Created by Zachary Mitchell

Hi there, I’m Zak, and here I’m going to be talking about interviews. I’ll be looking at why we have them, how they’re consumed, how they’re put together, what they do; and I’ll be including examples of styles and techniques from real interviews as I go along. So first, I ask you, why do we have interviews at all? What’s the point – what’s the purpose of sitting down with someone and asking them questions? Well, as human beings it is our nature to interact and know things about each other. We like to stay up to date and informed, and interviews are pretty much the most basic way of achieving this. They help us to gather information about the things that are going on; obtain other peoples’ opinions and, through expression and explanation, understand how they justify them; find out information and spread it; we use them for research; to enhance our understanding of a topic – the list goes on but those are some of the main reasons we actually carry out interviews. INTRODUCTION

How do we present these interviews? How are they consumed by the public? The main way is through TV; often people are interviewed live on things like chat shows and debates – like the News, or programmes like The Jeremy Kyle Show. The other big contender is Radio; programs like Woman’s Hour or Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 are examples of Radio interviews. The other media products in which we view interviews are: Prints like newspapers and magazines; the Internet: for example video websites like YouTube or sharing networks like Twitter – and of course Internet News pages; Editorials; there’s Sport; News; Feature- writers -- the list goes on. The point is, in the well-connected world we live in today, it isn’t difficult to find an interview, because they’re on pretty much all media. To demonstrate this I’ve picked out a few interviews that I found pretty easily on the internet – I’ll be using them as examples to what I’m talking about. There are three interviews – a video interview with Quentin Tarantino, a radio interview with Tim Minchin and a written interview with Ben Wheatley. ALL THE DIFFERENT TYPES….

There’s a certain way to construct an interview properly. You have to do it in stages – starting with a clear introduction: these are the first few remarks of courtesy that get the ball rolling. It can be a few sentences, or it can be just one, as Krishnan Guru-Murthy demonstrates here on Channel 4 News. Then the interviewer does some developmental questioning – where he or she asks a series of small questions that build up and contribute to the main topic. While they do this they need to be building the interviewee’s confidence by asking easy, relevant questions that can make the guest feel like they’re doing well in the interview while still providing interesting things to talk about. This is all building up to when the interviewer asks the key questions – the questions whose answers are the entire purpose of the interview. During these questions, there may be some need for sound bites – these are almost like cutaways in the middle of the interview – where videos or snippets of media are provided as anecdotes. After this it’s fairly simple – the interviewer finishes off with a summary, by going over everything that’s been said in the interview with a basic list of the interviewee’s answers; and a wind-up where they finish off the interview by saying thank you and good bye to the guest. STRUCTURE…

So, that covers the structure of interviews, but there’s more to it than just planning what to talk about. It’s how to say it as well. Here is a list of question types – because there is more to a question than just the topic of conversation – a lot of thought goes into how the interviewer will construct the sentence. Open questions – require an answer that’s more than just a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. Open questions look for a statement or an explanation to something. Closed questions – require purely a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Single questions – only have one point to the question. “How are you today?” Multiple questions – obviously, there’s more than one point to a multiple question – “how are you today, have you been keeping well?” Direct questions – requires a specific answer – “Where were you at 9am on Sunday morning?” Suggestive questions – these hint that something may be the case without actually saying it. “Would you agree that the country needs a better police force?” – “doesn’t it,” “isn’t it,” “weren’t you?” etc. can replace the suggestive part of the question. QUESTION TYPES…

The interviewer needs to be good with their communication skills as well – for example they need to be able to build rapport with the guest so that a positive atmosphere is created. Active Listening is important too – this is essentially appearing interested and showing that you are – by responding to what the interviewee is talking about – by giving opinions and asking mini-questions about their answers. Body language is also important; the interviewer needs to physically appear interested in what the guest is talking about. This can be identified in the form of hand gestures and sitting positions etc. A thing like crossing arms or legs isn’t great as it represents a barrier between the guest and the interviewer and the atmosphere is affected. It’s slightly different on the telephone or radio – the techniques are similar but obviously not exactly the same as a video interview’s techniques. There’s the gathering of information – asking short, easy questions that are broad in answerability. This is quite similar to confidence building as the interviewee feels more comfortable with the easy questions. Another technique is obtaining comments – this is like suggestive questioning but less tactical and planned – more like having a chat with the interviewee. COMMUNICATION SKILLS…

1.“Why?.....I can’t make you answer anything, I’m just asking you interesting questions… I’m just asking you why, that’s fine.” – Here the interviewer keeps a cool head when Tarantino refuses to answer a question. He doesn’t get stressed or panic, but merely asks why Tarantino won’t answer. When he refuses to elaborate, the interviewer rolls on to the next question, smooth as glass. 2.“It’s interesting that you have a different view and I’m just trying to explore that.” – again Tarantino refuses to comment when the interviewer reads a quote from Jamie Foxx. The interviewer is gently encouraging him to answer by being reasonable and keeping perfectly polite. TELEVISION: QUENTIN TARANTINO INTERVIEW

1.Interviewer Kirsty Young Introduces him – talks about his occupation, compliments him and names his achievements. “With lines like I thought fame would make me happy but she’s a fickle, cheap romance – what does make you happy Tim Minchin I wonder?” – Very open question, this will get the ball rolling in the interview. Also a clever technique asking him what makes him happy as he is likely to become more relaxed when thinking of the things that make him happy. 2.“Let’s have some more music Tim Minchin. The third track of the day is what?” – Here Tim Minchin comments that she’s clever for lining up his third song with everything she’s known he’s going to say. Perfect example of developmental questioning. 3.“You got a very bad review at Edinburgh which has since become infamous because you wrote a song in response to his bad review the song’s called Song for Phil Doust – brave, dramatic and probably wonderfully petty that you did that, don’t you think?” – This is a very good example of a suggestive question. By saying “don’t you think” here, Minchin is automatically inclined to agree with her. RADIO: TIM MINCHIN INTERVIEW

1.“You mentioned that you don’t get the full feel of what the film is until it’s done. How did this one vary from what you set out to make?” – Here the interviewer is showing good communication skills by actively listening to what Wheatley is saying and commenting on it. 2.“Don’t knock Brummie accents!” – By joking around with Wheatley, the interviewer is building his confidence by trying to create a more relaxed environment. 3.“It’s the minor tourist attractions that give you so much gold in the film. You feature the kind of attractions that you used to enjoy as kids, but tend to be cynical towards through adult eyes. I was curious as to how co-operative the tourist attractions were, and did any turn you down when they found out the tone of what you were looking to do?” – The interviewer asks Ben a multiple question here, to try and receive a detailed answer about what he wants to know. PRINT: BEN WHEATLEY INTERVIEW