess, to let them as comfortable as they usually were, as video are often for screening purpose, as I believe many of us would be fear of being shot, and won’t be relaxed as usual.
When?
There’s a needed for us briefing the interviewee some basic information before start filming it, what’s the theme of our artwork, what they are going to wear, etc. Besides, a part of our job as an interviewer is being a listener (even you are not that interested in sometimes), keeping eye contact, and being quiet most of the time, letting them to express what they wanting to.
Why?
Here comes to the last W, the part of reflecting I think, the reason we had chosen them as our interviewee (We are familiar with them? Interested in specific areas? Or just experimentally random?), was our questions good or bad, and what we could improve if we have another chance of making interviewing documentary next time.
CONDUCTING AND SHOOTING INTERVIEWS
Regarding this week’s reading, the longest one that I did after first came to Melbourne, that took me a long while dealing with it every morning on the tram. In general, it had extended some ideas on that 5Ws, starting with who we are going to interview, how we are going to prepare for it, due to the way of handling problems may occur, such as they are not ready to talk yet, how if we they been digressing from the main topic, or interviewing deeper to help them uncover what they want to but afraid to discuss with.
As acting like a guide for us rookies, it’s necessary that to let the interviewees sense that we are not only an interviewer, but also perform as a storyteller of what they had gone through, a catalyst of their experiences, and sometimes an editor. That we actually don’t have to care too much if something had gone wrong, and we could reordering questions in order to fit different circumstances.