TOP 10 TIPS FOR DOCUMENTARY INTERVIEWS

Oftentimes, really great documentaries are driven by very personal and revealing interviews.

The challenge is how do you get somebody to feel comfortable enough to open up and give you those moments that are really going to make a powerful difference in the story that you're telling. Without care and thought going into the preparation of an interview, they can often end up flat. And opportunities can be lost.

Here are my top ten tips for capturing intimate, soulful, long form interviews, ones that have the opportunity to dig deeper, and get to the heart of what's going on with your character.

TIP #1 - The Pre-Interview

Get to know your interviewee with a friendly social pre-interview. This can be done by phone or by Zoom. It’s very helpful on several levels. I was recently working on a project telling the story of an individual whose career was at their peak in the 1970s and 80s. The main body of their career had been pre-Internet, leaving me with not much to go on. To research their career, I scheduled a pre-interview with the subject and her daughter, which ended up being about an hour long zoom call. 

I was able to glean an incredible amount of information, go through her career and find out all the details that I needed to prepare my interview. It also did a great job of breaking the ice and demystifying what was to come.

You may not always have the opportunity to pre-interview a person. If their biographical information is limited, then the next best thing is to do a quick study on their expertise and the general subject of what you’ll be interviewing them about. This gives you a starting point to get a conversation rolling with them, and they'll feel like you at least know what they're all about or what their craft is about. Any opportunity to create a connection to get the ball rolling is what you’re after.

TIP #2 - Have Your Story in Mind

Once you have an idea of your subject's story, begin to map out a story arc based on the conversation that you've had with them. If you do have the opportunity to chat with them, start to look for motivations, catalysts, ups and downs, peaks and valleys in their story. Things that offer dramatic shifts in the story. Life events that had an impact on that individual, the choices they've made, and their view on life. These insights will give you direction when you are interviewing them. As a storyteller, you’ll know what some of those highs and lows are and be able to direct your interview to get your subject to express that on a very personal and emotive level. This gets at the heart of human storytelling, and will give you a much more compelling interview as opposed to just reading the facts. The goal is to move away from a literal telling of the events and to help your interviewee channel back into specific events and how they made them feel in the moment.

Peel away the literal surface events and mine the personal, the emotive world that those situations elicited for that individual. Those things are more universal and more emotionally powerful for the viewer to connect with and empathize with. Try your best to piece together, even on a very broad level, what those life events and shifts are that have led up to where this character is now. What’s their story of personal triumph? Maybe it's somebody whose career has suddenly taken off and how’d they get there. Maybe it’s somebody who was in an incredible accident. And they've overcome the injuries and now they've gotten themselves back in the world and back on their feet. Whatever that journey is that that person is dealing with or has come through, those are the things you want to get a sense of before you go into the on-camera interview. Tap into that and bring that story out in its most rich and deep way. Basically be as prepared as you can to help guide the interview. 

TIP #3 - Take Time to Prepare Your Questions

Part of your task as the interviewer is helping lay the groundwork for a story to unfold. Oftentimes people don't tell their stories in a dramatically structured fashion. They just tell what happened on the surface. But if you're able to create an architecture through a series of questions that lead the person from point to point, you can really help guide the storytelling process through the way in which you organize the questions.

The idea here is that you're going to formulate a series of questions, and these questions are going to be designed in a way that will help the interviewee tell their story in a linear and logical fashion, one that gives them the opportunity to tell their story and let it unfold and build in a dramatic way.

You're basically reverse engineering the questions to elicit the story that you already know, as well as exploring further into areas that you're discovering as you go. I recommend having those questions build to certain areas that you want to land on dramatically. Give yourself time to warm that person up to you and allow them to get comfortable so that when you do get to those more delicate points in the interview, if they exist, they're ready to share that with you.

TIP #4 - Find your Time Vantage Point

Deciding what time vantage point, what tense you want this interview to be in, is easy to overlook, but can have major impacts on your edit. When you're speaking with the person and they're telling their story, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are expressing it in the tense that you want the final film to be in. So the question to ask yourself is, what tense do you want the audience to be watching the film in? Do you want them to be experiencing that backstory or that reflection in real time? Are you going to be doing reenactments, trying to put the audience in the moment, or are you looking back in time and talking about situations in past tense?

For example, I was recently filming in a live venue and it was very loud. I wanted to get some short interviews on location, but it was way too loud. To ensure that I could capture these story beats, I came back a day later. I planned to merge the two together to feel like the interviews were happening at the show. To achieve that, I asked the interviewees to speak as if the show was that night, not the previous night. And it worked great. It blended perfectly in the final film. These are subtleties that can easily slip by that you definitely want to catch while filming. It will help ensure that once you get into the editing room, those interviews are happening from the right time perspective for your film.

TIP #5 - Get an Appearance Release Signed!

Get an Appearance Release signed before you do the interview. You can do it on the day, but they should know in advance that you’ll be asking for this. Generally nobody wants to not sign a release and put the whole production to a halt. But you do want to make sure you get it signed before the interview. 

The reason you want to have the Appearance Release signed before the interview is that once somebody sits down and starts to chat they can open up to you. They can say things that they're not expecting to say, even if it's stuff that later you decide, OK, that's off the record. Then afterwards, they can become self-conscious about their interview and subsequently be very nervous to sign the release after the interview. So it’s always good to have them sign an Appearance Release beforehand. 

Once you get that release signed, make sure to look at it and confirm that they actually signed it in the area that they needed to. I did a project once where I was doing a number of interviews on the day and everybody handed in their releases at the end of the day. When I looked at them I found that the one person conveniently did not sign theirs. Keep an eye on those things because these are really important in the long run. 

TIP #6 - Say It and Spell It

When you start shooting, before you just start doing the actual interview, have the person say their name and then also spell their name for you. This isn't for use in the actual interview. It's for reference. The reason it’s great to have them say their name is people often pronounce their names differently than what it looks like. Having them say their name gets on the record how they like to hear their name, how their name is pronounced. 

Next, have them spell their name. It puts it right there on the record for the editor. That way when your editor is putting in lower thirds or different title graphics or credits, there's a reference point right in the footage for exactly how that person wants their name spelled.

It’s also helpful to ask them what their official title, position or specialty is so that you can have that reference for any credits or attributions needed. Say it and spell it is a basic piece of business, but it's one that's very helpful downline.

TIP #7 - Incorporate the Question into the Answer

This tip is a life saver in the edit. It’s a little technique that you want to remember as you're asking questions, which is to have them incorporate your question in their response. For example, you might ask, how old were you when you started driving? And that person might naturally respond “Seventeen.” But when you're back in the editing room all you have is someone saying, “Seventeen.” Your editor and audience will be like, “what does that have to do with anything?”

For clarity in the edit, you want to have the interviewee reply to your questions, “I started driving when I was 17”. Essentially incorporate your question into their answer. For some people, it's a little challenging to wrap their head around, but if you can give them an example, like the one I just did, they can usually grasp it pretty quick.

It might take them a little while to get the rhythm of it.  Listen carefully for it because answers that don't have context, especially if you don't want to have your question in the interview, and just want their answers to drive the story, you likely will not be able to use the response if the context isn't there.

TIP #8 - Zip It!

This tip is one that feels really weird to do, and somewhat counterintuitive. It’s basically, keep your mouth shut during the interviewee’s response. When you're interviewing somebody, you may feel compelled to respond with a “Yeah,” or “Uh huh,” or “Oh, wow!” It's very alien to not respond to someone, to just be quiet while somebody might be saying something fairly dramatic, personal or funny. The problem is, you don't want your voice to end up recorded in the shot.

You have to train yourself to express your connection with them through your expressions, while remaining in the moment. Eye contact is great. You’ll need to get in the habit of nodding, smiling, whatever is appropriate for the moment. Show them that you're their audience, you're present, you're completely absorbing every word they say. But doing it in a way where you are just totally silent.

TIP #9 - Listen for the Unexpected

This is where all your preparation, intuition and creative process are brought to bear in the interview. It’s where you listen for the unexpected, for the new information, the deeper layers of story that you’ve helped unleash. And they may be the first time you’re hearing these new details. Have a small notepad and pen at hand because something might get said that you want to follow up on later. Jot down quick notes because more information will come. If you don't write it down fast, it may totally go out of your head as you continue to listen to your interviewee. Give yourself quick notes on details that you want to follow up on. Listen as well for themes, subtexts, things that can actually inform new scenes to film or locations that you might want to go to with that person. You might already have a basic plan of what you want to film, but always be open to new information that can open up further creative doors. 

TIP #10 - Sculpt the Interview

As the filmmaker, think ahead to the edit and to the final film you’re after.  Exploration is always present in the process, but be prepared to direct and sculpt your interview. It might be an hour or two hour long interview, and it also might be your only opportunity to interview this person. It’s your job to make sure that you are getting all of your story beats. When you’re done, you want to be able to walk away from the interview with a cohesive story that hits all those points that you went into hoping to get, and hopefully more.

Some people are great storytellers. Some people are very shy. With some people, you turn the faucet on and the words just come flying out. Other people, it's really hard to pull stuff out of them. You want to listen carefully for what's coming at you. If things are muddy or unclear, maybe they started on a story, but then they went down another track and eventually circled back to their point. You want to listen for those types of situations and help your subject by asking them if they can rephrase that in a more succinct way? Can they say that in two, three, or four sentences? And if there are key moments that you need described so you can bridge gaps between one idea and the next, then go ahead and give them a prompt, you'll be happy you did.

BONUS TIP!

Sometimes people will say, “Hey, can I see your interview questions?” And here’s the bonus tip - don't show your interview questions. At least not all of the specific questions. Here’s why. I was working with a client. The client was doing the interviews. We had formulated the questions together and the interviewee had asked the client, “Hey, can I see the questions?” The client felt no harm in that and they let the individual look at all the questions. However, what ended up happening is upon the first question, that person had all the questions in their head and just blasted out all the answers to every single question, like a machine gun blast of unorganized information. We had to regroup and reset the whole thing. It had taken the spontaneity out of the situation. All those nerves got just bundled up in the interviewee, and they launched all that information out making for a really challenging and disjointed interview.

Holding back the questions isn’t always appropriate for every situation, and you’ll need to feel things out as you go. In the case of client work, it might be nessisary to supply the quetions. Senior executives like to be prepared and will often ask for the questions, and you’ll find that many people in their position are used to speaking and answering questions, so it’s usually not a problem.

In general, if people are curious or nervous and want to see the questions, I recommend describing a top view of what you're planning to cover, just enough information so that they know what they're getting into, and can start to think about the topic. That's the bonus tip. Hold those questions close to your chest so that you can be the director and you can be the guide that is shepherding the story forward.

Some Final Thoughts on Making Documentaries

Documentaries allow us to experience the lives of others and walk in someone else's shoes for just a moment. As a filmmaker, if you are able to create a safe and trusting environment, a well prepared interview can really tap into deep human storytelling and can often lead to unexpected insights into your character and story. Through words and questions, you're basically mining a human story. You're digging deep, and if you work your way into those murky, uncharted areas, you will often find surprising, revealing stories about the human condition. So dig deep and treat your subject's story with care and sensitivity, and you'll be rewarded with material you never imagined was sitting right there in front of you. 

Jacob Pander