Crafting Skillful Interviews
Need to shoot an important interview? Learn the craft of staging interviews for the camera by following these expert techniques.During the news interview the reporter bumbled through one dumb question after another. The smart interviewee, sensing that he was stuck with an inexperienced journalist, just ignored the reporter's questions and talked about whatever he wanted the public to hear. As the subject spoke, the reporter's producer scribbled mysteriously on a yellow legal tablet.
Later, when the subject had left, the lights and camera were re-aimed at the reporter, who read a completely different set of questions from that legal pad.
Back in the news room, a video editor would replace the reporter's original-but-stupid questions with the producer's subsequent-but-smart ones, and the composite sequence would make the reporter look like an actual journalist instead of a dope in a network blazer.
Even if you're a whiz at the interview process you can still use the production techniques that saved that dim reporter--techniques that are part of the expert craft of staging interviews for the c…
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