Looking for a challenge? Try holding an interview with someone under the age of 15...
There are three things I learned about interviewing kids:
1.No matter how extroverted they are, no matter how many times they’ve graced the stage, or no matter how shy they are, when it comes to talking on camera I quickly found there are two kinds of kids; the kids who barely notice that little red light and the kids who stare at it like it could leap out and eat them at any moment. And even working in a theatre environment, I still found those camera shy kids. For these cases I eventually developed a strategy of sorts: I would allow the kids to choose where they wanted to talk (I also avoided the term “interview” as much as possible) so that they would be someplace they were comfortable. Sometimes, as a result of this, either my video or audio suffered mildly, but the answers I received in return from the kids were well worth a little extra editing in Premiere.
2.It does not matter how great you are at talking with kids; interviewing them is something entirely different. The younger they are the more specific your questions need to be. I fell into this trap a few times when I asked, “What is your favorite part of being in the Petite Players?” And well, let’s just say I did not always get the type of answers I expected. (Like…waterfalls…)
Um...whoops!
3.Kids cannot stand still, and they will move out of frame. And they will do it a LOT. Just ask them to sit. It’s so much easier!
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