Getting Inside Someone Else’s Skin

Every once in a while, I think HowSound should focus solely on
interviewing. To heck with sound design, writing, ethics,
tracking, and the like. Just focus on “the backstory to great
radio interviewing.”


Why? Because interviewing is how radio producers mine. It’s how
we collect the raw material for our work. The better the
interviewing, the better the tape. The better the tape, the
better the story.


I mean, sure sloppy writing can kill stellar interview
tape.

Same with bad production.  Conversely a

bad interview can be saved by rock solid writing. But really, if
you nail your

interview, the rest will come easy. Okay. Not easy, but easier.
And the story

the tape is based on will likely be more satisfying.


Put another way, interviewing is the keystone of audio

storytelling.


That’s why it’s important to examine the work of the best
practitioners and Cathy FitzGerald is just that — one of the
best. She possesses an uncanny ability to capture “humans being”
in her interviews. And she approaches it in unusual ways with her
penchant for recording interviews in scene; her use of
participant observation, which is a fancy way of saying she
doesn’t just ask questions, she gets involved; and her use of
props to prompt conversation. On this episode of HowSound, Cathy
chats about those approaches and we hear extended examples of her
work.


As a bonus, during our chat, Cathy turned the tables and

asked me questions about

interviewing. And that led us to talk about our weaknesses and
what we both

would like to improve and to this positively lovely analogy for
interviewing —

weeping with one eye.