Unfortunately, I missed this week’s lecture delivered by Louise Turley, producer of ABC TV’s Back Roads which covered the art of interviews.
Before diving into the lecture notes I had begun to consider all the hidden factors to even the simplest interview. On the surface, it is a simple conversation with one party asking questions and the other answering, then the resulting back and forth.
But there the level of prep work to be considered. The interviewer’s and interviewee’s individual intentions or the overall purpose of the interview. How comfortable are the two parties with each other and how do they feel about being recorded? Then there is the live element – are these pre-prepared questions, has the guest been briefed? If so, how thoroughly? Were there any unplanned questions or answers? Was there a rehearsal or another take involved?
So many elements. All of them affecting the end result of a recorded dialogue between the two (or more) parties.
These intangibles always seem to make it into the interview, sometimes more notable than others. Sometimes affecting the tone or flow of the conversation, their body language, facial expressions or voice, and obviously the possibility of coming across in the answers that the interviewees volunteer.
As students and professionals, we are obviously encouraged and expected to do research on our interviewees in order to construct a line of questioning that is engaging to a listener. At the end of the day, the interview should be designed to centre around the guest and allow them as much space to answer questions as possible.
Turley goes on to outline the five W’s – who, what, when, where and why to act as the core of open questions. As opposed to closed questions can be satisfied by a simple, ‘yes/no’ response, they instead invite dynamic answers and act as signposts to what you, acting on behalf of your audience are most curious about.
In the pursuit of carefully constructing questions, there is the topic of bias and leading your interviewee. There is a level of nuance to the language that again, invites the interviewee to divulge their own views and thoughts of the matter in question rather than the interviewer haphazardly revealing their own, despite the typical lack of first person experience or personal expertise on the matter.
Predispositions and assumptions are tedious as it is for interviewees to deal with, but it may well go on to damage the integrity of the interview. It is fundamentally similar to badgering or intimidating a witness. I know, I have watched How To Get Away With Murder. Though that being said, there, of course, is a time and a place. Pressing for answers is critical to keeping politicians and other leader figures honest, for example.
Though I should hope that the interviews we produce for Project Brief Three to have lower stakes.
