While not every Photo Documentary requires an interview, a great interview can make or break a Photo Documentary that aims to tell an individual’s story.
The best interviews are, quite simply, guided conversations. Yet getting a relaxed, natural, candid interview can be more challenging than you might expect. So what makes a great interview, and how can you help make your Photo Documentary unforgettable?
The Interviewer
I always encourage a loved one or a friend to conduct the interview. The reason for this is simple: familiarity leads to comfort, and comfort leads to the best interviews.
Beyond that, being able to ask the questions you’ve always wanted answers to or else having an opportunity to start a conversation you never felt the right opening to have, can be an intimate, transformative, and powerful experience.
It can even be argued that the interview itself, when conducted by a loved one, can be an even more powerful takeaway than the Photo Documentary it’s for.
A loved one will have a personal history with their subject and be able to draw from those experiences to help direct the conversation, and might be able to tap into the kinds of anecdotes and stories you wish to be told.
While we are happy to conduct the interview ourselves if desired, we believe it is important that we offer the opportunity to have an open and emotional conversation and want to prepare you as thoroughly as we can to make the entire experience a core memory for everyone involved.
Preparation
Without a doubt, the most important part of an interview is doing your homework.
Having an idea what story you want to tell and doing the research to know what questions to ask and how to direct the conversation toward the end goal are essential to getting the sound bytes necessary to put together a solid end product.
Having props available and ready — things for them to hold, to talk about, and for us to photograph — can be useful to help guide the conversation and prompt the responses you’re looking for.
Watch some episodes of “The Hot Ones” (available for free on YouTube) and pay attention to how Sean Evans asks questions designed to spark a back and forth with his guest, or prompt a specific story, and notice how well-researched his questions are.
While we don’t recommend making your subject eat hot wings while they talk (we will likely be photographing during the interview), there is a lot that you can learn from watching skilled, yet informal, interviews such as those featured on “The Hot Ones.”
The Questions
Prepare a list of starter questions and prompts to help move the conversation along when and if it begins to stall, and mark the ones that are “must ask” questions (ones that are essential to telling the specific story you wish to have told) that can help get the conversation back on track if the topic begins to drift.
This is an important step, regardless of whether you are conducting the interview or Visual Voice is doing the talking, as it can be easy to miss asking the important questions when the conversation is moving fluidly, and an awkward silence and a scramble to think of something to say can kill the comfort on both sides.
When putting together your questions, keep in mind the target time of the Photo Documentary you’ve selected. For shorter Photo Documentaries, aim for just a handful of questions — ones to set the tone and ease your subject into the conversation, and then the important ones — so that the audio clips are of high quality and to-the-point. On the flipside, for longer Photo Documentaries, including a larger quantity of questions and allowing for more free-flowing and candid conversation to fill the time is ideal.