One of the keys to a successful video biography interview lies in preparation – doing your homework, if you will. And one of the best ways to ready yourself, and your storyteller, for that all-important on-camera interview is to start your prep work with a preinterview. What’s a preinterview? As the name implies, it’s the interview before the interview. In other words, an interview you conduct with your storyteller before the actual shoot-day.

A preinterview takes the form of a casual conversation between you and the storyteller. It’s a opportunity for the two of you to meet and to build a rapport that will help your storyteller feel comfortable on camera. Very importantly, the preinterview gives you the chance to hear your storyteller’s life stories and to use the information you learn to construct questions that will elicit those stories on camera.

A preinterview is also a great time to explore – if an interesting memory surfaces during your conversation, feel free to ask about it and see where it takes your storyteller. You could dig up some very interesting remembrances that will surprise and delight your storytellers and their families.

In addition to helping you prepare questions, you’ll walk into the videotaping session knowing your storyteller’s background. If the storyteller gives you an incomplete answer while the camera is rolling, you’ll know it – and you’ll be able to ask a follow-up question to help fill in the rest of the picture.

The process is simple. Just schedule a time that’s convenient for your and your storyteller (you may or may not need multiple sessions). Come prepared with a pen and lots of paper for note-taking. If you don’t want to rely entirely on written notes, a small audio recorder is a great backup that will help you review the session at a later date. Then, start asking questions – and don’t forget to take notes!

In addition to helping you collect the background information you need to conduct a successful interview, a preinterview often helps “jump start” a storyteller’s thought processes. He or she will often remember additional stories in the time between the preinterview and the taping.

So do your homework and conduct a preinterview as you prepare for your next video biography interview. You’ll be glad you did.

If you’ve watched your fair share of documentaries, you’ve seen interview subjects presented in a variety of ways. Sometimes the storytellers speak directly to the camera. Other times they look left or right towards an unseen interviewer. Is one technique better than the other? And how do you choose?

The answer to the first question is “no.” Each technique is valid. Your decision on how to have your storyteller relate (or not relate) to the camera will be based on both stylistic and practical considerations.

The “facing the off-camera” interviewer look is a classic. It puts the viewer in the role of a third-party observer, kind of like watching someone through the one-way mirrors used in focus groups and police interrogation rooms. It’s comfortable – the storyteller is responding and relating to an unseen interviewer and you get to enjoy the conversation as well. By contrast, the “direct address” technique, where the storyteller faces the camera, breaks that one-way mirror. This style gives the impression that the storyteller is speaking directly to you, the viewer. This is a more forceful, “baring of the soul” style of interview.

Aside from these differences in style, there are some practical points to consider. The “off-camera” technique is generally easier to stage and shoot (more on that later). It’s also a technique that allows you as the interviewer to directly relate to, and engage, your storyteller. This one-to-one rapport is a vital component of a successful interview. By contrast, if you choose the “direct address” technique, your storyteller will need to speak to the camera. This is something that many folks, probably most of the people you’ll interview for video biographies, are not comfortable doing. It can also be confusing for the storytellers – where do they focus their attention? They’ll need to listen to you as you ask the question, and then remember to deliver their answer to the cold, glass eye of the camera.

There are devices designed to make this form of “direct address” interview easier on the storyteller. One takes the form of a modified teleprompter. A monitor mounted in front of the camera lens shows an image of the interviewer, but doesn’t block the image of the storyteller from being recorded. Google “interrotron” for information on one such device. As mentioned earlier, however, this adds a level of complexity (and expense) to your shoot that makes it a little more difficult than the “off-camera” technique – because you’ll need to buy or rent and set up extra gear.

Which style should you adopt? For most of your video biographies, the “off-camera” technique will probably work best. If you’re creating an ethical will, where the client wants to deliver personal messages “one-on-one” to relatives and friends, and is comfortable speaking to the camera, the “direct address” technique may be the ticket.

One of my favorite Mark Twain stories is called, “His Grandfather’s Old Ram.” (I have a recording of Hal Holbrook performing this – it’s a hoot.) The tale features an elderly gentleman who starts to tell a yarn about a fellow’s encounter with a rather cantankerous ram. Unfortunately, the storyteller keeps digressing from this account to another and then another and then another – all hilarious, until he falls asleep without ever finishing his original story. Now, this makes for great reading and engrossing theatre – but you can’t afford to let your video biography interviews spin out of control like this. You can waste time and tape (or memory) and wind up not getting the material you were after in the first place.

So, if you have a storyteller who you know is prone to meandering off onto tangents, what can you do to keep him focused and on track?

Do some homework. Before the interview, chat with your storyteller and discuss the subjects you’d like to cover during your session. If you need to, ask him for some background information related to the stories you want to capture. Also, ask him whether there’s anything he feels is important to relate.

Create your questions. Use the information from the step above to draft a list of questions. Show them to your storyteller so that he can see exactly what you plan to ask. This will help him to mentally prepare for the interview. He may also have a helpful change or addition to the list.

Control the interview. The interview is a bit of a dance between you and the storyteller. You have an agenda, but you need to be flexible enough to allow your storyteller to be spontaneous and follow the occasional tangent. The challenge is to keep your storyteller from wandering too far afield. Here’s what I recommend: Keep a list of your questions on a clipboard on your lap – and make sure you have enough room on the list to make some notes. Listen carefully! When your storyteller takes a detour, make a mental note (and then a physical one on the question list) of where he left the previous story. Now, focus on what he’s currently relating and give him a chance to return to the question at hand. If it’s clear that he’s not coming back and that you need to rein him in, simply note on your question sheet what it is he’s talking about. Politely interrupt him, tell him that you’ll gladly return to what he’s saying later in the interview – but that you’d like to finish up with the subject you were addressing before he took that left turn. Then, ask him a follow-up question that’ll get him back on track. For example: “Before you started talking about B you were telling me about A. Please tell me what happened after…”

Of course, keep your word later and ask about the subject he was addressing before you needed to interrupt.

With someone who tends to go off on tangents, you may need to do a lot of “reining in” during the course of the interview. But, if you are patient and gentle about it, you’ll not only get all your main questions answered – you’ll capture some interesting and unexpected tidbits as well.

Video biographies are all about making and reaffirming connections – between the past, present and future and with the family, friends and sometimes complete strangers who help us on our journeys through preproduction, production and post production. Here’s a case in point:

Ever hear the story about the shoemaker’s kids? Their dad was always so busy mending shoes for customers that he neglected his own children, who went around with ever-growing holes in the soles of their own shoes, and maybe even barefoot.

Now, my business is custom legacy videos, not footwear. But the old cobbler and I share a common dilemma: How to shoehorn family projects into a schedule dominated by “paying” work. Well, not too long ago I went the shoemaker one better and finished a family project I started years ago: my mom’s video biography.

The three years since her interview just flew by – and I finally resolved not to let a fourth slip past. So I started devoting free hours to the project. My initial goal was to have the video finished in time for Christmas. Then my wife, Halina, and I invited Mom to visit us for Thanksgiving, giving me an incentive to finish earlier so we could premiere the video during her stay. Having that deadline did the trick. I felt a great sense of accomplishment (and relief!) as we screened the video in our Tucson living room, as well as the joy that came from sharing the video with family and friends as my Christmas gift that year.

So where do connections enter into the picture?

To start with, the video gave me an opportunity to reconnect with my mom’s cousin, who lives in Guatemala. I haven’t seen or spoken with her since I was a youngster, but since a portion of my mom’s remembrances touched on her husband (my grandfather’s brother) I thought she might enjoy a copy of the video. I asked Mom for her cousin’s address, packed up the DVD and shipped it off to South America, all the while keeping fingers crossed that it reached the intended destination. What a surprise I had when, a few weeks later, I opened my inbox to find an e-mail with the subject heading, “Hello from Guatemala!” My mom’s cousin was overjoyed by the video and had already shared it with many members of her family. She called the video “a travel through time” and invited me and Halina to visit when we could.

I made new connections and resurrected old ones throughout the process. From the antiques vendor who sent me photos of many of the makeup compacts and lipstick cases produced by a company my grandmother once worked for, to the friendly real estate agent in New Jersey who provided pictures of the retirement community where my mom’s parents lived for a time, to an old friend of my mom’s who e-mailed me some images from their days as Army wives in North Carolina – and to a former next-door neighbor I tracked down who fished out an old snapshot that showed what my boyhood home looked like just before my parents bought it in 1959.

In a larger sense, this personal project left me feeling more connected to my passion for video biography than ever before. It’s a passion I know will continue to drive me to help others to preserve, share and celebrate their life stories on video.