NFTS Scotland: Interviewing Techniques Online

Delivered in the NFTS Cymru Wales Virtual Classroom, accessed via Zoom.

Interviews are at the heart of every kind of factual format and often deliver the most powerful, memorable moments of television. This online session will teach you how to get the very best out of your interviewees. It’s led by Nick O’Dwyer, described by the Mail on Sunday as “one of the best documentary makers and interviewers in Britain.”

The course will major on the people stuff - how to behave with your contributors so they feel safe to truly express themselves and how to ask questions so that your interviews become highlights of your films. Areas covered will include:

• setting up an interview shoot without terrifying your subject
• how to create trust with your interviewee
• understanding your contributor so you can judge what will work best for them
• how to ask questions to prompt revealing answers
• how to ask questions so your editor will love you
• the importance and influence of sound
• your responsibility to your contributor – at the time and afterwards
• how to ask the bleedin’ obvious without being rude
• why do people talk in front of camera anyway – often about the most intimate or alarming of subjects

Nick O’Dwyer has worked as a documentary director and exec for 25 years, making some of the most memorable and controversial films of that period. In that time, he’s worked for all the main documentary strands on all the main channels. For the past 16 years, he has been executive producer for Landmark Films www.landmarkfilms.com.

The morning will be split into 3 x 1hr sessions to ensure plenty of opportunities for Q&A and breaks in between.