How to Get the Most out of Your Interview Questions

  |   Mar 07 2018   |  

How to Get the Most out of Your Interview Questions

Last week we covered ways to make your interviewee more comfortable during the process of an interview video shoot. Now that your talent is comfortable, how do you make sure you get the answers you're looking for while conducting the interview?

Maybe you're looking for a specific tone or answer format to really fit the vision of the video: to capture the genuine appreciation of a testimonial video, the joy or encouragement of a motivational video, or the professionalism of a company promotional video. Whatever it may be, there is a way to get it. Follow these interview guidelines to get the most out of your next interview. 

Do some research

Get to know your talent! Find out more ahead of time. This can help you formulate questions and get an idea of who they are and what values and qualities they will bring to the interview.

Talk Before the Interview

It’s best to ask about sensitive subjects with your interviewee ahead of time. If you might be bringing up difficult topics, talk to your talent before the interview and ask them what they are okay with disclosing on camera.

Be Transparent

It’s important that you understand your goal for the interview/video. Not only for scripting and shooting purposes but so you can tell the interviewee exactly what you’re looking for and why.

When you communicate openly with the talent about expectations and goals they then have a clearer understanding of the project and will perform better. Keeping your talent informed will also create trust between you and your clients.

Practice Without Visual Aids

This is not a necessity, as visual aids can be really helpful, but practicing without cue cards or teleprompters will produce a less scripted and stiff look. Most the time you can tell when someone is trying to stick to a scrip or read off the teleprompter. The more familiar the talent is with the content, the better.

Include Some Throw Away Questions

Again, better to have more than to have less. Throw in a couple extra questions (semi or non related to interview) to give yourself some backup content. Extra questions also means more practice for the interviewee. 

Provide Clues in Your Questions

If you don't get the right answer or don't particularly like the answer - but love the question - ask the same question again later in the interview either the same way or rephrased.

Going off of that, sometimes the interviewee will answer, but not in a video friendly way. It’s best to then repeat your question with their answer included or formulate a new question based on their answer to create a complete sentence format or to get further detail on their previous answer.

Encourage Multiple Takes  

Mistakes happen, that’s what redos are for. If the talent freezes or feels they need to restate an answer, have them start from the previous complete thought and then continue on.

If you’re doing a multi-camera shoot, or have access to a lot of b roll, then do as many takes as needed (always trying restart from a complete thought or sentence). Sometimes the second or third, even fourth answer is the golden one - and if you have good methods to cover up specific cuts, the final product will appear seamless anyway. 

Following these guidelines will help you create a smooth and successful interview process. As we mentioned last week, it's important for your interviewee to be comfortable, but it's also important that you guide your interviewee and format your questions around the video's purpose in order to produce the best project possible. 

Don't forget to check out our video production guide for more details on how to create a smooth production process for all of your video projects. 

If you have any questions about the interview process, contact us here. We'd love to get you one step closer to showcasing your product to the world.

Was this article helpful to you? Please provide us with some feedback on your thoughts in the comment section below so we can address it in a future blog post. 

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