Post-wedding interviews
 

Hi guys and girls. I have some thoughts about an idea and would love to accept any help and recommendations.

Tomorrow I go to Athens for a great wedding (hopefully) and the next day after that, we will meet a couple of which we did the wedding some months back, and will make some interviews with them, asking questions about the 3 days of their wedding, and later we will interweave this footage with the wedding footage in the Short Form Edit. I already have a bunch of questions for them, but since in Greece these things don't happen very often (or should I say never), I'd love you to suggest me of any possible questions you guys might have asked in similar videos of yours.

Thanks in advance

What was the best part of the day?
What do you remember most about the ceremony?
What did you think the first time you saw her/him?
Describe the bride/groom that day.
What were you thinking the night before the wedding?
Did anyone give you good advice about marriage/weddings/etc?
What was the funniest thing that happened?
Did anything surprise you?
Why did you pick the song you did for your first dance?
What were you thinking the moment before the bride walked down the aisle? As she walked down?

Dimitris,

There's nothing in Jeremy's list of suggestions I'd take issue with but in my experience successful interviewing (and I've been doing it - and teaching it - for 30 years) there are two absolute essentials.

First is to ask open questions - ie ones that can't be answered Yes or No (which are defined as Closed Questions). One of the easiest ways to ensure this is to discipline yourself to ask your question in the form of a statement followed by a demand. eg Many people say that a successful marriage is the union of two like people yet I'm sure we both know of couples who've been married for years who are as different as chalk and cheese. Tell me what you think there is about Tom and Barbara that will make their marriage a success.

The first part establishes the subject of your question in their minds and allows them time to think about what's coming. They don't have to concentrate on your actual demand because they'll already know whether Tom and Barbara are similar or very different. By starting the demand with "Tell me...." you're almost guaranteed to avoid a closed question. Control the flow of the response by "active listening" - nodding like a mad dog - as long as you want them to keep going, then lifting a finger when they begin to ramble.

The second key is to listen to the answer and develop your next question from that rather than slavishly following a list and moving on from one question to the next. It'll be much more interesting for the listener and will also help the interviewee settle because it begins to feel to them like a conversation and not an interrogation. But be warned there's a great temptation to make your followup or development a closed question.

These are just two elements of a vast subject but if you start with them I don't think you'll go far wrong.

But be prepared for it all to go to a can of worms occasionally and accept that even after 30 years you can still get caught out. Last week I had a particularly sensitive wedding because the bride's father had died only recently. My guess is that if the couple had been able to cancel without a severe penalty they probably would have done.

Because I knew how sensitive things were, I strove to select subjects for our "signature" interviews which kept well away from the bride's family and her father in particular. Unfortunately her brother (who was giving her away) and her mother seemed determined to bring up the subject of her father's death - and, quite naturally, become very emotional about it. I've reviewed everything I said (which is of course recorded) and I swear whilst it was clear I was keeping wide of anything to do with her father, the family were determined to talk about him and to upset themselves. Perhaps I need to talk to a psychologist!

Good luck with yours.

Philip nailed it on the head. I couldn't agree more. I've done a lot of interviews (as well as leading small group discussion sessions) and both of his points are dead on.

LISTEN to what they are saying and develop additional questions as the interview goes. Use your list of questions when you get stuck.

Jeremy, Philip, thank you both! Your advice and suggestions were all being seriously noted and used during the interviews, which I think went great, since we let the couple loose with some very funny and interesting results. :) Thanks again guys!