Lesson Summary

In this post I will be summarising the things I have learnt in this lesson.

I watched two interviews whereby I analysed in detail the different types of interviews used, for example I found that instead of doing face to face interviews you can do online interviews which could be more convenient for interviewee's who are based in a another country, and avoids the trouble of having to try and bring over this person.

I have also focused on the different techniques and skills required to conduct an effective interview and obtain the information required. After watching an interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Richard Ayoade, I realised Richard was a very hard interview subject has he seemed very against a conventional TV interview, almost turning some of the questions he was asked back on to Krishnan, therefore making it look as if he was now interviewing Krishnan.

Because of Richard being difficult answering the questions, Krishnan struggled to get the answers he wanted/needed, this made me realise that in order to be a successful interviewer you need to be versatile and have the ability to change your approach and personality in order to suit the interviewee, making them feel more comfortable and this will make you more likely to obtain the information you need.

Uses & Gratifications

Uses & Gratifications 

The uses and gratifications theory is a theory that tries to understand why a person would watch a film and how they may respond to it.

This theory can be used to analyse an audiences reason for watching a film for example 'escape'.

Films such as superhero or fantasy films allow people to escape from reality as while watching the film they may feel as if they are in a completely different world and it allows them to forget about their personal lives and troubles they may have, which would act as a relief therefore encouraging them to watch more films within this genre.

In terms of 'Identify' people may watch films such as scarface and look at the Lavish lifestyle of Tony Montana, seeing his come up to riches as an inspiration and mimic his traits and character in their real life trying to create a similar lifestyle.

This could also be a bad thing as their is a major use of violence in the film and people watching this might think that this sort of behaviour is acceptable and is the right way to get what they want, especially within a younger audience as they are more vulnerable to bad influences.

Documentaries: Interview evaluations

My documentary is going to be based around the topic "Have we got life wrong?".
I want to get people to take a second look at the way they are living their lives, who gave people of higher authorities/power the capability to control the way we live, do people believe we are getting the full quality of life under this system and what can be changed?

I wanted to find out the way in which other people value life and what they feel their purpose is, I wanted to find out if the majority of views were similar to mine. In order to gain a taste of some peoples views I decided to conduct a video vox-pop, I started by explaining my thoughts on this issue and then I asked some questions:

1. In your own words define living
2. What are some of your main goals in life?
3. How do you plan to achieve these?
4. Do you believe these are achievable by working a regular 9-5 job?

For question 1 I was expecting simple answers such as "Being alive", "Breathing" etc. However my first interviewee described that to her living was not just being alive, but also about the experiences and the way you spend your time enjoying yourself with friends and family.

The aim of my next few questions was to continue to get my interviewee's to look at life from another perspective, by asking them about their life goals and are these goals realistically achievable in the world we live in.

To improve my Vox-pops I think I would either need to ask more questions or change the questions in order to directly target my topic.

Analysing Interview Techniques

The Jonathan Ross show

Jonathan Ross interviews Russell Howard

ITV, 4th May 2013 

The Jonathan Ross show is a British talk show presented by Jonathan Ross, on his shows he interviews celebrities whereby they are able to talk about their personal lives, work and also able to promote them selves.

The main purpose of this interview was to inform the audience of the different events and shows Russell howard does, whilst also enhancing the audiences understanding of the type of things Russell Howard does as there may be people who don't actually know who he is or what his job role is. Russell was asked by the interviewer to talk about his upcoming tours, his show, where he gets his inspiration for shows from and also a slight inside into his personal life, this then gave the opportunity for him to promote and advertise him self to a larger audience who might not have seen him else where.

Just before the interview Russell Howard is given an enthusiastic and large welcome onto the stage from Jonathan Ross and the audience, from this we are instantly given the feeling that this is going to be a comfortable and friendly interview, there is not much of an introduction as to who Russell Howard is as he is already quite a well known comedian, Jonathan gets straight into the interview as soon as they have sat down with the opening sentence "Alright Russell your back on tour now? you haven't done a live tour for how many years now?", the use of this very open and suggestive question gives Russell the chance to talk within this topic and also branch out and give other information that that the interviewer may not mention, which creates an easy beginning and flow to the conversation/interview.
You can tell both the interviewer and interviewee are comfortable in conversation by their body language as Russell is given a sofa to sit on, where at he is sat back comfortable and as he becomes more and more interested and engaged in the conversation he begins to make more movement, also leaning closer to the interviewer as he becomes more excited about the topics. Jonathan is able to maintain this light-hearted atmosphere as he is sat at his desk with his body turned to face Russell directly whilst he is talking, to ensure Russell knows he is listening to what he has to say, Jonathan often keeps his questions short and open with enables Russell to have more time to talk and expand on these questions.

Jonathan also had a very well structured list of questions as each of Russell's answers were able to relate or feed into Jonathan's next question therefore they were able to cover all the relevant topics about Russell and his career, so the audience also got enough information on what Russell is doing on upcoming dates.