Hard news style
Seen everyday on the daily news programmes. The questions are serious and to-the-point. These questions are used for informative purposes. An example of a Hard News Style interview is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXlTfbVFN3w The interviewer is asking formal questions in order to get an informed opinion. In this interview, very objective questions are used about the matter at hand. The questions are only about the matter at hand. Stephanie Booth has been specifically selected for the interview in advance because she is an expert on the internet and a very relevant person to the subject (it has not been selected loosely e.g. vox pops). The matter is serious, but the questions are level sided and there is not one biased side to the questions or the answers. The questions are purely for the purpose of finding out information on the subject.
Investigative Style
Purely for finding out information on the particular subject. Can be used to interview a celebrity, a politician, or a person of particular importance, who has certain information which cannot be found elsewhere or is sought after. Investigative interviews are likely to contain a lot of closed questions which are aimed get a straight answer and usually to put pressure on the interviewee, so that the interviewer can find out the truth.
Light-hearted
Light hearted interviews are not entirely serious. The interview subject could be a serious matter but the interview is conducted in a more casual way. The interviewee will be more comfortable because it is more generally orientated.
Combative
This style of interview is when the information or opinion that the interviewee holds is of some importance and so the interviewer will ask very biased questions in order to get the answer out of the interviewee. Quite often nowadays, politicians will get caught up in the news with stories and allegations involving their personal life, and will be engaged in combative interviews to try and get the truth out of them. The politician will want to participate in the interviews to try and gain back their public image. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwlsd8RAoqI. In this clip of Jeremy Paxman and Michael Howard, it is a very serious matter. As the interviewer, Paxman is trying to 'break' Howard by asking him specifically chosen questions to get a particular answer out of him. In this example, Paxman asks the question 'Did you threaten to overrule him?' (him being Derek Lewis) thirteen times, so that Howard will be put under pressure. He asks Howard the question so many times because he repeatedly avoids the simple yes/no question. In the end Paxman gives up because Howard does not back down. Combative interviews are filmed multi camera because the interview is taking place with two people face to face, and would be very difficult to film single camera with the interviewer asking the questions after.
Promotional
Promotional interviews are usually seen on chat shows nowadays. They are most often celebrities who want to promote their latest film or book etc. The interviews will be rather light-hearted and will mainly be about the thing that they are trying to promote. The interviewer will mainly ask open questions so that the interviewee can talk about their product fairly freely.
Interview Questions
Open
Open questions are very broad. They cannot typically be answered in the 'yes or no' format. An open question is very general, and the interviewee can answer the question using range of things about the interview subject. How wide range the answer is depends on the question. Open questions allow the interviewer to find out a lot of information about the subject. An example of an open question: "How do you feel about what happened at the game yesterday?". This question is open because it cannot be answered with 'yes or no'.
Closed
The opposite to open questions. They are typically answered with the 'yes or no' format. These types of questions will we used in the investigative style of interview and will be used to get information out of the interviewee. Sometimes when an interviewee is asked a closed question in an investigative interview, the closed question will be ignored or 'answered' with an open answer, in order to avoid ether saying yes or no. If the interviewee is clever, he can make it so the interviewee is faced with saying yes or no, both of which will reveal wanted information.
Single
A single question is one main question about a subject. It is used closely with closed questions.
Multiple
A multiple question can have several parts to it, and can either be asked at the same time or one after the other. More often than not, the interviewer will ask multiple questions at once. This is often used in light-hearted and promotional interviews as there is less pressure on the interviewee for each individual question.
Direct
Direct questions are used in combative, hard news style and investigative interviews where the interviewer wants some specific information from the interviewee. Direct questions are very specific, and can either be open or closed.
Leading
Leading questions are designed to that the question is biased to a particular side. The interviewee will be specifically looking for an answer which he is trying to get from the interviewee, and will use leading questions to try to get a biased answer. An example would be "You didn't enjoy the film?".
Evolution over the years
The first documentary film to feature an interview was Housing Problems (1935). The interview was fairly simple, just a woman talking to the camera about where she lived and what she did and the problems she faced. Through something fairly simple, spawned a whole new concept of documentary film making, and the move onto television. The evolution into modern interview nowadays Nowadays that form of interview has evolved into the promotional chat shows you see everyday, to the hard news style. These styles are a lot different to the interview featured in Housing Problems, but still have the main elements relating.
My documentary film, Island Collision, is an expository documentary dealing with a serious subject. The interviews that feature are a main part of the film, and are dealt in a serious manner. The interview style that I have chosen for the film is investigative, but keeping in mind the potentially sensitive issues that the film will discuss. The questions will be mainly open questions so that the interviewer can get the most amount of information that is available from the interviewee, and so that the interviewee can choose how much they want to talk about the sensitive issues without any pressure on them.
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