Advice on doing 1st Interview? With cancer patient?

azonicbruce

azonicbruce

Active member
Looking for advice for doing my first interview style project. As the title suggests, the person I'm interviewing is a recently diagnosed cancer patient. This patient also happens to be my father. I had already had plans many years ago to do a type of sit-down interview with my parents, to ask them questions and reflect back on their lives and to give their thoughts and feelings on life, their journey and what they'd want their family to remember about them. My main concern is how to best go about doing this, especially given that I've never really done this type of project before. I realize that my main priority should be the comfort and desires of my father, and respect his wishes in whether or not he feels comfortable in doing any part of the interview. He's indicated a willingness to participate but that's as far as I've gotten in discussing it with him. I have already written out about 20 questions that I wanted to cover. I was wondering, should I go ahead and send these questions ahead of time to have him review so that he can think about them, reflect, and know what to expect? How do I gauge his comfort level of wanting to be on camera? I'm thinking of asking him if he'd prefer to just voice record our conversation instead of video. On the technical side, what would be your recommendations on setup? I was thinking the simplest/easiest would be in the living room with an open window allowing a natural sidelight in. Camera setup at eye level with me sitting off to the side and having him direct his comments toward me instead of the camera. Zoomed in at about chest level. Any other considerations or advice? Sorry if my questions are too basic but I'm completely new to this and would appreciate any guidance from those of you veterans out there that have gone through this.
 
This sounds like an interesting and intimate project and I think you have some good thoughts and considerations. The on camera or just audio is a big one. Maybe consider some of both with the more intimate moments just audio. You can fill in the visuals with family photos or b-roll of your father around the house or out in nature. The lighting only with window light will add to his comfort level, but will be harder to control over the course of the shoot. You are on target with your thought about him speaking directly to you, as much as you can minimize fiddling with the camera the better. Also if it more of a conversation with you then you should also be mic'ed separately. Make sure your audio is good as this will be the most important aspect.

The bigger question with this type of project is, what is the full extent of it? Is it just the one interview or will you follow his treatment and the outcome. Sorry to bring this up but after recently losing my sister in-law to cancer I saw the course of events and all the responses and effects on the family members. Your pursuit of this project could be very therapeutic, just be sensitive to make sure it doesn't interfere with your ability to support your dad through all that is coming his way.

Good luck and many blessings.
 
Thank you for your thoughts on this. Yes, the extent is pretty much just this interview. And the more I think about it, the more I know the edit will be very dependent on photos and b-roll from throughout his life. It would be nice to mix in his face as he's speaking, but it certainly won't be the what makes up the foundation. Unfortunately, in all my years doing video I never got proper equipment to do audio. Always used on-camera. Any recommendations on this? I remember reading here a lot about some Tascam model that was highly recommended. I certainly appreciate your thoughts and will continue to assess how best I can help and be there for him.
 
If your camera can take two independent external mics you can make that work. The Tascam DR-40 or DR-100 mark II are good candidates. I have one of each. You could rent the gear also.
 
i almost exclusively do docs... as far as style i cant comment because you might have some magic in your idea that works .. but as far as interviewing .. i dont like doing vanity work personally i like dealling with a degree of conflict and tragedy. i never advance questions or talk to the subject about what i want to talk about ahead of time ..i live off this saying off of separating truth from the facts. since this is a relative its conflicting because you can capture some true real emotion when they are unprepared. but tis family of a cancer victim and you dont know how they are dealing with it internally.. as a filmmaker its great for video to get those moments as a family member it can be rough. my vote is to not tell any questions or motives behind the film .letthem know you want to film and a general reason for why and just go in with ur questions ready to roll.. i recently filmed a piece with my 104 year old great grand dad which he was very revealing and said he never talked about some of those things and as a family member i was shocked but as a filmmaker i knew i had gold!
 
As a newly budding filmmaker and journalist (MA in journalism) - I'm a firm believer in not allowing interviewees to see the questions in advance. The most important reason is - you lose their first natural response to the question. This is often the most sincere and genuine moment. By allowing them to see the questions in advance they will inevitably plan an answer, over-think the question, rehearse... suddenly the moment doesn't become as natural as it could have been and the beauty can be lost. Instead, my advice would be to build a relationship with the person you're interviewing (in this case you should be alright as it's your father). Always try to respect their wishes and if they don't want something screened then I, personally, tend not to do it. There are occasions where you have to weigh up the importance of the answer and your film with the relationship of your interviewer. There have been occasions where I have screened stuff that they probably weren't too comfortable with. That's your own personal call - I imagine as it's your father you wouldn't do anything he wasn't happy with - so don't worry about it. If I really value the material I always try and convince them - and 70% of the time I'm able to get them to come around. As a rule of thumb, unless it's a hard journalism story and it's a politician or something, I never screen anything they don't consent to (again, this is your own personal call).

By all means, talk about the kind of things you wish to discuss, but personally I wouldn't reveal the questions. This subject is your father and I reckon you won't have any issues with sensitivity. I wish him a speedy recovery :) Good luck!
 
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