How do we decide what part of an interview to show to a class or group, or post online?

The topics of featured segments or clips for posting online or showing to groups will vary according to the interests and goals of the group. But we also look to certain general criteria -- apart from topic -- in deciding whether to feature an interview.

1. The narrator (person being interviewed) is speaking the entire time, or almost the entire time.

2. The interviewer does not speak at all, or speaks only a few words.

3. The segment is representative of the interview as a whole, or at least is not unrepresentative.

4. The narrator is describing her or his own experience, not those of other people. She or he is not primarily describing the motivations, beliefs, or thoughts of other people, or characterizing other people, other than through the actions or words of those other people, when those actions or words affected the narrator.

5. The narrator is not primarily giving her or his opinion, although that opinion may come out. Rather, the narrator is describing her or his experiences.

6. The interview presents information or an experience that is relatively unlikely to reach anyone outside of the narrators’s closest circles otherwise. We're looking to add new information and understandings. Narratives of personal lived experience will almost always add to our understanding. (Public actor interviews may or may not.)

7. The segment is not overly sensational or unnecessarily graphic.

8. The viewer should not feel like a voyeur; she or he should feel that the narrator is sharing something important and personal, but in a conscious way. Thus, “what I would like people to know…” or “I wish people could understand…” descriptions of experience (not opinions) are less invasive, for example, than film of a narrator breaking down and covering his or her face. A good example is when Ireland Beazley explains that ‘”I would tell people, if you have the money, spend it” [on a lawyer] or when Tina Duroy says that she wishes that people would understand mental illness or know what it is like to live with a person who is mentally ill. The viewer should not feel as if she or he is “peeping” or peeking through a keyhole. We hope, instead, that the viewer feels that the narrator is entrusting something of value to her or him.

9. Gut feeling/intuition: Do you think the narrator would be pleased with this segment of her or his interview?

10. The selected segment should not show the narrator as a caricature or one-dimensional or cardboard person who fits a into a simplistic label or category, but as a complex and unique human being.

11. The segment is respectful and reveals the inner dignity and worth of the narrator.

12. Specifics are good. Generalities are not very compelling.

13. Don’t ever exoticize a narrator; be careful of segments that would tend to facilitate such “othering.”

14. Our aim is NOT to reduce or simplify, but to explore, dig, promote thought, mull over, and complicate. Apparent contradictions are fruitful. So is tension. The most useful interviews will be those that encourage viewers to think dialectically.

15. Aim to challenge the viewer, not to affirm or solidify her opinions and certainties.

We won't always be able to find portions of video that meet all these criteria, but we'll do our best.

5/11/2009