Introducing... Interview Club
Experimental, interactive session on Zoom.
A few weeks ago, I ran a course for people wanting to make videos - to share their work, or whatever, now that video has become such a big thing.
One of the most productive sessions in that course involved interviewing each other. This enabled people to sound natural and unselfconscious.
I decided to spin off a separate Interview Club, for others to do the same. It would give me the chance to talk to people I know and like, about things they care about, which is no bad thing.
Also: to work out for myself what exactly it is that happens in an interview. What makes it different from, say, coaching? Or therapy?
If those questions seem a bit unexpected, I should explain that I’ve been told again and again as an interviewer that my questions encouraged people to find new possibilities and dream up new ideas; or just provided a nearly-therapeutic chance to be heard.
So, anyway…
I made a rough, sketchy logo, which pleased me:
Then I invited a few people I knew I would enjoy having with me in the two trial sessions (one in the evening, another at lunchtime). It was very short notice, which kept the sessions small.
First trial session: David Hutchinson
The first trial session of Interview Club took place last week. I recorded it, and the next morning, I examined the video recording.
From the whole session, I extracted precisely 7 minutes and 46 seconds in which I interviewed one of the participants on a topic of his choice.
You don’t need to watch the full-length interview, because (quite naturally) it’s a bit rambling, a bit stop and start. But this short clip gives a sense of how uncertainly we began:
Having extracted that clip, I uploaded the audio file to an AI transcription thingy. The transcript was not particularly good, but it helped me to find the bits that seemed most powerful in what David H. said:
Then I used QuickTime, a simple movie player / editor that comes as standard on my iMac, to cut a much shorter video, based on those green highlights:
Finally, I uploaded the shorter video to Instagram, where I made a Reel with added captions and a sticker showing David’s poetry group.
(In case you’re wondering, I made the Reel and saved it to my phone without needing to publish it anywhere. Instagram is a good tool for rudimentary videos.)
Here it is:
Note: David asked me to point out that the venue for his events has subsequently changed.
Second trial session: Rachel Hazell
The following day, I ran a second experimental, invitation-only session.
This time the volunteer interviewee was Rachel Hazell, who teaches on residential workshops all over the place. She decided to use the time to record something that might reassure potential clients when they’re thinking about booking a place on one of her courses.
This highlight combines our somewhat hesitant start with a conclusion that brings together everything Rachel wanted to say:
I was happy for Rachel. But I wasn’t sure if the second session had delivered all I had hoped to deliver.
In the first one, I’d distributed the participants into breakout rooms to take turns interviewing each other. In the second session, I’d felt there was plenty to share with the group as a whole, and didn’t find time to do the breakouts within the planned hour.
I offered an apology, and this was the response:
I’m getting ready to launch Interview Club as a regular thing.