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Designing On-Camera
           Interviews                       Return to Views Directory Page
Few of us get opportunities to interview Famous Faces and Fiery Headliners.  We have to glean the bulk of our bites from people unfamiliar with, if not unsuited for, talking in front of the camera--corporate and association executives, government managers, technical experts, people- on-the-street.  They all have interesting, even important things to say, but they often lack the practice and the polish to say them on their own under the scrutiny of the Glass Eye.

They need assistance.  They need a way to feel comfortable.  They need a designed interview.  Even the Known Names and Faces I have worked with give more engaging interviews when given a carefully structured, engaging set of questions to answer.

Here's what I've learned:

• Comfortable is interesting.  A comfortable interviewee opens up, lets information flow, and invites the audience to listen.  A tense interviewee come off as stiff and suspicious.  His answers are rote and disjointed, and the audience zeroes in on his nervous body language and ignores what he's saying. 
  
  Design comfort into your interview.  Make the questions and answers flow as they do in a conversation.  Start with small stuff, chit chat, generalizations and broad brush strokes.  Build toward substance, detail and analysis.  Peak with challenge and controversy.  End with personal predictions, good feelings and a handshake.
  
• Being comfortable happens in familiar waters.  The on-camera interview is an artificial conversation between strangers in a fish bowl: lights, camera, camera person and sound person on one side; propaganda consultants, corporate censors and casual observers on the other.  Only the questions asked can give the interviewee a sense of familiarity.  The very first question should establish that the interviewer knows who he is talking to, understands the interviewee's interests, views and goals, and is sensitive to the interviewee's fears.  Homework counts.
  
• Be an archaeologist not a ditch digger.  Every interview aims at burrowing down to one or two important points.  Each question is a shovel that digs a bit deeper.   Design questions that uncover new layers instead of blasting down to bedrock.   Dig at a pace that preserves the artifacts you encounter along the way.
  
• Let the interviewee play his own game.  The interviewee is the star.  The interviewer is the coach.  The scripted questions are the play book.  Keep the interviewee on the playing field you define, but give him room to maneuver.   Memorable games rarely follow a planned strategy.  It is the unexpected move, the brilliant and daring risk, the momentary lapse and the close call that thrill audiences and reveal what the star player is made of.  Give those dramatic moments a chance to happen.
  
• Go for feelings and opinions as well as facts. Spouted facts are a yawn.   Only when an interviewee reveals something about his own heart that we glimpse what is common to us all and get a shot at grabbing genuine interest in the audience.   "How do you feel about...?"  "What do you think is going to happen...?"  "What was your reaction when...?"  "Did you ever dream that...?"  Such questions are an important part of any interview.   But they are not the foundation.

Virtually everybody can be interesting on camera.    The trick is to catch each subject being his (or her) naturally interesting self.   That involves making the person comfortable and designing questions that enable them to talk to the audience on his, or her, own terms.  There are no dull people; only dull interviews.

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