Interviews

For my portfolio I was required to interview two people with jobs within the media industry. This was a great opportunity to develop some interviewing skills, but also to find out what it’s like working within the industry.
Before each interview we got into groups of three and discussed what questions we were each going to ask. We took careful consideration in planning what questions would work and what wouldn’t but also questions that would be relevant to what we want to find out. During an interview it’s best to ask ‘open’ questions such as

• What?
• When?
• Where?
• Who?
• How?
• Which?
• Why?

Because that way your more likely to get a detailed answer rather than a “yes” or “No”. When interviewing someone as an Interviewer it’s best to ask just one question to the interviewee at a time rather than multiple questions such as

‘ Why was it that the meeting broke up in disorder, and how will you prevent this happening in future? Was there a disruptive element?
- McLeish (2007)

‘The interviewee presented with two questions may answer the first and then genuinely forget the second, or my exercise the apparent option to answer which one is easier. In either case there is a loss of control on the part of the interviewer, as the initiative passes to the interviewee.’
- McLeish (2007)

Reference:
McLEISH, R. (2007) Radio Production. Oxford: Focal Press


The first person we interviewed was Kim Brooke a director. Kim gave us some extremely long interesting answers and this interview was quite a challenge to edit because we had to cut a 36minute interview down to just 2minutes. At first this task seemed quite daunting because I was unsure of what material to keep, and what to cut out but after listening to the interview a number of times, making notes of relevant information. I decided to structure my interview like a timeline of Kim’s career.
Starting with the first question ‘What interested you about a career within the media industry?’ What career path did you take?’ ‘What are you working on now? And What’s next for you?

The second person we interviewed was a director called Tom Cholmondeley. During this interview I wanted to take another direction, rather than finding out a timeline of his career, I wanted to find out what it’s like to be a director.
Again before the interview we each planned what questions we were going to ask, what order we were going to ask them in and what we each wanted to get from the interview.
Tom gave us some long interesting answers and stories from his career. Like Kim’s interview Tom’s was equally hard to edit – because there was so much material it’s difficult to select what is best to use and what isn’t. But I just listened through the interview a couple of times making notes of good questions with good answers and then began editing. It was a little disappointing we had to cut the interview down to just 2miutes because there is so much material that is really interesting to listening to and very entertaining. I would have liked to have, been able to edit together a longer interview. However having the chance to interview these people gave me the opportunity to develop my interviewing techniques, which then helped me when interviewing medical professionals for our group radio show. I felt more confident in being able to interview. Although I did feel a little nervous before interviewing the medical professionals because this time I was on my own and when interviewing the directors I was in a group of three. However I think all the interviews went well and I am pleased with the final outcome.