Interview Techniques- Structuring

Introduction:
 

It is vital for interviews to begin with an introduction. An introduction will help to introduce the interviewee to the topic being discussed. The introduction is also an opportunity to make the interviewee feel more comfortable. Introductions are often used to introduce the interviewee to the audience or reader. The introduction is the first time the interviewee will get a feel for what sort of interview they are participating in. Having a good introduction will get the interview off to a good start and make the interviewee at ease because of the warm welcome he or she is receiving from the audience and interviewer.

Development:

Developmental questions are generally light-hearted questions to get the interview started. Developmental questions are often crucial in setting the mood for the rest of the interview, in particular making the interviewee feel more relaxed. It is a lot like an introduction to the interview, but in a way it moves the interview on a bit better before the key questions are asked. An example of a developmental question would be asking ‘How are you today?’ or ‘We are very pleased for you to be here today’ these types of warm welcoming questions will automatically make the interviewee feel at home and be comfortable throughout the whole interview. 

Confidence Building:

Confidence questions are built to make the interviewee a lot more confident with questions being asked, before getting to that stage the interviewer will ask various random questions and say numerous of things to get the interviewee even more comfortable.  This will be done in order for the interviewee to give more detailed and long responses answers when it comes to the key questions. A good strategy to build confidence is to share a few laugh occasionally with the interviewee and compliment them frequently, for example if a celebrity is being interviewed then the interviewer would most likely compliment them on the clothes they are wearing or the project they have recently worked on which can be a film or a new album, depending on the celebrity profession. 

Key Questions:

Key questions are the main and most important questions asked during an interview, it  what the interview is based on. Key questions are mostly asked in the middle of an interview because that’s when the interviewee is now more familiar with the questions and comfortable with being asked more complex questions. Key questions can differ depending on the topic of the interview. 

Sounbites:

SoundBits are small bits of an interview cut out to show a short section of the interview as a mini trailer on television used to advertise the interview in order to crab the viewers’ attentions to watch the full interview.  Sound bites can be used to show up coming episodes or things such as reactions from an interview faces. 

Summary:

Summary is to used to sum up the interview; all the questions the interviewer has asked, this is the part where the interviewer concludes the topic being talked about in a good warming way.  This is done at the end of the interview.

Wind up:

Wind up is the very end of an interview.  A wind up gathers the whole interview to a close. The interview is most likely to end with a light hearted question to brighten the mood and give it one final humour or if it’s a celebrity interview then the artist may end up performing at the end for the audience entertainment.

The structure of this interview first starts with an introduction which is at the beginning  of the show when Oprah (Host) introduces Beyoncé (celebrity) in a very pleasant manner and the audience clap, she then begins the interview by naming the places Beyoncé has been in the past one week for touring and asks her when she gets a break from work, this automatically puts Beyoncé at ease because she asks the question in a very quirky manner which makes Beyoncé chuckle and explains herself and even elaborates on her answer by telling Oprah of her upcoming holiday she will have for a moth in December, this allows Oprah to then pick from that answer and asks her what she will be doing during that holiday in a curious silly voice which again makes Beyoncé chuckle and once again explains what she will doing which includes boating, Oprah again picks up on what she likes doing and tells her how much they  are similar in some way because of the love they both share for boating, by the time they finish this discussion it completely makes Beyoncé feel comfortable because of the way Oprah approaches on the topic which is very friendly and welcoming.   

We then start to hear Oprah begin to ask the developing questions which is when she asks “New York Times says you have everything you want” although this question isn’t exactly a hard question or interesting question for her to answer it prepares Beyoncé for the key questions which is mostly going to be about what has been said about her on tabloids or about things her fans want to know. 

 We then later on see the confidence building questions being asked such as “how did you find time to get married”  then moves one to ask Beyoncé about where the wedding was held,these questions can make Beyoncé become even more confident because she is being asked something that’s already happened in the past, she probably would not have answered it if it was during the time of the wedding, so being asked about it now is a lot easier for her to explain herself as she is talking about getting married to the man she loves which she can comfortably answer because of the love she has for her husband . 

Eventually we come to the key questions which is when Oprah asks Beyoncé about her latest albums which she has combined together to make it into one,  then goes  more into details explaining why she chose to call her albums’ Am and Sasha Fierce’ and explains the difference between the both. Oprah then moves on asking her about her marriage to her husband Jay Z and how they manage to keep their lives so private, she then asks her about the movie she featured” Cadillac record”  in which she plays as Etta James, she explains her role and how she felt acting such a role, all these questions are key questions as they are the questions the audience want to hear the most and then reason why Beyoncé is there, which is to promote and talk about her latest project. 

The soundbites in this interview could be when Beyoncé talks about her helping her mum cook during thanksgiving saying “I can cook, I am very good at seasoning food” and bits of her laughing at something’s Oprah said, this could crab a viewer’s attention because it’s probably something so casual they didn’t imagine or expect an A star celebrity such as Beyoncé could do because of her hectic busy career, so this might interest them to tune in to hear more about her everyday life and know why she was laughing in some bits of the sound bites.

Summary will be near the end of the interview when Oprah asks one final questions which is if she’s pregnant which Beyoncé briefly replies no.

Wind up is at the end when Oprah thanks Beyonce and the live audience for joinging her on the show and introduces Beyoncé starting to perform her new song from her latest album.