Help:Interview guidelines

Why interview?

Much of our recent history is not recorded anywhere. It is contained in people's memories – the habits they had, the methods they used. This is often referred to as oral tradition. This kind of history is lost when these people disappear. The purpose of interviews for 'oral tradition' is to map out this history on the basis of conversations with 'old hands'. In this way, methods, techniques and customs can be captured and we find out under what conditions people worked, what equipment they used, what the relationships were with other actors in the field, what the atmosphere was like, and so on.

Interviews with experts and practitioners therefore provide insights into the working methods of the past, as well as the history of designs and technological development. However, a good interview requires the necessary preparation and aftercare.

Preparation

Preparation is key to a successful interview:

1. Make sure you are clear about the purpose of the interview – what information are you trying to gather? Who is the audience – what do they already know about the topic? How will the interview be used – will the interview itself be published (as a video or audio recording, or as a transcript) or is it to gather information that will be used in other ways?
2. Research background information about the interviewee and the topic. Information about positions, companies or organisations where the interviewee has worked and the productions and material that were available in a certain period helps to shape and steer the interview. This information can be added to the interview documentation later. Even a small amount of background research will help plan the questions to be asked, and will also give the interviewee confidence that their contribution is valued.
3. Draw up a list of themes to be covered. The theme list contains the topics to be covered in the interview. It is a kind of checklist, so you can be sure that all topics are covered.
4. Derive a list of questions from the theme list containing the specific questions to be asked. You may find our list of example questions useful when preparing your own. The questionnaire is a tool, during the interview questions can be omitted or added, depending on how the interview progresses. As part of planning the questions, decide on the interview format:
   1. Structured – where the questions are set and you don’t deviate from them during the interview. This method can be useful if you want to compare the results of several interviews – for example, asking a group of people about their experience with a particular item of equipment.
   2. Semi-structured – where you have specific questions, but you allow the conversation to cover other topics. This method ensures that all topics are covered, but results in a more conversational style, and allows the interviewee to contribute more to the content include information the interviewer did not anticipate.
   3. Unstructured – where you decide on a topic, but allow the conversation to flow freely. This method allows the interviewee a lot of freedom to determine the content, and can be useful to discover things you are not aware of, but risks the content of the interview being irrelevant to the intended topic.
5. Make sure the interviewee knows in advance the broad areas you want to discuss. Ask them if they have useful materials relevant to the discussion, such as photographs, documents, plans, and so on.

The Interview

The Setting

It is important that the interviewee feels comfortable and relaxed. Make sure you can work in a quiet place, which can be at the interviewee's home, or in a place that is appropriate to the subject, for example their workplace. When choosing the location, think about any background noise or other disturbing factors. Provide some water.

If you are conducting the interview online, make sure everyone involved is somewhere quiet, where they won’t be disturbed. If the online interview is to be recorded and published, take care with the background behind each person – if necessary, use a digital background, perhaps relevant to the topic. Also consider lighting – light that is soft and not too strongly directional will be better than harsh, directional light.

Ethical Considerations and the Interview ‘Contract’

It is essential to carry out interviews in an ethical way, to avoid harm to the interviewee. The central principle is that of ‘informed consent’, so the interviewee should be aware of and agree to:

• The purpose of the interview
• What will happen to any recordings, notes or transcripts – will they be published and if so where, or will they be deleted later?
• What opportunity the interviewee will have to see the interview before any publication, or to have specific statements redacted, or for a temporary embargo
• How data about the interviewee (name, contact details, content of recordings) will be kept secure
• How they can withdraw from the process, without any detriment to themselves
• Whether they can be anonymous or not
• How they can raise concerns about the interview process

For more information about ethical consideration and data security, see _ (FIXME). We recommend getting the interviewee’s consent to these points in writing. You can do this in advance of the interview, or talk through the points at the start of the interview then do the paperwork afterwards. The interviewee should get a copy of the agreement. We have created an Interviewee Information and Consent Form Template you can use to give the interviewee information and record their consent.

It is customary for the interviewee to receive a copy of the interview and transcript. When an interview is published in a journal, for example, it is also advisable to send the text to the person in question for approval with the request for any corrections.

Approach

Plan your approach to the interview carefully. It helps to start with some ‘warm up’ conversation – this may be part of the interview itself, or some pre-interview chat to help your interviewee relax. This is especially important if you don’t already know each other.

Start the interview with some simple questions with factual answers. If you are recording the interview, it is helpful to ask the interviewee to say their name, the date and location of the interview. Then ask a general question such as “how did you start out in the industry?” or “when did you first become involved with [the topic to be discussed]?” Cover broader questions first, then about more specific, complex or controversial matters. Unless you are following a strictly structured set of questions, use the list of questions as a guideline, but give the interviewee space to answer the questions and possibly broach topics themselves. See the example questions for more guidance.

Avoid interruptions or introducing your own opinions or biases – the interview is a space for the interviewee to express their thoughts and opinions. Make sure your questions are phrased neutrally, rather than asking the interviewee to agree with one view or another – for example, “what was the impact of X technology on your work?” rather than “did X technology make your work easier?”

Recording

How you record the interview will depend on whether the recording is the final output, or a working tool for later analysis or to make a transcript from:

Working tool

The quality of the recording does not really matter, as long as it is audible. If you plan to use an automated system to create a transcript, a cleaner recording will help the software make a more accurate transcript.

Recording as Final Output

For high quality output, thought must be given to the spatial arrangement and lighting. Make sure you are familiar with the camera and other equipment you are using. Test them beforehand, and if necessary, carry out a practice with a friend or colleague to make sure you have dealt with any technical issues. Check batteries and storage capacity available on memory cards, and so on.

If you are interviewing online, most video call platforms such as Teams and Zoom allow you to make a recording. Test this first to make sure you are familiar with the controls, and that the quality is suitable for your needs.

At the beginning of the recording, indicate the date, place, the name of the interviewee, the name of the interviewer, and the topic to be discussed. Try to make the recording process as discreet as possible, ideally so the interviewee forgets after a while that the whole thing is being recorded. Write down as little as possible, if necessary, you can ask additional questions afterwards about, for example, correct spellings or dates.

Interviews can be recorded as audio only or video. Audio recording is less intrusive, but you lose the interviewee’s body language. Video recordings require more technical equipment, and sometimes come across as more threatening to the interviewee.

As a recording format, we prefer to choose a stereo format without ‘lossy’ compression that can be used on different platforms. This minimises the loss of information. For audio, WAV (Waveform Audio File Format) with a sample rate of 44.1K is often chosen (FIXME).

If recording audio, make sure to also record a minute of ‘silence’ (room tone) in the room, in case the audio will be edited as an outcome.

Uncompressed video is generally unsuitable for archival storage, due to the large file sizes. However, for high quality results, record in a lossless format and then convert to a compressed format after editing. (FIXME – link to preferred formats)

Photos

It is always a good idea to take a few photos of the moment of the interview and the interviewee, especially if the interview is to be published later. It is possible to use screenshots from a video recording, but they may be limited in quality.

Documents

When the interviewee refers to documents or objects, it is advisable to note them and add them to the set of information that accompanies the interview. Preferably, you will have seen any documents before the interview, to help guide the questions to be asked. If the document is important in its own right, it can form a separate item in Canonbase, and this item is then referred to in the interview documentation.

After the Interview

FIXME AI transcribing of the interview, auto-captions on editing software?

Transcription

After the interview, the words of the interviewee and interviewer can be converted to written text, called a transcription. The text contains the questions and answers, together with the point in time in the recording, so that we can quickly cross reference between the recording and the transcript.

Transcription can be done manually, though this is very time-consuming. There are software tools that can automate this service. If using these tools, it is important to know what will happen to the data while it is being processed – will it be anonymous and secure? In particular, it is important to know if an AI tool will be using the data for training its language model. Plan how you will be processing the interview material ahead of time, as it should be included in the information given to the interviewee (see Ethical Considerations and the Interview ‘Contract’ above). FIXME link needed.

Software tools will generally create a ‘raw’ transcript, including the ‘um’ and ‘ah’ sounds people make when thinking, and the incomplete thoughts and sentences that are part of informal speech. They may also make errors transcribing words, especially names or unusual technical terms. Some editing work will be needed to make the raw transcript readable, but be careful not to change the sense of what has been said. A faithful transcription is more important than one that reads well.

Transcripts generated by software will generally not include the name of the person speaking, so this information will need to be added. If the audio or video recording of the transcript is to be published, keep the automatically generated times stamps for each person speaking, to make it easy to cross reference between the written transcript and the recording.

It is a good idea to have someone else read the transcript, to ensure it makes sense to someone who wasn’t present at the interview.

Documentation

Additional documentation will help make the interview as useful as possible as part of an archive. Consider including the following:

• Details sheet of the interviewee (name, CV, ...)
• A summary or ‘abstract’ of the interview. AI tools can be used to generate the summary, but be aware of the potential privacy issues with using AI. (FIXME – link to Ethics section)
• Photos (with appropriate metadata such as title, description, copyright information, and so on – see FIXME link to metadata).
• The thematic list and questions used in the interview
• Sources and background information
• Transcript
• Additional documents or references
• Derivatives (for example, published versions of the interview)

All these documents, together with the recording, form a package that should be stored together. You can use the Interview Record Form to record the details of the interview and package of documents.

Editing

Audio and video recordings should generally only need simple editing, to make sure the recording starts and ends cleanly. Add titles and credits to video recordings. Sometimes it is helpful to include images or short video clips in a video recording, where they illustrate what is being discussed.

Consider adding ‘chapters’ or timestamps to video recordings, marking the main parts of the interview, to help people find the content they are interested in. This is less important if you have a transcript, as text search can then be used, but ideally you will offer both.

Additional Information and Resources

Group interviews

It is possible to conduct interviews with small groups of people who are all relevant to the topic being examined. Here, the role of the interviewer is to initiate the discussion, then guide it to make sure it stays on topic. The interviewees will typically ask questions of each other and keep the discussion flowing. Make sure that one or two voices do not dominate the conversation – you may need to invite the quieter people on the group to contribute.

Interviews as a learning exercise

Conducting interviews with theatre professionals can be a very useful exercise for students learning about the history or technical theatre. See the Making Oral History Interviews Canon teaching method.

Further guidance

The Oral History Society and the Oral History Association both offer very useful guidance on conducting oral history interviews:

https://ohs.org.uk/for-beginners/

https://oralhistory.org/best-practices-guidelines-and-toolkits/