Directing the Documentary, 5th Edition

Chapter 30Conducting and Shooting Interviews

The documentary interviewer sets out to draw people’s stories from them, and the interviewee either wants to fulfill the interviewer’s purpose or to resist and deflect it. As the human presence whom the interviewee addresses, the interviewer functions as a catalyst on behalf of the audience. This can produce fascinating results, so this chapter describes how to go about it. Sometimes, though, you’d like to get an inner monologue that is unmediated and free of your catalyzing influence. To this end, you’ll find another method of initiating spoken thought near the chapter’s end. Both methods aim to get people speaking from the heart.

Watching an interviewee describe something important can be magical, ...