Interview Styles (Documentary)

Types of Interview Questions

Interview Styles

Hard News

Hard news is the punchy fast type of interviews that are usually seen on the cover of magazines and newspapers etc. It is short but contains a lot of information and insight on a certain subject. It usually involves an important subject such as politics, international news, crime, war etc.

Combative

A combative interview is one where both the interviewer and interviewee are fighting to both defend their sides of argument on a topic. Most often its about politics as that something everyone seems to have a huge different opinion on from other people. My example of a combative interview is the Paxman vs Russel Brand interview where they talk about voting, and the ability to be aloud to do so if you want to or not. As seen in the interview they both have very different opinions on the same subject. Paxman things everyone should vote, where Russelll Brand claims he has never voted in his life and doesn't thing he should have to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk

Light Hearted

This is very self explanatory but is basically when the interview is very relaxed and casual, it almost seems more like a conversation than an interview. This is much more enjoyable to watch for any viewers as it makes it entertaining and not as tense as if it was a very formal interview. Sometimes the interview can even turn into general conversation as appose to questions with a purpose to found something out. This gives the audience the impression that the interviewer and the person being interviewed are friends, which sometimes is the case. My example is Jake Gyllenhaal on Jimmy Fallon, from watching the video is very clear that they are friends off camera as well by the way they are so open and casual with each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIVU6W3EDcU

Entertainment

This is when there is no real topic or subject the interviewer is trying to get out of the person, its not serious or direct its just very casual. Its similar to a light hearted interview where there is no serious topic at hand so both interviewer and interviewee can relax and just ask and answer questions in conversation like manner. Its a way for the interviewee to update people on what he is doing in his life in terms of personal things and movie related stuff if he is a actor or musician.

Promotional

Another self explanatory one, this is where someone comes on to be interviewed if they are a actor or musician etc and have something new coming out that they need to promote. The interviewer will ask them questions about the movie like "Was was it like working on set with (blank)? and they would talk a little about that and then usually if the interview is on tv and not radio they will sometimes play a small clip from the movie to show the audience a small snippit to get excited and make them want to watch the movie. My example is when the cast of 2016's Suicide Squad came on Conan to talk about the movie. They all play quite intense roles in the film so had lots to talk about involving what they did to prepare for the role, so the audience knew they put a lot of effort into the film making it worth watching.

Interview Question Types


Open

An open question is used in a lot of interviews if there is a lot of time that needs to be filled up. Its a question that an interviewer could ask that gives the interviewee a lot of things to say and eleborate on without having to be asked a lot more questions. An example could be if the interviewer asked "How was the recent holiday you went on?" its not a very specific question that just required a simple yes or no, The person can talk for a while about their holiday and will have a lot of things to say.

Closed

A closed question is when a question is asked that only requires a short sentence as appose to a long conversation. Where an open questions invites a long answer, a closed question would be used if there is not a lot of time to fill and something short is needed. An example would be "Where do you live?" You can obviously answer it with saying where you were born but theres not a lot of things you can say on top of that to elaborate

Multiple

This is if there is not a lot of time left to interview but there is still a lot of questions left to ask, the interviewer will start pairing questions together so if they have questions like "Where did you go on holiday?" and "What did you get up to while you where there?" and they needed to shorten time they would just ask "Where did you go and what did you do there?" This shortens the time and question while technically still asking both questions and getting the same answer you would get from both questions but as a small multiple answer.

Suggestive

This is where a question is asked that leans the interviewee towards a certain answer that they must reply. This is often used in political interviews for the interviewer to get the interviewee to say something about there belief . for example "You agree with voting dont you?" It only really gives them a yes  answer to reply with. Its not an open question where they can give there full opinion, it makes them say something that would be maybe against there actually opinion or to say something that could spark controversy with people listening


Structure

As with most things, an interview often starts with an introduction. This is where they introduce the guest or interviewee that they will be talking to, its important to make sure that whoever is watching/listening to the interview is fairly acquainted with the guest as it keeps the friendliness in the interview. For example on a talk show, the guest is always introduced as that guest the mostly the focus of the interview, the point of the interview is for people to hear that person talk and answer questions.

The main type of questions that the interviewer will be asking will be developmental, instead of just asking random questions that have no purpose, the interviewer will most likely be trying to find something out, this could be something politic related, recent drama or even to promote a new film it depends on who they are interviewing. If its an actor the interviewer will be asking questions based on the newest film that the actor has done, which is presumably what he did the interview to promote.

Towards the end of an interview the interviewer will start to dull the questions down as he is trying to conclude the questions and wrap up the interview. So the way an interviewer will usually structure his questions is by starting with opening questions for the actor after introducing him just by asking simple questions like how are you, how have you been etc. The he will get into the questions that are the main focus eg a radio show would be talking to a musician to talk about the music they make, and an actor will be there to talk about a movie. Then after finding out everything there is to know about the intended subject to talk about he will start ending this with shorter questions instead of ones that require long answers. This makes each question take a lot less time and lets people know that due to the pacing, the interview is about to wrap up and finish.

The Obamas interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-plNQznMVw

This interview is structured very laid back but also quite formal as it is Barack and Michelle Obama and they are very highly respected people as at the time of the interview Barack Obama was still president. So obviously an interview with the president would have to be formal. Its put light hearted though as Obama is known to be quite humorous and so is Michelle so there is some laughs and jokes thrown into the interview. An example is at the begging with Michelle jokingly stating "We survived! we made it!" Its mostly an entertainment interview as they are talking more about there hobbies and life more about there job and what they are doing now that Donald Trump is taking over. They talk about there kids and where they plan to go on holiday and other light hearted entertainment topics with some jokes and laughs. The questions asked are very open, as its not really trying to crack down on one thing, its a long interview and they have lots of time to talk about many things. They were asked What happens now which is very open as they can say so many things about that, contributing to the interview being entertaining and light hearted

Carrie Prejean on Larry King

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZwVVW2tqQM

This interview is quite formal and a lot less laid back than the Obama interview as Larry King is quite a serious Interview host which typically involves talking to someone about a very serious topic. So its very formal in both language and layout, the way him and his guest talk together are both presented in a professional manner, they are not seated in a casual way they are both situated away from each other and get their own camera

Charlie Brooker

The way that Charlie Brooker talks in interviews is very direct at the audience, he looks towards the camera a lot as appose to looking at the interviewer. Most of what he says is asking rhetorical questions to the viewers, which doesn't give the interviewer much to say as when he asks Charlie any open questions, Charlie turns in back around into a closed question. He talks in a way that the audience can relate to him with, making it more entertaining and enjoyable to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m45wLFQ6t7Q

Purpose of Interviews

The intention behind an interview will impact on how the interview is conducted, for example if its a politic debate type of interview where the interviewer is asking a politician about a something that is very serious, maybe a recent effect that has upset a lot of people. As the interviewer is trying to ask questions with the intention of finding out about something important, it won't be the light hearted interview people might be used to like a late night talk show. A talk shows intention would be to be for entertainment, as the politician interview will be more investigative than entertaining.

Elaborating on the previous sentence, there are lots of types of interviews that have different meanings for the interview, and for each one there is a different type of audience that are there to see the intention of a show. People would watch a news report interview in order to find out information about a recent effect, but for a actor interview they would watch it just for entertainment. An emotional interview is different to an informative interview, as people watch the informative interview in order to find out something or to update there knowledge on an already existing subject. An emotional interview would be watched for entertainment sake and for people to understand the meaning behind something. So there are many people that watch different interviews for different reasons, understanding of a topic, entertainment, information etc.