Dumb Questions & Interviews

Just as in any other environment, a documentary interview is essentially a contrived performance. And this leaves film makers with a couple of problems:

1. What questions will deliver the evidence that I want?
2. How can I be sure of the integrity of the interviewee?

Well, there are tools we can use. Documentary interviews provide the answer to only four questions. That's because, as with any story, the evidence comes from situations or activities in either the 'real' world or the one in our heads. The real world situation is revealed through the question "What and where is it?"; the real world activity by "How does it work?". Internal situations are formed from our prejudices and lead us to ask "What does it mean?". Finally, internal activities are about manipulation and thus provoke the question "Why is it important?".

Any question intended to produce information will be a special case of one of these four generic questions. To get a complete view of something the documentary must answer all four but depending upon style one or more will have greater significance. Masses more on this at the dramatica.com website.

And that leaves us with the problem that we must either accept the integrity of the interviewee or find a tool to test their answers for coherence. To do this we can use a technique that was developed thousands of years ago. With each of the four questions we want to ascertain whether the answers are the product of a reasonable or skewed world view and whether there is a reasonable agenda at work. Each assertion should be explored in order that the thesis of the film can be shown to form a good argument rather than just opinion. Incontrovertible evidence in which we can have high confidence is rare. This means that we must make our case with a solid argument.

Poor old Socrates' method of questioning was completely misunderstood as a socially  destructive process. However, it was actually a simple, almost Vulcan process for finding weakness in an argument. What survived was as close to the truth as it's possible to get. Socratic questions fall broadly into six main categories:

1. To clarify the concept requires that it can be stated in a variety of ways, that it relates to the subject at hand, and that its nature and implications are well described.
2. As Descartes argued, everything apart from our own existence is subject to assumptions. But are they well chosen and not just a limited subset that will fulfil a wish? Which would need to be false in order to bring down the deck of cards?
3. Then we must explore the presented rationale, reasons and the evidence in order to discover provenance. How do we know, how can it be shown and what causality justifies the conclusion?
4. Sun Tzu placed much importance on the art of positioning. How do we know that the perspective or position is as strong as it appears? What other ways of looking at the issue are there? Who might gain special benefit from looking at the world this way?
5. Penultimate are the consequences and implications of the argument. This is an exploration of causality and prediction.
6. Finally, the question itself can be explored reflexively. Why was it asked and what is its point?

There is plenty published on this subject and a review of criticalthinking.org will be well rewarded.

Preparing for interviews is often neglected and this is a big mistake. Nobody can hope to become a specialist in a subject within the time generally afforded to research; but without good questions we risk looking dumb and getting useless material. By preparing the four question areas and listening carefully to the answers it is possible to spot some assumptions and questioning them always wakes people up and generates respect. Unless, of course, stealth mode is required for setting Ali G traps.

If the objective is to transcend glossy eye-candy with substantial material then it's worth spending a lot of time on the best approach to questions and the interviews that frame them. It provides much more convincing material that works naturally as narration or voice over and will just snuggle in perfectly with parallel storytelling.