Bill Gentile’s Essential Rules for Conducting an Informal Interview

Informal interviews are covered in Video #4 of the Video Journalism Workshop. We also see a practical example in Video #13, where I use informal interviews in my film “Afghanistan: The Forgotten War.”

Rules for Conducting Formal & Informal Interviews

Rules for Conducting Formal & Informal Interviews

I refer to my presence as I practice the craft as, “participatory observation.” My job is to observe and to document. But I have to participate to a certain degree because if I do not, then the characters I select will not tell their stories. I prefer, and I think the audience prefers, that my characters tell their own stories, as opposed to me telling their stories for them. So how do I selectively and strategically participate in the production? How do I get my characters to tell their stories? Here’s the answer: With interviews, both informal and formal.  I will cover the formal interview in the next email. Here’s how I define the informal:

INFORMAL, or on-the-run, interview. In the online video course we study one of my films “Afghanistan: The Forgotten War,” in which I was embedded with U.S. Marines in Afghanistan. In the film, we see some good examples of the informal interview in action.

These are questions that I ask (at strategic moments so as not to interfere with the military operation) to get the Marines to tell their stories.

I call them my three “magic questions:”

  • What are you doing?
  • What are you going to do?
  • What did you just do?

If you ask, and get answers, to these questions, your subjects will tell their own stories, and this is always more compelling than you telling their stories. Audiences prefer to hear the characters tell their stories as opposed to hearing you narrate the stories for them.

Here are some rules for the INFORMAL interview:

  • Get subject to introduce him/herself as soon as possible.
  • Engage your subjects. Elicit comments from them. Ask them the three magic questions:
  • “What did you just do?” “What are you doing now?” “What are you going to do?”
  • Make subjects speak in whole sentences. “Right now I’m working on …”
  • Get your subjects to talk about each other. This develops and enhances character.

Click Here to Download “Conducting Formal_and_Informal_Interviews”.pdf

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Discover the secrets of creating powerful video documentaries in the ONLINE Video Journalism Workshop course. You’ll enjoy an intensive 14-part immersion in the craft of learning how to make documentaries.

The course on making video documentaries covers the gamut of the storytelling craft from the genesis and shaping of story ideas, to shooting powerful images that drive the story, to capturing and using sound. You learn about script writing, narration, and editing with portable computers and modern editing software. Please visit the Video Journalism Workshop home page for more details.

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To learn about conducting Formal interviews Click Here


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Bill Gentile’s Essential Rules for Conducting a Formal Interview

Learn how to set up and conduct a formal sit down interview in Video #8 of the Video Journalism Workshop.

Rules for Conducting Formal & Informal Interviews

Rules for Conducting Formal & Informal Interviews

In the previous post we looked at informal interviews. In this email we highlight the rules for conducting a formal interview.

The formal or sit-down interview is the classic situation if which you set the camera on a tripod, have some control over the lighting and ask a series of (mostly) prepared questions.

Conducting a formal interview is covered extensively in Video 8 of the ONLINE Video Journalism Workshop course on making compelling documentaries.

The FORMAL interview is much more focused and planned. Following the rules below should give you some great material for your documentary and real insights into your subject.

  • Where’s the light? This is the first thing you establish upon beginning a formal, sit-down interview. How you shoot the interview is almost totally contingent on the source of light.
  • Make your subject look into the light, and into compositional space.
  • Make eye contact.
  • Get subject to introduce him/herself.
  • One-on-One interviews.
  • Two-on-One interviews. (you and a correspondent or producer).
  • Get subject to speak in whole sentences. The audience (normally) will hear only the answers, not the questions.
Shot from the Video Class on how to set up a formal interview

Shot from the Video Class on how to set up a formal interview. Walks your through the set up, lighting, questions to ask and how to set up your camera.

 

  • Composition and focus.
  • Careful with background. (depth of field).
  • Get clean sound.
  • Save the hard questions for LAST.
  • Get written releases FIRST.
  • Get on-camera releases if you can’t get written releases.
  • Your last questions:
  • “Is there anything I missed that I should be asking you?”
  • “What are your greatest hopes and concerns in relation to the subject matter?”
  • In either informal or formal interviews, know what you want from the subject BEFORE you engage.
  • NEVER, NEVER SHOW YOUR SUBJECT THE UNFINISHED WORK.

Download our PDF book on Conducting Formal_and_Informal_Interviews.pdf

To read our post about the rules for informal interviews Click Here

Thank you for visiting our site and hope these lessons on making video documentaries are helpful. We would love to hear your feedback and questions. If you would like to receive emails like this and our free pdf book Tip, Tools and Resources for Making Documentaries please subscribe in the upper right corner.

About the ONLINE Video Journalism Workshop Course?

Discover the secrets of creating powerful video documentaries in the ONLINE Video Journalism Workshop course. You’ll enjoy an intensive 14-part immersion in the craft of learning how to make documentaries.

The course on making video documentaries covers the gamut of the storytelling craft from the genesis and shaping of story ideas, to shooting powerful images that drive the story, to capturing and using sound. You learn about script writing, narration, and editing with portable computers and modern editing software. Please visit the Video Journalism Workshop home page for more details.

Connect with us on Facebook at ?https://www.facebook.com/VideoJournalismWorkshops


Remember to sign up for our free Essential Tips and Tools pdf booklet over on the right, and give us a like on Facebook.

“Rebel Reporting” Review

Rebel Reporting cover

FOLLOWING IS A REVIEW THAT I WROTE RECENTLY FOR THE RECENTLY PUBLISHED, “REBEL REPORTING,” ABOUT JOURNALIST AND ACTIVIST JOHN ROSS. YOU MAY FIND IT INTERESTING:

“Rebel Reporting” took me back to the place where I began working my craft: Mexico and Central America, during what I refer to as, “The Golden Days of Journalism,” when the craft still was about information as opposed to entertainment, and when the men and women who practiced the craft believed that information can make a difference.

Edited by Cristalyne Bell and Norman Stockwell, “Rebel Reporting” is a collection of lectures to independent journalists by John Ross, whose life and work embody that tenet.

“The first thing you need to know is that you do not have a career in
journalism,” Ross advises in one of those lectures. “Forget about your career. You have an obligation—to tell the story of those who entrust you with theirs, to tell the truth about the way the world works.”

Ross’ presentations follow the course of history, and the issues that he covered along the way. His words ground us. They remind us how the world has changed. They warn us. They advise us how to respond.

“Globalization,” he says, “homogenizes us into one faceless mass of consumers, slaves to the market…Rebel reporters confront and expose the corporate globalization of the planet, the globalization of greed.”

In a world addicted to conflict, Ross reminds us of the difference between “war correspondence” and “anti-war correspondence.”

He says, “Refugee camps are excellent places from which to do anti-war correspondence. Everyone has a story to tell. Refugees know about these wars firsthand. Probably better than anyone outside of the dead. They have survived.”

And he issues a warning, especially to those of us who cover conflict, of complicity in perpetuating conflict:

“We love war.
We recoil at its horrors
But always find the words
To speak the unspeakable.
We are its whores.
Peace makes us feel
As if we have no place anymore
In a world that demands
Cruelty and credibility
All in the same breath and byte.
We file our stories
In a universe
That does not flinch.”

“Rebel Reporting” sounds the alarm on the ills that infect our societies today, including the slow-motion coup of democracy by corporate and special interests, the decimation of the middle class, the criminalization of peaceful dissent, the militarization of police forces to crush that dissent, to name just a few.

“It’s the fourth world war,” he says, “and our only weapons are our words.”

On recompense, Ross offers the following, somewhat of a caveat to journalism students like my own:

“The coin of our realm is passion. While corporate journalists bask in the bland neutrality of their vaunted ‘objectivity,’ dabbling in a language drained of all outrage for fear of damaging their career track, rebel reporters, who know only too well they have no careers but rather a responsibility, are paid off in passion – passion for language, passion for telling the story with passion, passion for struggle and change, for sharing spirit, solidarity.”

Thank you, John Ross, for taking me back to where I began, and to where we all should begin again.

– Bill Gentile
American University
Washington, DC
December 2015

 


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Sunset in Nindiri

07.Sunset

NINDIRI, Nicaragua 13 December 2015 — After my Backpack Video Journalism Workshop, I stayed on an additional to enjoy and to reminisce. It was worth it.

(Photo by Bill Gentile)


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Backpack Nica Next Generation

06.Group

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, 12 December 2015 — This is the newest generation of Nicaragua’s Backpack Video Journalists. They’ve completed my four-day workshop, titled, “Training the Trainers.” They are ready, not only to practice our craft, but also to pass it on the the next generation.

Good luck and stay safe.

— Bill Gentile


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Backpack Video in the Dark

05.In the dark

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, 12 December 2015 — On the last day of our Backpack Video Journalism Workshop, we lost power because of maintenance work on the electrical system at the venue where the event was held. Despite numerous challenges during the four-day event, every one of the participants managed to produce a respectable video. I’m so very proud of them all. In this photo, participants screen their final projects on their laptops — before the computers run out of power.

(Photo by Bill Gentile)


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U.S. Envoy to Backpack Event

04.U.S. Ambassador

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, 11 December 2015 — U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Laura F. Dogu (in blue jacket) visits my Backpack Video Journalism Workshop in the Nicaraguan capital. Titled, “Training the Trainers,” the four-day event was sponsored and funded by the U.S. Embassy.


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Training the Trainers in Nicaragua

01.First Day

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, 8 December 2015 — Participants of my Backpack Video Journalism Workshop watch one of the films I presented on this, the first day of a four-day event in the Nicaraguan capital. I titled this workshop, “Training the Trainers,” and designed it to instruct the current generation of journalists to practice the visual storytelling language — and to pass the craft down to the next generation of visual storytellers. The event was hosted by the U.S. Embassy in Managua.

(Photo by Bill Gentile)


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The End of the Beginning

main group shot

ACCRA, Ghana, 27 November 2015 — Our Backpack Video Journalism Workshop marked the end of the beginning of a new style of development reporting in Ghana. This is a group shot on the final day of the event.

This is our Ghana Team, minus SAA, who is behind her camera making this photo! To your right is Sara Stealy, the Press Attache at the U.S. Embassy that funded the workshop. To your left is Ama Boateng, of the African Centre for Development Reporting (ACEDEV), which sponsored the five-day event.

I look forward to keeping in touch with all of my new friends and colleagues at the ACEDEV, as they use technology and their newly acquired skills to report on the important issues of our time. Good luck to all.


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Ghana Workshop Farewell Lunch

farewell lunch

ACCRA, Ghana, 28 November 20105 — At lunch at SAA’s house (she’s on the far left) celebrating the end of our Backpack Video Journalism Workshop. Great curry, SAA! SAA is one of 13 journalists who participated in the event. The five-day workshop was hosted by the African Centre for Development Reporting (ACEDEV) and funded by the U.S. Embassy in Accra. It was a terrific opportunity to bring the methodology of “backpack video journalism” to working journalists eager to use video to address the development needs of their country. I am so grateful. In the white dress is Ama Boateng, one of the ACEDEV staffers who helped organize the workshop. She’s also the Al Jazeera correspondent in Ghana. Next to her is Mohammed Shardow, one of the workshop participants. Then there is Manuela, the daughter of workshop participant Kwamee Kwame. And next to me is my very good friend Kumah Drah, who first invited me to his country to conduct the workshop. We are holding one of the gifts so graciously given to me by my African friends and colleagues. Thank you all.


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