January 22, 2011
I noticed a few things looking through the footage
It was easy to remember the circumstances surrounding each interview. Often this came through in my voice and how I asked questions, as well as what I asked. A few times I got frustrated for not following up with more interesting questions when an obvious line opened up. There were definitely times the person I was talking to wanted to tell me something that would have been more interesting than what I got, and usually that boiled down to me being distracted by the technical details of the filming, or being tired.
I also saw, and heard, how much my personality, tone, and method adjusted to the circumstances of the interview — did I find the person I was talking with intimidating, weird, funny, nervous, boring, fascinating? Without fail, my demeanor adapted to these variables. Sometimes I was disgusted by how I heard myself transform. Sometimes it was embarrassing.
I guess the overall impression I got from hearing the interviews was a reminder of how easily an external adaptation, an almost submissive friendliness — to make the person I was talking with feel at ease, and which I found draining — occurred. Next time I want to be better at catching the story-line the person I am talking with wants to tell. It’s interesting how much an interview leaves the interviewer exposed.
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I suppose that’s what the post-production sleight-of-hand is for, to make sure we remain focused on the subject.
In my head that’s a question, but in my grammar it isn’t.
Yes, exactly.
Deron, I love the precision of your perceptions here. I think we often think of ourselves as neutral or “hidden” when we are speaking to others. And it’s wonderful that this footage is giving you access to realms you might never see otherwise.
I would be interested to watch a collection of interviews in which that goal is intentionally subverted, where by watching the questions one person asks and the way they ask them we learn more about that person.
Deron, I think that I know about as well as anyone can what you are talking about. All my life I have had a tendency to mimic those with whom I’m speaking, though not in a mocking way. Okay, sometimes there has been mockery, but usually that is behind people’s backs. I do tend to merge with people in, yes, an upbeat submissive way that is almost canine. (“I’m a good dog! I want you happy!”)
Sometimes, though, it can be good. I know that there have been times people have told me things they would not have told if I had not at least briefly gotten onto their wavelength.
But I know how embarrassing it can feel to catch yourself adapting in that way.
Watching an audience is like a blind person’s mirror. You can’t really see yourself, but you can extrapolate things based on subtle reactions occuring “out there.” Of course, knowing when you’re reading yourself and when you are reading the Other is the whole challenge.
It’s interesting, Deron, as in the times we have spoken face-to-face, I have never ever had the feeling that you were adapting yourself to me. I’ve almost always had the sense that you were receptive, but not intent on any agenda of your own. I’ve never felt that you’ve adapted your demeanor to submit to whatever I was feeding you.
I wonder whether the dynamic would change if ever we got together and you were to record the encounter.
I think that’s the distinction, Sheila. Or at least I hope it is. I know there is a place I go when asking for photographs or in performing an interview that is different from the person I try to be when with those I care about.
And the more comfortable I felt with the person I was interviewing, the less I heard that in me.
You know, Studs Terkel really was a model for interviewing people. He never seemed to abandon his own self, yet he drew people out of their own selves. He really had it all in balance.
I think nearly everyone would be unsettled at viewing himself–as himself–on film. We all do things unconsciously throughout the day that don’t represent what we think of as our best selves. I think the most important thing is never to lose sight of the person you are and want to be.
For what it’s worth, Deron, I’ve been with you when you filmed and photographed others, and I have never seen you behave as anything other than your true, good self. The reason people are so willing to speak to and pose for you is that you so clearly come to them with an open mind and heart.
Thank you, Cindy. It was definitely in the interviews I felt the weirdest about. I guess it becomes a form of protection, or as I mentioned to Aaron, a submissive aggressiveness to get the footage you want. Or, perhaps more simply put, the space you enter into like at a family gathering where Grandma mentions how great it would have been to be around when the animals could talk.
yep
Do you like Bon Jovi?
Sometimes I just say shit in order to hear people’s responses.
Today, for instance, I was driving to my local store and listening to Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know? on the radio. And Feldman asked this qualifying question, “According to a recent poll, what percentage of British youth believe that bacon comes from sheep?” And I hollered into the void, “Between 20 and 30 per cent!” — just because that seemed right. And the answer was: 26 per cent.
So a minute later I was in the store and two Chicago turistas were buying breakfast fixings and asking about breakfast meat and Linda told them about the pork sausage and the bacon they could buy back at the deli and I just had to toss out the quiz question about young Brits and bacon. And we all got tight with one another for about 45 seconds and I have no idea what that was all about nor why I told about it.
See, that’s good.
It was good. There was me and Linda, these Scandihoovian-looking transplanted local yokels, and these two African-American Chicago women staying at the resort and shopping for Sunday breakfast or brunch, and we were all whooping it up about sheep and pigs and bacon and pork and the US and the UK.
It is really hard for me to imagine how that scene might have played if I’d been trying to record it.
“Do you like Bon Jovi?” (and similar inquiries) do conflibberate me to the point of equivocation. So I’m inclined to get all aggressive from the git-go in an effort to chart a course. But that is not best for eliciting the stories people want to tell, and when they stray from the course, I can founder.
It’s a difficult art.
Maybe now is a good time to throw out a link to a film edited and directed by my friend Blaine Dunlap some years back, titled “Sometimes It’s Gonna Hurt.” It runs about 30 minutes and is worth watching.
I fucking hate Bon Jovi. And the goddamn Eagles.
Man.
I struggle with a lot of Interview-y dilemmas, Deron. We should talk about it sometime.
It’s the evidence of Blaine’s having come to know the people in the film and to converse with them and his having shaped the footage. That’s the relevance I’m hoping shines through.
Amanda, it’s a date.
Love this thread.