Audio Interview Checklist
Every media platform has its own challenges. If you’re an experienced interviewer, you’re well on your way to conducting an engaging interview for audio. You know how to ask good questions. But that’s not the same as “getting great tape.” Here is my checklist for a successful interview for your podcast or radio broadcast.
Get 2:00 of natural or ambient sound at the beginning and the end of the interview. What does that mean? Sit in the room and record two minutes with no one talking. As your recorder rolls, you may discover there’s a low rumble of traffic outside. Or you might hear a high-pitched, barely audible whine of the fluorescent lights overhead. This is useful to create smooth-sounding edits if you’re in a quiet office. If your interview is taking place in a ‘scene’ (for example, on a factory floor, in the middle of a forest, at the grocery checkout aisle), this natural sound is VITAL to a professional-level finished piece.
Never conduct an interview without monitoring your recording on headphones. Headphone hair is a small price to pay for good tape! It is 1000 times worse to realize that you either didn’t record an interview or you didn’t have your interviewee at a good microphone position. In my opinion, air pods are not a good substitute for headphones. Headphones wrap around your ear, blocking out a lot of outside noise so you can hear the detail of your recording. You may hear when an interviewee’s stomach grumbles or when their jewelry rustles. If you hear an unwanted sound, you can ask them to repeat what they just said. Air pods let in too much outside noise to hear the detail, not to mention if you turn them up too high you might record their output on your recorder.
Bring a few questions to the interview that will help you check the input levels of your guest and get them warmed up talking. A classic question is “what did you have for breakfast?” However, it’s not that interesting and lots of people don’t eat breakfast. What else can you ask your guest to establish a relationship, get the conversation flowing, but isn’t necessary to capture on tape?
Always have your guest introduce themselves: “My name is … and I’m….” You want THEIR pronunciation of their name and THEIR pronouns/job title/self-identification on tape. You might not use this in the final product (though I think it’s a good technique to give a guest the space in a story to self-identify). At the very least, you’ve confirmed how to say their name and describe their role in your story.
Hopefully you’ve done some brainstorming before the interview and have some notes about the questions you want to ask. Look at your questions and write down the most succinct way to ask the question. If you’ve worked on other media platforms, there is no incentive to being concise. However, in any type of broadcast medium, brevity is essential. When you only have 4:00 for a story, you don’t want to lose 30 seconds to the reporter just asking a question. “Why?”, “then what?” and “what did you think?” are more compelling questions than you may realize.
In casual conversation, when no recorder is running, we encourage our friends to continue the story with subtle vocal cues. Notice, for example, how often you say, “oh” or “hmmm” or do a little chuckle in a conversation. It’s a human way to show someone else that you’re interested and listening to what they’re saying. But you don’t want that in your tape because it could make editing their answers difficult. Start practicing visual engagement. Raise your eyebrows when you hear something that surprises you. Furrow your eyebrows when you hear something you don’t understand. Even nod your head if an interview is looking for affirmation that you’ve understood what they said.
If you want an interviewee to talk more on a subject, respond with silence. The awkwardness of sitting in silence often triggers a person to continue talking so they feel less uncomfortable.
Ask a question as many times as you need to to get the answer. From a content perspective, repeatedly going back to a particular topic (especially for cagey interviewees) will usually elicit new information. From a sound editing perspective, this gives you an opportunity to get as clean of tape as possible (clean = not interrupted by other, unrelated sounds or fumbling, ungrammatical sentences).
At the end of the interview, always ask if there’s anything else you should have asked and if there is anyone else you should talk to.
It’s common for a reporter or interviewer to record their own interviews. The disadvantage is that by holding the microphone to the guest and holding or monitoring the recording device, you have no available hands to take notes. I know some reporters/producers like to touch the ‘track’ button on their recorder (if there is one) anytime an interviewee says something the interviewer wants to use in the story. The benefit is that you can quickly scan through your tape to get to the best parts if you are on a tight deadline. Personally, I don’t like to touch my recorder at all due to my superstitious belief that I might accidentally stop recording. If you’re like me, jot down the most important ideas the interviewer said right after the interview concludes and it’s fresh in your mind.
Transcribe your tape. I used to hate to do this because it’s incredibly time-consuming, but now there are many free or low-cost programs that do this fairly quickly and pretty accurately. In reading the transcript, you’ll discover an important point that you want to include or a clarification that you may have forgotten. If you’re working in a newsroom, it’s important to save these transcripts in case there are any questions about the accuracy of your work. Even if you don’t work in news, the transcript of the full interview might be valuable digital content. It’s also important to offer a transcript to make your content fully accessible to your audience and their needed accommodations.
One final note for interviewing people for whom English is a second language or for people who need some kind of interview accommodation: Every once in a while during the interview, close your eyes and pay attention to what you hear. When conducting an interview in person, we communicate so much through body language, eye contact, even physical gestures. It’s not uncommon to conduct an interview, thinking that you have understood your guest perfectly clearly, and then listen back to the tape and realize that an idea or sentence is unclear without that person’s gesture or facial expression.
Close your eyes (briefly, every once in a while) during the interview to hear how your listener will hear this. If something is unclear, you can ask the interviewee to repeat themselves. If that doesn’t help, you can repeat back to the interviewee what you have heard and ask if that is correct. Finally, think creatively about how you will use this person’s interview in your story. You may end up using lots of short clips instead of longer and fewer quotes. Remember, if your listener can’t understand what is being said, the value of the story evaporates and you’ll probably lose that listener.
That’s my list! If you have other tips, I’d love to hear them. I created this list as a way to share knowledge so any additional advice is welcome.
