Interview Techniques
Secondary Research For Interviews
We did a lot of secondary research before conducting our interviews, as we wanted to know what topics we wanted to include in our documentary and therefore know what questions we needed to ask to get the desired response. The first thing we did was watch other documentaries on censorship to gauge how original this idea was and how we could tackle the issue of media censorship. Most of the documentaries on media censorship just simply examine a load of specific cases of media censorship without focusing too much on the morality or practicalities of censorship such as the BBC documentary on British Board of Film Classification called ‘Dear Censor’. So we decided in our documentary to tackle documentary from a more general moral/ethical stance asking the question ‘is censorship right or wrong’. We wanted to keep our documentary balanced so we decided to spend as much time on the positives of censorship as the negatives. We went on a lot of discussion forums such as Digital Spy and watched TV discussion programs on censorship such as the national coalition against censorship coalition panel hour long program. This helped stimulate discussion between me and the person I was making the documentary. From these discussion we agreed to definitely include the role of media censorship in repressive societies. We wanted to keep the documentary as balanced and objective as possible. We decided to break down the documentary into 6 main chapters/sections one section stating a negative aspect of censorship and the following chapter stating a positive aspect of censorship, therefore we can state three benefits and three disadvantages of censorship. For example one section of the censorship would be about how media censorship can stifle creativity then the following section would be about what could happen if we didn’t have censorship. For each section we want to have a voice over narration, which states an example of an incident/event from history, which illustrates the point being made in the chapter, then we cut to some interview responses, which relate to the section. We were therefore making an expository documentary. We also deiced that we don’t want to include the sound of the interviewer asking the questions to be in final documentary. Therefore we needed to research examples incidents of media censorship that illustrate our points. Our brief stated that our documentary had to be short around the running time of 10 minutes so we couldn’t give too much of a detailed account of the incidents in the documentary so we therefore didn’t want to waste time researching the example incidents in too thoroughly. For example in one section when we talk about the severely consequences of censorship we recount the death of Victor Jara under the Chilean Pinochet government we just simply state the reason Pinochet targeted Victor Jara among other members of the new Chilean song movement and anti government spokesmen, when he was killed and how we was killed. We don’t include how he was found out, how he was captured or the public reaction to his death as we simply don’t have time and it’s not essential to the documentary. Although we only have time in our documentary to include one example incident for each section we decided to research a multitude of incidents so we can ask the interviewees about them or use them to provoke answers from the interviewees. It also helps to know about as many example incidents so if the interviewees mention them in the response we can ask follow up questions. Therefore I also watched a 2 part 4 hour long set of feature film documentaries on Tiananmen Square massacre called ‘Gates of Heavenly Peace’ and an episode of the popular TV show panorama which investigated the censorship in Azerbaijan around the time of the Eurovision song contest and skimmed through text books on Nazi Germany such ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich : A History of Nazi Germany‘ by William L. Shirer, as they were example of extreme state censorship of the media. We also decided that we would choose to interview people we thought were intelligent and would be likely to know about media censorship for example A star A level students and Media teachers and Media students. However we did want most of the interviewees to give general interviews which didn’t reference specific cases of censorship. Most of our research for these six negative and positives sections of the documentary was qualitative research however we also needed some quantitative research such as how many films were censored in the UK.
As well as the six main sections on the positives and negatives of censorship we will also include four introductory sections that introduce the importance of media in the modern world, what censorship is, different kinds of media censorship and how media censorship works in this country. Most of these sections required quantitative research, as I needed to give the audience a general view of the scale of importance of media censorship. For example in the first section which states the importance of media in modern society we needed to find on average how many people get their news updates from television or newspapers. We therefore visited websites which give statistics on media consumption such as Infodocket.com. We also needed to start thinking of what songs we were goanna use for documentary. We decided that the tone of our documentary was serious so we needed to use serious songs. We therefore looked on many top ten piano instrumentals such as www.lastfm.com and went on online discussion forums such as yahoo answers. We will still continue to do a mass of secondary as well as primary research as we are still playing around with the shooting script.
As well as the six main sections on the positives and negatives of censorship we will also include four introductory sections that introduce the importance of media in the modern world, what censorship is, different kinds of media censorship and how media censorship works in this country. Most of these sections required quantitative research, as I needed to give the audience a general view of the scale of importance of media censorship. For example in the first section which states the importance of media in modern society we needed to find on average how many people get their news updates from television or newspapers. We therefore visited websites which give statistics on media consumption such as Infodocket.com. We also needed to start thinking of what songs we were goanna use for documentary. We decided that the tone of our documentary was serious so we needed to use serious songs. We therefore looked on many top ten piano instrumentals such as www.lastfm.com and went on online discussion forums such as yahoo answers. We will still continue to do a mass of secondary as well as primary research as we are still playing around with the shooting script.
Planning the Interviews
We planned to film some interviewers for test footage for our documentary about censorship with the working title ‘Censorship should we be concerned’ to be taken place on the mornings of Monday 10th and Friday 16th of December 2012. We decided to film the interviews on 9th in the broadcast studio. We decided the previous week to only the equipment necessary to interview one person on his own which was one camera and one tripod, three lights, one shotgun mic and one omnidirectional mic one Samson Zoom to record the sound on to. We only wanted to only use the necessary equipment because we didn’t want the studio to get too cluttered if it didn’t need to be, however we did use two different kinds of mic so we could have some variety to choose from in postproduction. We divided the roles between four people one of us was filming, one of us was in charge of monitoring sound one of us of was asking questions. Sadly this meant that one of us had to sit out while the interviews were taken place because there were only three necessary roles during filming. However we conducted two interviews that day therefore we could switched roles between the interviews. In the second interview the person who was filming was on sound the person who was on sound was filming. We agreed on these roles collectively as a group on the day of filming. I insisted on asking the questions as I had written them and I had conducted the most research on the topic. We all set up the three point lighting together, we decided to only use three point lighting and didn’t use any house lighting as we wanted to black out the background, but still used a back light so we could separate the interviewee from the background. On the Friday we conducted three on location interviews in the media room 1116 at on location. We again only used one tripod, one camera, one zoom, one omnidirectional mic, however we did also use one boom pole, which we attached a directional mic to. Again we only wanted to use the necessary equipment. This time we had four roles to divide the labor between so one of us was filming, one of us was monitoring sound, one of us was holding the boom pole and one was us was asking questions. I again insisted on asking the questions, for the same reasons as the other interview. The rest of the crew switched their roles between them again as they did in the previous interview. The questions I asked were all about censorship and I structured them in the structure of the documentary as I had divided the documentary into chapters consisting of narration over some archive footage and a response from interviewee giving an opinion on the view point presented. Their and I wanted a response from the interviewer I could put in each chapter. For example in the documentary there is a chapter about what consequences of too much censorship and there is a chapter after that about the consequences of too little censorship. So I asked a question ‘What do you think it would be like if we didn’t have censorship? What’s the worst that can happen?’ and ‘Do you think there’s been a time when we really needed censorship?’. We pre planned both of the interviewers however we then did a bit of improvised filming when we experimented with depth of field, making the foreground in focus and the background of focus, however I don’t like these shots when I see them on TV and I don’t want to use them in my documentary.
Interview Questions
These were the interview questions we prepared for the interview however during the interview I did ask follow up questions and some of the responses from the interviewee's inspired me to come up with new additional questions on the spot. I wrote this questions as a base for the interview as I knew I would ask additional and follow up questions during the interview. However any additional and follow up questions I thought of at the time were mostly variations of my preprepared questions.
Interview questions
· What effect do you think the media has on people?
· What is media censorship?
· Who do you think censors the media?
· Why do you think we have media censorship?
· Do you think we need media censorship?
· What do you think it would be like if we didn’t have censorship? What’s the worst that can happen?
· Do you think there’s been a time when we really needed media censorship?
· Has the media affected any opinions that you hold?
· Do you think media censorship has ever been harmful or bad?
Interview questions
· What effect do you think the media has on people?
· What is media censorship?
· Who do you think censors the media?
· Why do you think we have media censorship?
· Do you think we need media censorship?
· What do you think it would be like if we didn’t have censorship? What’s the worst that can happen?
· Do you think there’s been a time when we really needed media censorship?
· Has the media affected any opinions that you hold?
· Do you think media censorship has ever been harmful or bad?
Popplet Interview Planning
Interviews
Interviews Analysis
On the mornings of Tuesday the 9th and Friday the 19th of October me and a small film crew consisting of three fellow BTEC media students conducted some filmed interviews for the purpose of test footage as well as for the purpose of primary research. We interviewed two people on the 9th and three people on the19th. The responses from these interviews were all very similar. The interviews were useful and might make good bits of footage that we might use in the final documentary, however we didn’t learn much from the interviewees. For example we asked them some closed questions such as ‘Do you there's ever been an example of too much censorship’ in hope of the interviewee giving an example of a time where has been too much censorship that I wasn’t previously aware of, which I could further conduct secondary research into. However none of the responses referenced any specific incidents or examples. For example when I asked ‘do you think the media has effected any opinions you hold’ the response was good but the interviewee didn’t give a specific example to illustrate his point. Some times I even referenced a specific incident in the question to provoke a specific response but it still didn’t provoke any more specific answers. For example when I asked ‘do you ever think there’s been a specific time when we needed censorship like the Innocence of Muslim’s Film or the pictures of Kate Middleton with her things out’ the response was ‘we’ll I don’t think it was that big a deal because half the world has seen them. So I don’t think it would have that much of an impact’ and then he moved on to another point. I chose more recent events as I thought the interview would be more likely to know more about it than the Suez Canal cover up in the 40s. I was hoping to get the interviewee to give a specific narration of an event/incident so I could play it over archive footage and cut back to the actuality footage of the interviewee in the final documentary. Although a lot of the non specific responses were very useful as they are good summations of the topics featured in my documentary. I wanted to get some vague summary more philosophical responses that weren’t attached to anything specifically as media censorship is a huge topic and I wanted to cover as much of it ass possible. For example when I asked the question ‘what effect do you think the media has on people’ one of the responses was ‘You probably decided the opinion of a country with the media’ which is a great impactful response I will almost definitely use a vox pop at the start of the documentary when I cover how important the media is. Although these interviews didn’t serve well as primary research themselves they did make me realize I need to select interviewee’s who would be more likely to be knowledgeable on the questions asked. I chose to interview people who I thought were intelligent and therefore be likely to know about media censorship. However these interviews made me realize I need to find out prior to the interview if the interviewee’s would know anything about media censorship. Furthermore when the interviews were conducted we still weren’t certain what specific incidents involving media censorship we were goanna include in the documentary, so the questions were all a bit too vague. Since then we’re got our documentary more anchored down and we now know exactly what incidents involving censorship will we include in our documentary. Therefore next time when conduct an interview we will ask the interviewee specific questions on North Korea, the death of Victor Jara and the Natural Born Killers copycat killings. I will also stand next to the camera infront of the interviewee so when the interviewee looks at me to answer the question he will be looking at the camera. We would still like to get a lot more vague more philosophical answers like we're already received however we also want interviews that feature responses on more specific issues or moments from history. Therefore we will be interviewing people we already know have a mass of knowledge on what we want them to talk in detail about. For example we would like to get a good interview response on how Nazi Germany used censorship therefore we will ask Mrs Shelly a history teacher who has taught me Nazi Germany multiple times in the past.
Interview Structure And Conduct
When planning our interviews at the beginning we found that our interviewee wasn't always aware of what we required from them answer wise all they knew was that the documentary was going to be on censorship. As a result of this some of their answers weren't as well thought through as they could of been so we learnt from our mistakes and decided it was in our best interests to pre warn the interviewee about what sought of questions we could ask them in order to get the best and most thought through response from them. We achieved this by emailing the questions to the interviewee about three days before hand so they were able to fully grasp the question. In some other interviews we went to the interviewee and spoke to them about what the interview was going to be about and we had a little meeting where we spoke about the types of questions and the possible answers that could be given to the questions. In some cases we had some interviews that were very short notice due to the tight schedules of some of our interviewee's so in order to best pre pair them for the interview we got them to meet us 10 or 15 minutes before the interview where we got a chance to briefly go through the questions so they could begin thinking of how they would respond to these questions. We had a list of questions which were scripted, this enabled us to show the interviewee so when we asked the interviewee some improvised follow up questions they would not be thrown by this as they will understand how it links onto our next point as they would of seen the next question which again helps the interviewee give good detail answers but as well as that it also helps keep the interview relevant. When we scripted the questions we had a mixture of open and closed questions where the closed questions were used to get more of a general consensus almost like statistics or a survey. The open questions although they were open were worded in a way that made them relevant and helped lead the interviewee to the answers we wanted. When we conducted our interviews we decided to go for a formal but friendly style we felt this was best because we wanted to show that our documentary was a very serious topic and we wanted to make it look professional so that is where the formal element comes from. The friendly element comes from the fact that we didn't want to challenge our interviewee's and cross examine partly because they volunteered for this but also because they are the experts in their field and they know what their talking about where we don't, we were mainly interested also in their opinion and you cant challenge someones opinion as wrong as everyone has a different opinion. We wanted to keep the atmosphere in the interview calm and friendly instead of combative as if we offended the interviewee they might be difficult and refuse to sign the release agreement. When interviewing our interviewee we had a certain structure to the interview where we started by saying thanks for agreeing to be interviewed at this point the interviewer and interviewee got aquented but this bit was not filmed. We then kicked off with our first question of what is censorship and who censors in order to get a general overview of how much our interviewee's knew about censorship. This part is also going to be at the start of our documentary so to an extent the structure of our interviews represented the structure of the documentary. We then asked our interviewee's what effect do they think the media has on people in order to try and grasp how powerful and influential the media can be in everyday life. The interviews then developed onto why do we have media censorship and do you think we need it, this was done in order to try and justify media censorship which would of helped keep the documentary balanced. We also asked some of our interviewee's about what they thought the world would be like without censorship and what would be the worst scenario that could happen if there was no censorship. This question was asked in order to see how important censorship can be and to empathises some of its positives. Later on during the interviews near the end we asked the interviewee's whehther there has been any times they know of where there was no censorship or a lack of censorship that caused problems e.g. innocens of muslims which lead to the americian ambassador being killed. This was a key question as it help put forth the argument or viewpoint that possibly there is a lack of censorship in certain areas. But to counter balance that question we also asked the interviewee's whether they knew of any times that there was to much censorship or to extreme censorship so much so that it caused harm e.g. nazi germany which put forward the argument that censorship can be dangerous and cause totalitarian dictatorship. Near the begining of the interview we also asked people do you think the media has effected any opinions you hold, this was asked in order to link back to how powerful the media is and how much influence it has. We also asked people different question depending on there field of expertise e.g. if they were a media teacher we asked them more specific question on censorship within film and about films that have supposedly caused tragic incidents like natural born killers and batman the dark night. If they were a journalist e.g. we asked them question about the Levison inquiry and about the phone hacking scandal, we also asked more specific questions about media witch hunts. To wind up the interviews we thanked the interviews for there time and sometimes we ended with the question do you agree with media censorship in order to point there point across especially as they are experts of some kind. In some of the interviews e.g. the interview with the journalist at the end we summarised a few points by asking them overlapping questions in order to empthasise key points. When interviewing there were some questions that went particularly well where we got a decent response e.g. questions such as can the media ever cause people to commit crimes, this question went well because we got both sides of the argument where some interviewee's stated how powerful the media is and explained how it can influence young and vunerable people into doing unnecessary things. But over people argued that the media is not solely responsible and clearly there must of been something wrong in the first place to cause them to act this way. Another question that went well was when we asked about who censors and whether they censor effectively this was because the question automatically triggered out interviewees to talk about the relevant topics that we wanted to cover such as the leveson inquiry, the phone hacking scandal and the press complaints commission which have all been hot topics in recent debates. During the interviews we also had some questions that didn't go so well or we didn't get the response we wanted e.g. does media censorship benefit national security, this was a particular difficult question as people didn't really understand the question as they didn't know much about how it effects national security they also couldn't think of any good examples to support there view. Most of our questions went well because we pre prepared the interviewee as best as we could but also what helped is our interviewee's understood the context of the questions and due to the events being so recent alot of the infomation was quite fresh to an extent particually the Levision enquiry and the death of jacintha Suldana.
Interview Recording
When filming our interviews we recorded them with our own external sound devices, so we could practice measuring sound levels and controlling the background noise/sound also known as the wild track. We had to record our own sound as part of the soundtrack unit that we did alongside our interview techniques and factual production unit. The main equipment we used to measure and record sound was a shotgun mic and a mic stand so we could position the mics in the most effective position to get the best quality sound. We used an xlr cable to attach the mic to the studio camera to get external sound which we recorded through the program on location so we could monitor the sound levels and so we didn’t have to export the footage to the computer after we finished recording. Most of our interviews were recorded in the studio where we could control the sound levels and location as the studio was sound proved and people can only use it if they book it out so we don’t get all the noise of people from other classrooms or people who walk past the camera as we are filming. We also did some interviews on location however we had less control over sound levels and we couldn’t prevent if someone walked in or past the camera when we were filming, but the bonus of on location was the interviewee felt comfortable. To measure the sound levels and record sound when filming on location we used the zoom mp3 recorder, which we plugged into the boom mic via an xlr cable. To film the actual footage for the on location shoot we used a cannon 550, then we synced the external sound up in postproduction. When recording some of the sound for the on location interviews we used a tie clip so we could plug a shotgun mic into the cannon 550 as it had better quality sound then the mic on the cannon, this meant the sound was already synced up however it made it more difficult to monitor sound levels as we had no device that would plug into the camera and mic.
Interview Planning
When conducting our interviews ideally I would like to deploy a range of question types as it keeps the interview interesting and it ensures we get a range of different answers from our interviewee’s. We will start with a few closed questions such as do you agree with media censorship?, do you think media censorship is necessary? Then we will open out the questions and develop the questions by asking the interviewee why they have this view, which will help keep our audience informed. We will also ask some open questions that don’t stem from previous closed question such as what do you think the world would be like without censorship, and how bad could things get without it? in order to give make the interview interesting and so we can cover a range of topics. We will also use questions that have multiple strands so we can develop our questions with ease and control the interviewee’s response e.g. has the media effected any opinions you may hold and to what extent has it effected your opinions? When we ask our open questions we want to get straight to the point and be direct, this is to get the answers we require without to much faithing around e.g. we will say do you agree with media censorship, is media censorship necessary? We will be more direct with the questions where we want to get a general overview of the general publics opinion on censorship. In terms of interview styling we hope our interviews will be hard news as we are focusing on solid real facts about censorship so we can keep our audience informed and so we don’t end up misleading them in anyway. We will get a lot of our facts when we interview our experts such as media teachers and history teachers. At times our interviews will be light hearted because we know our interviewee’s on a personal level as they are our teachers, our friends and peers, so when interviewing them I’m sure at points it will be like having a conversation with some friends so the atmosphere will be very relaxed and not combative at all. The main focus and the style of our interviews will be very investigative as we are trying to find out key facts about censorship to keep our audience informed, we also want to be investigative to find out what our interviewee’s true view and opinions on censorship so we can get a general consensus of how the general public feel. However we will not grill them for answers like Paxman we will just probe and ask specific questions until we have found the answer we are looking for. When being investigative we will ask a range of different interviewees some similar questions to see if we notice any colorations in what they are saying. There are several key purposes for conducting the interviews they are to a degree all just as important, these reasons for conducting the interviews are as follows, to gather research, to enhance the audience understanding, to present information, to explain or express an opinion and to create an emotional response from the audience. In the interviews we need to gather information so we can build our documentary around facts and figures instead of lies and opinions, this is key if we want our audience to believe what we are saying and if we don’t want to get sewed. The purpose of the interviews is to also help enhance the audiences understanding of censorship because if we do not succeed in doing this the audience will not understand the documentary and they will probably stop watching half way through which is what we don’t want to happen. Another key purpose of the interviews is to present information to the audience this is important so the audience doesn’t get all the information from a boring monotone voiceover. They way we hope to achieve this is by our interviews talking about specific events related to censorship and while they do this they will explain using all the facts, then eventually the audience will take in the information but in a more creative way. It is about presenting the information but in a way where our audience does not switch off. One of the main purposes of the interviews is to express and explain opinions and what better way to do it then listen to someone’s opinion from their own mouth, this allows us to support our facts with a range of different opinions primarily from experts who can offer a unique insight into censorship. It also enables us to get a general census on the public opinions on censorship without having to fill in multiple different surveys and questionnaires. We will use our interviews as an opportunity to create an emotional response from our audience so we can see whether our audience reacts negatively or positively to censorship after we have shown them all the facts and figures. When we conduct our interviews we will have the questions edited out so the audience just gets the interviewee’s response as some times the question is not necessary but also because if we show the question that provoked that response from the interviewee it may change how the audience views the response in a way that may not support the argument we are making. We will also only be using small segments of interviews that get our point across so if there is any problems or mistakes in parts of the interview it wont matter as we will just edit it out. When conducting the interviews we will aim to be express opinions and views as well as displaying facts and figures as we are making an expository documentary that we want to be balanced and objective.
Interview Questions and Interview Structure
These were the interview questions we prepared for the interview however during the interview I did ask follow up questions and some of the responses from the interviewee's inspired me to come up with new additional questions on the spot. I wrote this questions as a base for the interview as I knew I would ask additional and follow up questions during the interview. However any additional and follow up questions I thought of at the time were mostly variations of my preprepared questions. We are also aware that these may be too many questions for an interview so if we think an interview has answered an upcoming question in an early question or the interviewees previous answers have been so long he's starting to get tired or lose interest we will simply cut some of the questions. We may also cut out interview questions if we feel that we have enough good answers for that question already.
Interview questions
• How important is the media?
• What is media censorship?
• Who do you think censors the media?
• What do you think it would be like if we didn’t have censorship? What’s the worst that can happen?
• Has the media affected any opinions that you hold?
• Can media censorship compromise freedom of speech?
• Can media censorship stop radical or politically incorrect ideas?
• Could media censorship limit entertainment and creativity?
• Could media censorship help protect the easily influenced?
• Could media censorship distort people's views on public events?
• Could media censorship help protect people from media witch hunts?
• Could media censorship benefit national security?
• Can media censorship help/aid a dictatorship?
• Do we need censorship?
We structured our interviews with a begining, middle and end. In the begining of the interview we want to introduce the topic to the interview in order to start them thinking about media censorship. We do this by asking the questions 'how important is the media' and 'what is media censorship' because these two confidence building questions start to get the interviewee thinking about the scale and importance of the topic of this documentary and what exactly our documentary is about. We will place the answers to these questions in section 2 of the documentary so the audience in the same way is made aware or reminded of the scale and importance of the topic in our documentary and what exactly our topic is. These first two questions are quiet open questions asked in a relaxed laid mannor in order to provoke more open philosophical answers as this section. These are confidence building questions as they don't ask for the interviewee to have specific knowledge of a topic or event. These are quiet vague basic questions which we think everyone we chose to interview has at least an understanding and an opinion on. Hope this questions will make the interviewee feel confident in their knowledge and in the value of their opinions.
We then want to ask investigative questions then which push the interviewees to start to give more informative detailed answers so we ask them more specific closed direct questions such as 'Who do you think censors the media?' and 'Has the media affected any opinions that you hold?'. We also hope to make the answers to the question 'Who Censors the media' sound bites which will be placed at the beginning or the end of the documentary. For most of these early questions in the introduction we want quiet philosophical general answers so we can cover large area in a short time. We hope to express most of the philosophy through interviews as it sound better than pondering topics to do with media censorship such as 'what would happen if we had no censorship in the world' in the VO as it seems un natural and possibly biased.
Interview questions
• How important is the media?
• What is media censorship?
• Who do you think censors the media?
• What do you think it would be like if we didn’t have censorship? What’s the worst that can happen?
• Has the media affected any opinions that you hold?
• Can media censorship compromise freedom of speech?
• Can media censorship stop radical or politically incorrect ideas?
• Could media censorship limit entertainment and creativity?
• Could media censorship help protect the easily influenced?
• Could media censorship distort people's views on public events?
• Could media censorship help protect people from media witch hunts?
• Could media censorship benefit national security?
• Can media censorship help/aid a dictatorship?
• Do we need censorship?
We structured our interviews with a begining, middle and end. In the begining of the interview we want to introduce the topic to the interview in order to start them thinking about media censorship. We do this by asking the questions 'how important is the media' and 'what is media censorship' because these two confidence building questions start to get the interviewee thinking about the scale and importance of the topic of this documentary and what exactly our documentary is about. We will place the answers to these questions in section 2 of the documentary so the audience in the same way is made aware or reminded of the scale and importance of the topic in our documentary and what exactly our topic is. These first two questions are quiet open questions asked in a relaxed laid mannor in order to provoke more open philosophical answers as this section. These are confidence building questions as they don't ask for the interviewee to have specific knowledge of a topic or event. These are quiet vague basic questions which we think everyone we chose to interview has at least an understanding and an opinion on. Hope this questions will make the interviewee feel confident in their knowledge and in the value of their opinions.
We then want to ask investigative questions then which push the interviewees to start to give more informative detailed answers so we ask them more specific closed direct questions such as 'Who do you think censors the media?' and 'Has the media affected any opinions that you hold?'. We also hope to make the answers to the question 'Who Censors the media' sound bites which will be placed at the beginning or the end of the documentary. For most of these early questions in the introduction we want quiet philosophical general answers so we can cover large area in a short time. We hope to express most of the philosophy through interviews as it sound better than pondering topics to do with media censorship such as 'what would happen if we had no censorship in the world' in the VO as it seems un natural and possibly biased.
Conducting Interviews
We think we conducted our interviews very proffesionally and followed through with all the planning of the interviews. We followed the structure of the interviews as we planned to. We asked some confidence building questions such as 'How important is the media' and 'What is media censorship'. We then went on to ask more investigative questions in the middle of the interview such as 'Can media censorship compromise freedom of speech'. Then we asked the wind up question at the end of the interview 'Do we need media censorship'. I think our interview structure worked as even though we gave the interviewees the questions before the interview the opening confidence building questions still seemed to make the interviewee more relaxed, which allowed them to have the confidence to give good detailed and thorough answers to the middle questions and the wind up question always provided considered philosophical answer. I think the reason we brought these philosophical answers out of the last question as during the interview we had asked them questions on a lot of the major factors that result from media censorship so the interviewee had to think of the question from serval different angles and didn't give a simple answer.
We asked follow up questions that we thought of when we were interviewing. For example when we asked History Teacher Janine Shelly 'has media censorship ever helped create or aid a dictatorship' and she said 'I'm sure it happens all the time' we wanted her to be more specific so we asked her 'could you give a specific example'. We took a printed list of the questions that we wanted to ask and as the interview went on we took back up notes as we thought of questions that we didn't think of before the interview. For example when we were interviewing journalist Joe Shackley and he started talking about the new royal charter for press regulation I wrote ask to explain new charter as I realised we didn't have interview responses or even voice overs on the royal charter. As we predicted we didn't ask every interviewee every question however we asked a lot more questions than we thought we would get in. Most of our interviews lasted 20 to 30 minutes which looking back was a waste of time and may have slowed down our production as we had too much interview footage to consider when editing the documentary. We maybe should have conducted shorter interviews however we thought it was better to have too much footage than not enough footage. The interviewee's gave the kind of the answers we expected based on their backgrounds. For example media teacher Peter Hodges answered questions focusing on the functionality of media censorship, English teacher and art enthusiast John Bradshaw gave very highbrow arty answers as he started speaking about german art exhibitions and journalist Joe Shackley went into detail on film censorship. However we did have some surprises as we didn't expect Janine Shelly to not talk about history in detail or remember an example of media censorship helping national security. On the other hand we didn't expect Andrew South to answer all the questions we asked so well and give some of the best answers we received through our documentary, maybe we didn't expect this as we don't spend that much time around Andrew South so we didn't no what his interests were or the depth of his knowledge.
We asked follow up questions that we thought of when we were interviewing. For example when we asked History Teacher Janine Shelly 'has media censorship ever helped create or aid a dictatorship' and she said 'I'm sure it happens all the time' we wanted her to be more specific so we asked her 'could you give a specific example'. We took a printed list of the questions that we wanted to ask and as the interview went on we took back up notes as we thought of questions that we didn't think of before the interview. For example when we were interviewing journalist Joe Shackley and he started talking about the new royal charter for press regulation I wrote ask to explain new charter as I realised we didn't have interview responses or even voice overs on the royal charter. As we predicted we didn't ask every interviewee every question however we asked a lot more questions than we thought we would get in. Most of our interviews lasted 20 to 30 minutes which looking back was a waste of time and may have slowed down our production as we had too much interview footage to consider when editing the documentary. We maybe should have conducted shorter interviews however we thought it was better to have too much footage than not enough footage. The interviewee's gave the kind of the answers we expected based on their backgrounds. For example media teacher Peter Hodges answered questions focusing on the functionality of media censorship, English teacher and art enthusiast John Bradshaw gave very highbrow arty answers as he started speaking about german art exhibitions and journalist Joe Shackley went into detail on film censorship. However we did have some surprises as we didn't expect Janine Shelly to not talk about history in detail or remember an example of media censorship helping national security. On the other hand we didn't expect Andrew South to answer all the questions we asked so well and give some of the best answers we received through our documentary, maybe we didn't expect this as we don't spend that much time around Andrew South so we didn't no what his interests were or the depth of his knowledge.