Providing Questions to Interviewee

[flimflamfilms]

Good afternoon.

I am fishing for thoughts and experiences on providing an interviewee with the questions prior to the interview. Pros? Cons? Is it considered bad form? Good practice? I'd like to know as I am in the middle of my first doc at the moment.

I've already conducted the first interview but did not provide the questions beforehand. I gave the list of questions to the interviewee afterwards and asked him to look them over and get back to me if he'd like to add anything. He was happy to have them and has since expressed an interest in conducting a second interview. This leads me to think that maybe it's a good idea to just give the questions up front.

Curious to know what others have found.

Cheers,

John

 

[plexi]

I generally don't like to provide the interviewees with a list of questions beforehand. I'll give them an idea of the topics we're going to cover, but not the exact questions. Giving them the questions can lead to them pre-rehearsing their answers, which can come off feeling staged in the film.

Even when I'm conducting the interview, I tend to avoid questions. I'll say something like, "Can you talk a little about your approach to _________?" And then maybe come up with a follow-up question depending where they go. But that's just my way of doing it, I try to keep the interviews a little more fluid, like a conversation, rather than an interview. Anything to loosen the subject up and get them to come up with something inspired or unexpected.

Good luck with the film!

 

[flimflamfilms]

Plexi,

Thanks. Your response is helpful. I agree that the real trick is to allow for the unexpected and inspired, and to make an interview come off as more of a conversation.

I had asked my subject to try an restate my question as part of his answer. He admitted later that this threw him off a little, but you wouldn't know it from the interview as he seemed to do it so naturally.

Thanks again.

John

 

[plexi]

I had asked my subject to try an restate my question as part of his answer. He admitted later that this threw him off a little, but you wouldn't know it from the interview as he seemed to do it so naturally.

Yeah, experienced interviewees generally understand this and do it naturally. I usually ask people to rephrase at the beginning of the interview, but during the interview I don't stop them if they start answering without rephrasing. I find that's really off-putting for them, especially if they're already uncomfortable being filmed. I'll let them finish the answer, and then try to rephrase or re-try my question in a way that gets a better answer. The chemistry of the conversation is the most important thing, you need to try to create an atmosphere where the interviewee forgets that they're being filmed. When you start telling them how to act, it affects that chemistry, in my opinion.

 

[flimflamfilms]

plexi,

I agree. An interview is more than just asking questions; it is creating that chemistry, and it is the real crux.

Thanks again,

John

 

[Geno]

I've found it helpful to some that they see the questions before. Some want to take and bring notes with them to cite a quote or something. The "vibe" between you and the subject is absolutely the most important thing. In my recently finished film Consume This Movie! the performances were great and that carried the film. Why were the performances great? I was on the edge of my seat hinging on their every word. My subjects felt like they were telling their story for the first time to an eager and willing to learn audience.

 

[MikeWilkinson]

Giving them the questions can lead to them pre-rehearsing their answers, which can come off feeling staged in the film.

I made the mistake of providing too much info on the questions I was going to ask one time and this exact scenario happened. She wrote her own script and brought it! I won't make that mistake again. It came off horrible in the first 5 takes.

 

[plexi]

I was on the edge of my seat hinging on their every word. My subjects felt like they were telling their story for the first time to an eager and willing to learn audience.

This might be obvious, and I know there's been some scientific research on this phenomenon, but I'll offer my own non-scientific theory: people's facial expressions (and emotional states) are a direct reflection of the person they're looking at. Like if you look at someone who's laughing, you automatically get a smile on your face too. So if you're interviewing someone, and you look interested, upbeat, and passionate about the subject matter, just the fact that you look that way affects the way your subject looks and acts.

When people watch my last film, which had a lot of talking head interviews, they always remark on how passionate and inspired the interviewees look. And I've started to think that it might have a lot to do with who the interviewees were looking at at the moment they were being filmed... me. I was inspired by what the interviewees were saying, and I'd like to think that came through.

Last week I interviewed someone in Holland, and I don't speak Dutch. I had a translator, but when the interviewee was actually answering the questions (in Dutch) she was looking at me. I had no idea what she was saying, but I felt like I had to sort of pretend that I did, nodding, smiling, etc... I felt like an idiot, but I still felt I was affecting the way she was responding, making her more animated.

Anyway, just something to keep in mind when you're conducting interviews. Your facial expressions and attitude are directly affecting your final product.

 

[flimflamfilms]

Thank you very much for your responses. What each of you has said provides valuable insight for me to think about. I have an interview coming up Wednesday and I know it will be very different (and better) than my last because of the thoughts and experiences you have provided.

Cheers,

John

 

[Giganova]

I agree that the real trick is to allow for the unexpected and inspired ...

I think it depends on how experienced your interviewees are. I have been interviewed for docs a few times. The more professional documentary teams (History Channel, Discovery Channel) have given me the questions before the interview which I think made the quality of the interview much better because I was prepared. I could even email them back and add a few extra questions or modify some questions to make sure that I have a chance to say what I wanted to say. I even did a media training based on the questions and the quality of my answers and sounds bites was way better after I was trained for a few days!

If you want some "inspired" comments, it might better to give them the questions in advance so they have time to come up with some really cool sound bites. It happened to me very often that I gave phone interviews for newspapers without having seen the questions before the interview started. I tortured myself after each interview because I had much better answers after I thought about it more carefully. It's hard to come up with something inspired on the fly while sitting in front of a scary camera under hot lights and the production team staring at you.

For the doc I am shooting right now, I give the questions to the interviewees a few days in advance, but during the interview, I often go with the flow and don't stick with the questions to loosen things up a bit.

 

[plexi]

I still think giving them an outline of the topics you're going to cover, as opposed to exact questions, is the way to go. That way they're prepared, but not over-prepared. Hell, I don't even know what exact questions I'm going to ask them. I just feel that the less formal the interview is, the better. I think we all know that "interview voice" that some subjects suddenly switch to the minute the camera's rolling. It sounds rehearsed, and anything I can do to avoid that, I'll do. Maybe it's just a personal preference of mine, but the feeling of spontaneity and fluidity is something I really strive for, even though the whole construct of a sit-down documentary interview is anything but.