INITIATIVE V — EXPERIENCE

Due to Project Brief Three, interviews have been the primary point of discussion for the past week. I have been doing projects in community radio for the past five years and I have been conducting interviews for about four of those five. To date, I have not had a nightmare interview that has just gone completely off the rails (though, I have had some exceptionally dry ones) but by the same token, I have never felt like I was particularly adept at the form. Learning more about it now has made me reflect on my experiences.

Initially, my experience came from presenting Get Cereal – SYN’s breakfast show. It instilled a lot of good preparation habits in me due to its preshow rituals. Every week we generally had two guests, one from the music scene and other from arts or the community sector. Within a few days of the show, we would get sent an email confirmation of who we would be interviewing. Depending on their experience with the media/budget this might come with a press release, pre-release content, or nothing at all.

In the research/preparation phase, presenters and producers would have some split responsibilities that would feed into each other. Everything would be noted in a Google Doc where we would note the topic of the interview, who we were interviewing, contacts details et cetera. Producers would generally write the tops and tails which would include a bit of exposition and call to action/sell. The presenters are generally tasked with composing the questions and really had a lot of freedom to conduct the interview – they can purely read questions, adlib, or do something creative (with their producer’s blessing and help) like playing quiz or games with the guest for example. Generally speaking, interviews would go for around five to seven minutes and would be live. If they were particularly good we could ask the guest to stick around for after a song break.

Before eventually moving into a long-term producing position for the show I would learn a handful of bits and pieces from presenting. Phone in’s, while sometimes necessary/the only option, are more tedious to conduct – people really underestimate how much we all utilise and make decisions on non-verbal communication. Reading and viewing other interviews your guest has done will help you get a read on them. I do this because tone must be established immediately, thus, your first question should be constructed with that consideration in mind. Each interview should have a purpose – being conversational is an aesthetic, but it in itself rarely brings value to the audience. Have someone brief the guest, you do not have to tell them what you will ask them if you want to play to that live/spontaneous element but give them an idea of what they are getting into, do’s and don’ts – this is a collaborative process and helping them be comfortable is critical to your success.

Hai 'San' Hoàng

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