Getting great interview clips or soundbites from contributors is an essential part of many video journalism projects and documentaries. After you’ve cast great contributors, you have to make sure you get the best out of them in the interview.
(Read more: The ultimate guide to finding and casting contributors)
Over the years, I’ve made dozens of films, including series for The New York Times and BBC Three, that rely almost completely on great interviews from ordinary people. Here’s what I’ve learnt:
Step 1: Start by writing a script
You’ve got to go into an interview knowing what you want.
Although this might feel counter to the journalistic spirit of finding things out, the truth is that by the time you’re filming interviews, a lot of the finding out should be done — through research, telephone interviews and so on.
Once you’re filming, you’ll need interview clips that will make your film great, and your chances of getting those clips improve if you go through a solid planning process.
Planning also helps you think hard about your film generally and makes you consider important questions such as, “How am I going to start the film?” and “How am I going to end it?”. It helps you spot gaps and problems and makes it less likely that you’ll get to the editing stage and realise you’ve forgotten something important.
Besides, a plan doesn’t have to be kept to; you can always throw out your plan if something better happens.
Before I start filming interviews, I write out a script. It might be detailed or quite loose, but I always have one.
I go through my notes from telephone interviews or read through anything the contributor has written (such as with an expert or academic) and pull out quotes and put them into the script. Doing this familiarises me with what they think, and helps me realise exactly what I need when the time comes to interview them.
(Read more: Imagine your film — the master filmmaker skill)
Step 2: Prepare a “shooting plan”
The next step is to prepare a shooting plan.
A shooting plan has a list of the interview clips I want to get, the shots I need, location information, WiFi passwords, kit company contact details and so on. It’s everything I need in one document; my bible on shoot day.
I construct the shooting plan by working backwards from the script: “If that’s what I need in the final script, how do I best get it on filming day?”
While my script is arranged in order of the finished film, a shooting plan is arranged in order of the filming. For example, in the script the first time a viewer might encounter the interviewee might be a set-up shot (the interviewee working at the desk or something), yet in the actual filming — and, thus, in the shooting plan — this kind of shot would normally be done after the main interview.
My typical shooting plans contain:
- Warm-up questions (examples below)
- Interview questions plus any notes/comments contributors made in research interviews/application
- Shot list, including set-up shot ideas — e.g.
- walking in and sitting down
- footage of the interviewee getting miked up
- holding a clapper board
- looking into the camera and saying nothing
- saying their name and who they are in one sentence
- A personal reminder to record 20 seconds of background sound (“room tone”) when no-one is talking
- Essential call-sheet details (taxi numbers, contact details etc)
A shooting plan not only forces me to think everything through thoroughly in advance, but it’s also my saviour in times of stress or distraction. It’s not uncommon for things to go wrong on shoot day (contributors get lost, taxis don’t turn up, equipment fails and so on), so a strong plan will keep your interviews on track when 50% of your brain is hijacked by the background madness of the day.
Step 3: On filming day be organised
I often encounter the assumption that there’s something uncreative about being organised. Real creatives “go with the flow” apparently. However, I think the opposite is true: my best creative work comes from the thinking space created by good organisation. Every time my brain is distracted by wondering where I left the gaffer tape or struggling with WiFi, it’s unable to think about journalism, story and art — the things that matter most.
Therefore:
- Go look around (“recce”) the location beforehand — or at least look at photos
- Know your kit back to front. Rather than trying out the fancy new camera, use something you’re familiar with
- Simplify your set-up. Do you really need five camera angles?
- Give yourself lots of set-up time (an hour at least)
- Set your kit up at home the night before to familiarise yourself with it and check everything is present and working
- Decide clear areas in your filming space — contributors’ belongings go here, finished camera cards go in this wallet etc
- Be paranoid about camera cards. I use two wallets — one for empty cards, one for full (here’s the wallet I bought). That way, when you’re hurriedly changing cards during filming you don’t get mixed up
- If you’re doing a full day’s filming, get your lunch in the morning — things may overrun
And more generally, try and hand off as many of the technical roles as you can by using directors, camera operators and so on. This will give you more mental space to focus just on the interview.
Step 4: Interview time!
Some filmmakers belong to a more pure, documentary tradition, where the best thing is to just record what happens (literally “document”), with minimal intervention or interruption.
I have a more active approach, especially in interviews. This might mean anything posing warm-up questions, asking contributors to repeat a phrase, misstating something in a way that provokes them to clarify it, and so on.
I do this because it makes for better interview clips, and ultimately a better film. (If a film I make is boring and unwatched I find it little consolation that it’s “pure”.) I also think you can take this approach without ever crossing (or even getting close to) the line that might take you into fakery.
You can be a bit rude, they’ll thank you for it
I recommend being warm and polite with interviewees because the less nervous they are, the more fluently they will talk. But part of the active approach I describe above is a willingness to be a bit rude if it’s helpful. For example, if the contributor has gone off on a tangent that you don’t want to cover (and which won’t be in the final edit) then you should try to stop them and get them back on topic. This is different to a normal conversation where you might politely let them waffle on.
Other times you might have to take action are when contributors are:
- slouching in their seat
- laughing too much in a way that’s a bit weird
- thumping the table hard when they make a point
Basically, if they’re doing something that’s not working, your job is to get them to stop. Obviously, you want to do this in as polite and respectful way as possible but if you’re so polite and respectful that you’re not doing anything then you’re not doing your job. Try saying, “You’ll come across better if ___” or “I don’t know if you realise but it’s a bit distracting when you ____ “.
This is not only important for your film but important for the contributor as well. If they’re doing something that keeps ruining your clips, you’ll just end up cutting them in the edit and the whole thing will have been a big waste of time — for them and you. Intervene. Ultimately, your contributor will thank you for it.
Make interviewees comfortable with a warm-up
Everyone — even those experienced with filming — have a few nerves in their system when they get in front of a camera. This means you don’t normally get the best interview clips until the first 10 minutes of the interview have passed. (I’m writing most of this article presuming an in-person interview, you can read my tips for remote-filming here.)
For this reason, I usually try to get my contributors sitting down in front of the camera as soon as possible, even if I’m still setting up sound and lights. This gives them more time to get comfortable.
I also give contributors some warm-up questions. This is partly to test the sound and equipment (and this is what I tell them) but it’s also to get them used to talking in front of the camera. This is especially useful if you’re asking them to do something a bit unusual, such as looking down the lens when they answer.
Here are some questions that might work:
- Would you rather be without elbows, or without knees?
- Would you rather always be cold, or always be hot?
- If you had your human body but the head of an animal, which animal would you pick?
- Would you rather be the funniest person in the world or the most intelligent?
Maybe these silly questions won’t be appropritate but remember, the aim is to get them talking fluently and confidently about a subject. So not, “Count to 10” or “What did you have for breakfast?”.
It can be any subject that gets them talking, as long as it’s not too closely related to the topic of the interview. You don’t want them giving you a killer clip before you’re set up to record it. (“Hold the gold!” as one producer I knew used to say.)
In the briefing tell people what you want
Usually, after the warm-up, there’s a short briefing where the producer describes the plan for the interview, how long it will last and answers questions such as whether the contributor can swear or not.
The most important point here is to be explicit about what you want.
For example, in some recent films I made for New York Times Opinion, I used a lot of reactions (people exclaiming, gasping, shaking their heads etc). So in my briefings, I wanted to let people know that reactions like these were helpful, without crossing the line and provoking something inauthentic.
Here’s what I might say:
“Thank you very much for coming. What we’re trying to do in these films is see what the US can learn from other countries. If you’ve seen the other films we’ve made, something we use a lot of are big reactions! I mean, we don’t want you to do anything which isn’t authentic to you but if you have a reaction, don’t hide it. It really helps us to see and hear what you think.”
In films with ordinary people, I also let the interviewees tell me if there’s something they don’t want me to use.
“Remember we’re never trying to catch you out. If you ever say something you don’t want us to use that’s fine, just tell us. This isn’t a news interview with a politician. We want you to feel comfortable.”
I used to give interviewees a long list of other things to remember during the briefing (for example, “Don’t touch your chest because the radio mic will pick it up”). However, I’ve found that if you pile the contributors up with instructions, they just get overwhelmed. So now I generally wait until a contributor does something “wrong” and then mention the issue.
Present the energy you wish to see
Interviewees will follow your lead in terms of energy. If you’re taciturn or bored it’s unlikely they’ll be engaging, so be warm and encouraging, laugh at their jokes and bring some energy to the room (don’t go mad). It will increase your chances of better contributions.
Reveal something about yourself
When I was a runner, I asked an experienced documentary maker for interview tips and what he said surprised me:
“You have to reveal things about yourself. By the time we start filming, the person I’m interviewing will know about my divorce, my cancer scare, my problems with my teenage daughter… If I’m open with you, you’ll be more open with me. It’s basic human psychology.”
Personally, I’ve never had to do this, but I pass it on here in case it’s useful.
Other quick tips
- Ask open-ended questions, not questions that require a simple “yes” or “no” answer
- Start with easy and simple-to-answer topics and get harder
- You can’t give audible encouragement (“Uh-huh”… “I see”…) during a contributor’s answer like you can in a normal conversation. Sometimes I mention this to the interviewee (“If I’m quiet it’s not because I’m being rude!”) and compensate with lots of nodding
- Stay present in the interview. Sometimes you can be so distracted by your next question that you stop listening to what the person is actually saying! You always want to be able to respond to something new
- End with a “final thoughts” question. Many contributors articulate their most profound thoughts when they’re requested to summarise like this
- Keep recording when the interview finishes – some of the best comments come at this point!
How to chase down clean interview clips
Often a contributor won’t give you a great interview clip in their first answer. Maybe the answer is too long, maybe they break off in the middle, or maybe there are too many “um”s or hesitations.
In this situation you need to try and coach a better answer out of them.
Your ability to achieve this depends mostly on the contributor, but in terms of what you can do, there are two things that will help. First, you can know what you’re looking for (see the points above about preparing a script and shooting plan) and second, you can run a “mental edit”.
What I mean by running a mental edit is that you can listen to a contributor speaking and by mentally placing “in” and “out” points — like you would on an editing timeline — know whether you’ve got a good clean interview clip or not. This knowledge is helpful because it lets you know whether you can move on to the next question, or whether you have to spend some time chasing a better answer.
It’s hard to explain this, so I’ve made this video to help show what I mean.
The more time you spend in the edit, working on interview material, the more you’ll develop the skill of the “mental edit”.
Here are phrases that might help get a better answer:
- “That last answer was really useful but, just to be sure I’ve got it, could you sum up the main point in two sentences?”
- “That’s a great answer but I would love something shorter just in case it’s helpful in the edit. If I give you the first half of the sentence perhaps you could repeat it and then finish it in your own words?”
- “One of the points I feel you’re saying but I’m not sure we’ve got succinctly is that _____. Could you just give me an answer saying that?”
- (If they keep saying, “As I said earlier…”): “We’ll go over points a few times, so don’t worry about repeating yourself. It’s actually very useful in the edit to have a few versions of a point. So you don’t need to say, ‘As I said earlier…’”
- “You mentioned three things there. I wonder if, just to finish, you could list them… You can even tick them off on your fingers. It would give us a really good summary for the edit.”
You can keep chasing a clip until you have it, but sometimes you’ll have to give up because you’ll find yourself running out of time. Follow your instincts.
Sometimes silence is your friend
If something powerful is happening with a contributor, sometimes the best thing to do is shut up. I first learnt about this idea from legendary biographer Robert A Caro:
“In interviews, silence is the weapon, silence and people’s need to fill it — as long as the person isn’t you, the interviewer. Two of fiction’s greatest interviewers — Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret and John le Carré’s George Smiley — have little devices they use to keep themselves from talking and to let silence do its work. Maigret cleans his ever-present pipe, tapping it gently on his desk and then scraping it out until the witness breaks down and talks. Smiley takes off his eyeglasses and polishes them with the thick end of his necktie. As for me, I have less class. When I’m waiting for the person I’m interviewing to break a silence by giving me a piece of information I want, I write “SU” (for Shut Up!) in my notebook. If anyone were ever to look through my notebooks, he would find a lot of “SU”s.”
Working, Robert A Caro (also in this New Yorker piece)
Recently, I was recording an interview about Covid-19 with a woman from South Korea. At one point in the filming she learnt the U.S. death toll in the pandemic and became visibly shocked. While I’m normally quite active in interviews, I just stayed quiet to give her the space to process it. It ended up being a powerful part of the final film.
Stamina runs out shortly after 75mins
It’s important to remember that people wilt after an hour, so think hard about what points you need to cover, or at least take a break.
Summary:
- Know what you’re looking for
- Be organised so you can focus on the interview
- Be active in interviews
- Don’t be scared to intervene if something isn’t working
- Tell people what you want
- Present the energy you want to see
- Learn how to chase down good interview clips
Getting good interview clips is not always easy but hopefully this advice will improve your chances. Good luck!