How to conduct an interview

Carrying out a successful interview is difficult. It’s smashing that you’ve been given the to interview someone famous, it's definitely going to make someone jealous. However, without some preparation , something significant to say and the means to help your interviewee feel at home , then there won’t be more interviews in the future. Listen closely : here’s one or two things that might prove useful.

What you need to realise is that your interviewee is only human. Yes they may have their own fragrance and yes, they did meet Justin Bieber. Yet what’s not often remember﻿ed is that they have the same or similar anxieties as you. They’ve walked into a bin, they once missed bin collection day, they’ve had a bad chicken wing from KFC and they have , at some point in their life , been just as nervous as you. Maybe. Unless you're interviewing K9 from Doctor Who.

Without a doubt, my favourite interview is Mila Kunis talking to Chris Stark from the Scott Mills show. It’s not exactly your typical interview, everything about it should have made it not work , but by acquainting himself with his subject he’s able to realise what sort of conversation his subject would like. If you haven’t seen it yet, then here it is , Stark actually says the words "we have this things called a lad bomb...":

Why does he come off so well ? Imagine your Mila Kunis for a second ( I wish ), when promoting a new film , there is going to be hundreds of interviews , and the content is more or less going to be precisely the same. If there’s been ten interviews in one day the same question keeps coming up, then it’s going to be rather boring. It’s noticeable in this particular interview that words have been said before they’ve even started to film, smoothly generating a warm and friendly interview atmosphere. He also makes himself quite approachable when he starts by informing us that he’s nervous, which spurs encouraging words from his subject helping her to feel less susceptible to the penetrating stare of her interviewer , and maybe even stimulating more detailed responses.

The whole interview is rendered into an entertaining chat and not just a series of incessant questions - and we’re likely to have learnt more about Mila Kunis because of it. It transpires that because Stark is willing to disclose his own personal information, so that the interview isn’t entirely one sided , then his subject is far more likely to respond in greater detail. Would we know that Mila’s favourite colour is purple had Chris not suggested she wore a yellow Watford FC jersey ? A significant part of conducting a successful interview is adding personal flourishes, people can’t empathise with a robot.

We might not have learnt much about Mila’s latest film, but we know more about our interviewee and how to get 12 million hits on YouTube. All you need to do is offer your subject a steak and ale pie.

A really good video to watch is this Lambda films blog, a video production company in Norwich , entitled How to conduct an interview. It looks at some really basic techniques you can use when interviewing. Simple things such as the way seating is arranged can make all the difference.