What is a Pre-Interview and Why is it Crucial for Video?
Much like you, our greatest asset is time. At Stories With Purpose, one of the best things we’ve found to prepare for filming an important interview or story is a pre-interview.
At first glance, a pre-interview may sound like even more work. I mean, we’re already sitting the subject down for an interview, right? Here’s the absolute truth. Pre-interviews don’t cost you time, they save you time. If done right, they can save you a lot of time.
How much time (and hard drive space) is spent on footage that will never be used? It doesn’t just waste your time filming (which costs money), it wastes the crew’s time (which costs a lot of money); and it also wastes the editor’s time (which costs even more money).
Be intentional. Purposeful.
A pre-interview helps you to ask the right questions. Think of it like a roadmap. When you finally sit down to film the real interview, you already know where you want to take the story, so you can ask deeper questions to get the answers that you want.
You’ll get more poignant, concise soundbites as well. You’ll no longer need to rely on finding the story in post-production.
Putting this simple process into practice will save you and your team time and money in the future.
How to Record a Pre-Interview
There are several tools that you can use to record a pre-interview? One of our favorite online apps for recording pre-interviews is Riverside.fm. It allows you to easily record high-quality audio and video which can be downloaded with free and paid options. You can also use Zoom or any other video conference platform that allows you to record someone remotely.
Remember, these pre-interviews don’t have to look good. You just need to be able to download and play it back. Depending on how you like to work, you can also have the pre-interview transcribed via a website like Rev.com.
Why This Should Be Part of Your Process
Ultimately, the goal of a pre-interview is to learn more about the subject in order to craft a compelling story while fine-tuning your questions for the actual interview.
Let me give you an example. Recently, we produced a project in which the goal was to create a short, emotional video with an end runtime of 3 minutes or less. We scheduled a time with the subjects to perform a pre-interview remotely where we could ask all of the questions that we wanted to ask. Naturally, some questions lead to answers that weren’t very compelling or were too long. Other answers helped us to identify and understand their story and what was important to them.
After an hour or so of the pre-interview process, we felt that we had everything we needed to create a roadmap for their story and set a date to film them on location. We downloaded their pre-interview and played it back a couple times while narrowing down what questions we wanted to ask and formulated new questions that would allow us to prompt emotional beats that would touch the audience.
When the day for filming their interviews arrived we were able to complete each of their interviews with time to spare and capture exactly what we needed. This process also allowed us to create a shot list to film supporting b-roll since we knew where the final story was headed. We didn’t have to spend time thinking of what shots to get while we were on location. Another win.
Once we got to the editing bay, we already knew where the story was going and inserted the clips we wanted giving us the proper time to fine-tune the edit. Without conducting the pre-interview, I imagine that this entire production could have easily taken twice as long from start-to-finish.
Pre-Interviews Make Better Interviews
In the field of video production, efficiency is key and time is money. In order to get the best interviews you can, you need to be prepared. Gone are the days of two-hour plus interviews and finding the story in post. Adding a little time in pre-production will save you a lot of time in the end.
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