Preparing for the Interview

You should decide early on in your filmmaking process whether your voice will be an element in the final film. If it is, you will have to make sure it is recorded as you ask questions. If it isn’t, think of ways of framing your questions that will require your subject to answer in a full statement that will make sense to the viewer. Questions that result in a “yes” or “no” answer should be avoided.

Before you interview someone, write up a list of questions. If you are interviewing someone who has written or spoken widely about your subject, make sure you have read or watched at least some of what they have written or said. This will give you a sense of their perspective. It’s also important for you to have a sense of how they might fit into the film as you understand it at that moment. Will they be confirming your hypothesis? Giving a counter opinion? While they may surprise you, having an idea of their role in your film will help you avoid asking questions that are too broad or unlikely to provide useful material. If you are doing a film that is more investigative and your interviewee is likely to try and dodge difficult questions, you will need to have hard facts on hand.

Some questions will be designed to elicit factual information you need to tell your story, particularly if you aren’t planning on using narration for exposition. Other questions will be designed to draw out more analytical points, or emotional content. As a general rule, start with the easier questions and work your way up to the material that is likely going to be more difficult for your subject to talk about.

Finally, think storytelling. Try to get your interviewee to tell you stories about what happened, not just opinions about issues. Here it is useful to use the distinction Louise Spence and Vinicius Navarro make in their book Crafting Truth: Documentary Form and Meaning² between primary and secondary sources in documentary. Primary sources are people who directly experienced an event you are dealing with in your film. They are often participants or eyewitnesses. From them you want the story of what happened, what they saw, and how they felt. Their opinion of the issue may be important, but try to get an account of the actual experience first. People often feel more comfortable giving opinions than telling you what happened and how they felt about it. Secondary sources are often experts, like academics or policy makers. They are more likely to contribute opinion and analysis to your documentary. This is valuable as well. It can be useful to ask them to speak personally as well as in their expert capacity. An example is coauthor Kelly Anderson’s interview with Craig Wilder, a historian, in My Brooklyn (2012). Craig’s role in the film is to explain the concept of redlining, the process of mapping urban neighborhoods by race and denying access to credit to those occupied by African-Americans. In the interview, however, she asked him to speak personally about his experiences growing up in Brooklyn, yielding material like this interview bite:

Moments like these add humor and warmth to Wilder’s character in the film, making him a primary as well as a secondary source. If you are having a hard time coming up with questions, Storycorps has a great list to get you started (storycorps.org/great-questions).

Interview Location

Remember that the setting of an interview, whether a cluttered lawyer’s office, a perfectly arranged home, a factory floor, outside a prison, or on a boat, adds context and can speak volumes about your character. Also remember that if you can’t hear your character over the ambient sound in the location, or the ambience is distracting, you are better off in another place.

Your choice of location for your interview will also depend on the style of your documentary. If you are shooting an observational documentary without formal interviews, you will likely be interviewing your subject in a setting directly related to their everyday life, say at the kitchen table or sitting on the couch. Having your interviewee do a simple activity while talking can work wonders in terms of relaxing them. In fact, a common approach to stilted acting in theater and narrative film is to give the actors something to do while they say their lines.

■ Figure 15.2 In Sherman’s March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, director Ross McElwee interviews his sister while they are canoeing, and a former girlfriend as she is making bread.

In Sherman’s March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South during an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation (1986), director Ross McElwee takes us on a journey that is ostensibly about General Sherman’s march of destruction through the South during the American Civil War. As this wry documentary unfolds, though, it becomes about McElwee’s quest to find a romantic partner. This director takes an unusual approach to interviewing: he interviews people as they are engaged in unusual daily activities, from milking a cow to making bread to canoeing. The result is visually interesting, provides additional information about each character and the environment, and relaxes the subject so that they speak more spontaneously (Figure 15.2).

Another version of this approach is the walk-and-talk interview, where the camera follows the subject as they show us around a particular location. This setup has all the advantages of the above approaches, with the added benefit of allowing the subject to show us what they are speaking about. An example is an interview with historian Craig Wilder in My Brooklyn. Wilder walks around the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY, as he describes the history of the area (Figure 15.3). The approach adds movement and dynamism that can be a nice alternative to a formal seated interview.

There are times, however, when a more formal approach to interviewing is appropriate, and this is still the most common approach for documentary interviews. By “more formal,” we mean a setup where the subject has been deliberately asked to sit or stand in a particular location, time has been spent lighting the setup (usually a three-point lighting setup, as explained in Chapter 12), and they answer questions. Generally, the person conducting the interview is off-screen, though this is not always the case.

■ Figure 15.3 Craig Wilder speaks about his neighborhood as he walks down the street he grew up on in this “walk-and-talk” interview in My Brooklyn.

in practice

■ Choosing the Right Background

Interviews are the bread and butter of documentaries, but doing them well and maintaining interest is far from easy. Charles Ferguson’s Academy Award^®-winning Inside Job (2010) is a close investigation of the role of the financial sector in the 2008 global economic crash. Cinematographer Svetlana Cvetko creates a variety of interview setups that differ widely while still offering an elegance, an attention to background, and rich lighting. All these factors emphasize both the power position of the interview subjects and the scrutiny to which they are being subjected (Figure 15.4).

■ Figure 15.4 In Inside Job, cinematographer Svetlana Cvetko’s approach ensures the interviews avoid being generic. Here, shots bounded by glass and steel, million dollar views, and fake forest wall coverings give a flavor of the corporate world, while the medium shot chosen for the interviews gives a feel for the subjects’ body languages and fashion senses.

Sometimes a director will place a subject in a situation that is particularly evocative for both the audience and the subject. As Michael Rabiger says in his book Directing the Documentary (Fifth Edition), “Settings shake loose many emotion-laden memories. The fact is that we are not fixed in whom we are . . . the context to each exchange and the personality of each inter-locutor always draws something a little different.”⁴

In Hiroshima Bound (2015), coauthor Martin Lucas takes Hiroshima survivor Clara Yoshida to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial at Ground Zero in downtown Hiroshima City. The locale, a tourist spot, might seem an overly predictable or generic place to conduct an interview with a survivor. Initially, Ms. Yoshida offers a fairly typical first-person account of her memories of August 6, 1945. Ultimately, though, the location provokes an intriguingly unexpected response:

Lucas: This is a place that people come to from all over the world. But how about for you? Is this a place that you visit in your own life? Ms. Yoshida: Yes. Once in a while I visit, but even if I take my visitors—you know, people from foreign countries—I take them here. But I wait outside. I don’t want . . . It’s very hard for me to look again and again, you know, at the same thing. So I just ask them to look at it by themselves.

The tone of Ms. Yoshida’s voice, her hesitations, and the expression on her face when confronted with the location convey to the viewer the immense pain that, even after 60 years, this experience has caused her (Figure 15.5).

■ Figure 15.5 Ms. Yoshida stands in the park outside the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Hiroshima Bound.

A formal interview gives the director and crew much more control over the lighting and sound aspects of the location. It also gives both the interviewer and the subject the ability to be focused. In an era of short sound bites, an extended interview allows people a chance to explain complex or nuanced ideas. There may also be ethical reasons one would choose to do a formal interview. Filmmaker Tami Gold explains why she and coauthor Kelly Anderson chose to do formal interviews with the three main characters of Every Mother’s Son:

See Chapters 6 and 14 for more on the importance of selecting the best locations for your interview.

Setting up the Interview: Visual Considerations

In addition to choosing a revealing location, creating strong visual compositions, and recording clean sound, there is the important question of where to place the interviewer relative to the person being interviewed, and to the camera.

Eyeline and Subject Placement

Eyeline in filmmaking refers to what the subject appears to be looking at. In documentary, this will generally be an off-screen interviewer. The critical issue is how close the interviewer is to the camera’s lens. Because the lens is a surrogate for the audience, there is a strong emotional and psychological component to eyeline. When the person being interviewed looks directly into the lens, she appears to be speaking to us (the viewers). The further her eyeline moves away from the lens, the more distant we are from her, and the more aware we are that she is speaking to another person who is in the room. In an observational scene that involves two or more people, the off-screen person may be another key player in the scene. In an interview, however, you generally want maximum rapport between the person being interviewed and the audience, as that is what will keep your audience engaged. As with anything, you can break this rule and “trouble” this engagement for your own ethical or aesthetic reasons, but know the rules before you break them, and break them for good reason!

In documentary interviewing, we generally avoid having interviewees look directly into the camera lens as they are speaking. Why? Whether or not the audience is conscious of it, documentaries are generally expected to be authored by a person, the filmmaker. Speaking directly to the audience in the direct address used by news anchors is therefore awkward and out of sync with the documentary tradition. In addition, interviewees tend to speak more comfortably when they are making eye contact with a person instead of looking into a camera lens.

Having your subject’s eyeline as close to the lens as possible, without looking into it, means placing the interviewer right next to the lens. Whether the interviewer is to the right or left of the lens will depend on the composition of the frame, and is something you should discuss with your cinematographer before they set lights. Generally you will place your subject on the left side of the frame if the interviewer is sitting to the right of the camera, and vice versa. This creates appropriate lookspace and a more dynamic frame (Chapter 7). Often directors will have half their subjects placed on the left side of the frame, and the other half on the right, resulting in what feels more like a natural conversation than a series of individual statements. If two characters are likely to be intercut a lot, it is common to try and place them on opposite sides of the frame so they will balance one another out in the final film (Figure 15.6).

■ Figure 15.6 Eyeline and subject placement. In Every Mother’s Son, the directors placed their subjects (attorney Susan Karten, left, and Kadiatou Diallo, right) on the left and right sides of the frame, respectively. They are speaking to an interviewer positioned on the opposite side of the camera, close to the lens, creating an intimate rapport with the viewer.

A notable exception to the eyeline rule is filmmaker Errol Morris’ interrotron, a complex teleprompter-type device that projects an image of the interviewer right in front of the lens, allowing the interviewee to speak to a person while looking into the camera’s lens. The result is effective and unsettling for the audience (Figure 15.7). Another exception is the video diary that has become part of many documentaries, especially as technological developments have put cameras in the hands of pretty much anyone. In the video diary, subjects speak to the camera directly. The effect is highly intimate because we assume there is no interviewer there, and we are experiencing the unmediated confessions of the person speaking (Figure 15.8).

■ Figure 15.7 Errol Morris’ interrotron encourages the interviewee to look directly into the lens, to unsettling effect. This image is from Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999).

■ Figure 15.8 The video diaries in Mark Levinson’s Particle Fever (2013) have a direct “into the camera” eyeline, creating intimacy.

In addition to making sure your interviewee is close to the camera lens, make sure they do not sit or stand higher or lower than the lens unless you are making a specific aesthetic statement. It is a common mistake to have subjects’ eyelines looking down or up, creating a distracting confusion for the viewer, who is left to wonder who they are looking at. This is a common occurrence when one person is handling the camera on a tripod and doing the interview at the same time, as they are often standing higher than the lens if the subject is sitting. The exception, of course, is the handheld cinéma vérité interview with a shoulder-mounted camera, where the cameraperson is by definition at eye-level (see examples from Sherman’s March on p. 246).

Conducting the Interview

Once you are on location, you can put your subject at ease with light conversation while the crew is setting up, or allow them to do whatever makes them comfortable on their own. Take care not to tax them with difficult conversations, as you want them to have energy when you start filming! Also try not to talk with them about material that is part of the interview content. It’s fine to say, “That’s a great story, can you wait and tell me about it on camera?”

Lighting an interview always takes time, so avoid tiring out your subject by having her sit under hot lights while the crew sets up. Have a production assistant or somebody else sit in the interviewee’s seat until the setup is almost finished, and then your subject can sit in for some last minute tweaking. Finally, a bit of foundation and face power, and a tissue or paper towel, can be useful in reducing any shine from perspiration on their face.

Before rolling, prepare your subject by reminding her what you want from them in broad terms. People generally want to please you, and will do better when they know the general focus of the interview. Let them know you will be editing the interview, so they are welcome to stop and start again if they don’t like how they phrased something. Also tell them you may interrupt and refocus them. If your questions are not going to be part of the film, you will need to ask them to speak in complete thoughts. This is sometimes a difficult thing for subjects to grasp until you demonstrate it for them with a quick rehearsal. Often it goes something like this:

Once they get the hang of it, you will interrupt them less and less.

During the interview, remember to position yourself as close to the camera lens as possible, and maintain eye contact with your subject. You can remind her to look at you, especially if she is looking around at other crew members. It is a good idea to ask sound people and other crew to stay out of the subject’s line of sight, or at least refrain from making eye contact with the subject, so she isn’t tempted to keep looking away while talking. As your subject is talking, give nonverbal encouragement by nodding or through your facial expressions. Do not, however, fall into the common novice trap of saying “Yes,” or “Uh huh,” or “Right,” while they are talking. Your voice will end up on the soundtrack and make it incredibly hard to edit the dialogue.

It is our recommendation that you prepare a solid list of questions that covers everything you think you might need for the film. Bring the list with you, and put it away during the interview so you aren’t tempted to look at your paper instead of maintaining eye contact with your subject. At the end of the interview, you can consult your list of questions to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything.

The single most important thing you can do while interviewing someone is to listen. This is easier said than done, as you may find yourself nervously thinking about the next question instead of listening to what is happening in the moment. Listening is important because the best interview questions are almost always follow-up questions. If you are really listening to someone talk, they will say things that are clues to deeper content. When a subject offers you a hint of something meaningful and relevant to your film, and you are really listening, you can ask them a follow-up question. Here’s an example from Every Mother’s Son:

A director who wasn’t listening might not have picked up on the “upstairs kitchen” reference, yet it was the key to unlocking an important detail about Iris that reveals much about her character.

Other follow-up questions that work well are things like, “Why?” or “What do you mean?” Just asking someone to go deeper, or to clarify, will often get to something more emotional. Sometimes just saying something empathetic, like “It sounds like that was really difficult” can be effective.

When interviewing, resist the temptation to fill in silences too quickly. Nobody likes awkward moments, but they can be useful in an interview. Sometimes your subject will pause, and if you just stay silent, they will fill in the silence, often with something valuable. Also, allow them time to reflect, recall, and then add more. The silent pause at the end of a statement can also be powerful, and you can destroy that moment by speaking too soon. On the other hand, if your interviewee is going off on a tangent about something you know you won’t use, feel free to gently but firmly interrupt him and redirect him. In addition, not all interview subjects are created equal. If you are interviewing a spokesperson for a cause, or a public relations person, he will have specific training on how to shift the agenda in a direction that suits him. Keep an eye out for answers that feel rehearsed, and be ready to reapproach an issue from a direction that might get a more genuine or spontaneous answer. Letting someone run away with an interview is not good directing!

At the end of the interview, it’s good practice to ask subjects, “Is there anything else you’d like to say?” You might also ask the crew if they have any questions to add. If they have been working on the project for a while, they are often likely to think of something you have overlooked. And don’t forget to get a signed release (Chapter 5)!