interview_technique v1.0.0

name: interview_technique description: Plan, run, and edit recorded interviews for video or podcast — guest research, story-driven question design, active-listening tactics, and ethical editing that condenses conversation into narrative. Use when preparing, conducting, or cutting an interview.

Interview Technique

Purpose

Turn a recorded conversation into a story people finish. This skill covers the full interview arc: research the guest (so you never ask a rehearsed question), design questions for story, not information (scenarios and emotional truth, not bios), listen actively during (follow the thread, don't read the list), and edit for narrative (condense ethically — tighter, never dishonest).

Workflow

1. Research the guest (before you write a single question)

Primary (1–2 hours):

• Their most substantial long-form work: book, keynote, signature project
• Previous podcast/video appearances — note what has already been asked
• Recent social activity — what are they thinking about right now?

Secondary (30–60 min):

• Career arc and timeline; project/company announcements; industry news; colleagues' accounts

Dig for:

• Contradictions between what they say and what they do
• Topics they are never asked about
• Recent changes in their thinking
• Personal moments that shaped their professional life
• The question you're dying to ask — find the question they've never been asked that they'd love to answer

Output: a 1-page brief (see Output Contract) — research summary, themes, and question drafts grouped by arc.

2. Design questions for story, not information

Question hierarchy — escalate, never start at the top:

| Tier | Shape | Examples | |---|---|---| | ❌ AVOID — information questions | Bios, advice | "What do you do?" "How did you get started?" → gets rehearsed talking points | | ✓ BETTER — scenario questions | Moments, scenes | "Take me to the moment when…" / "Walk me through the day…" / "What was going through your mind when…" → gets specific memories, sensory detail | | ✓✓ BEST — emotional-truth questions | Fear, surprise, contrarian stakes | "What scared you most about that decision?" / "What surprised you most about what you learned?" / "What's the thing about [topic] most people get wrong?" → gets authentic reflection |

Rules of thumb:

• Open-ended how/why/what; never stack yes/no questions in a row
• Outline themes, not a script — flexibility reads as genuine conversation
• Tailor every question to the guest's expertise; reference their actual work by name
• Mix personal and professional; stay out of private matters unless the guest is open about them
• If you catch yourself writing a question Google could answer, delete it

3. Structure the arc — a journey, not a list

| Act | Time | Purpose | Notes | |---|---|---|---| | Opening | 5–10 min | Rapport, get them talking | Start with something current ("I saw your post last week about X — what prompted that?"), never the origin story | | Middle Act 1 | 10–20 min | The journey | Inflection points, key decisions, "what most people don't know about that period…" | | Middle Act 2 | 15–25 min | The core | The must-ask questions; challenge their positions ("How do you reconcile X with Y?"); the uncomfortable-but-important one | | Closing | 5–10 min | Synthesis, takeaway | What they're working on now; what they'd do differently; the question you're afraid to ask |

4. Run the interview — listen more than you talk

• Note keywords and interesting points as they land; follow unexpected threads instead of returning to the list
• Prefer concrete over abstract: ask for a specific scene, not a thesis
• Use silence deliberately — don't rush to fill a thoughtful pause; people fill it with truth
• Tradeoffs over open-ended mush: "Do you want X or Y?" forces clarity your edit will thank you for
• Never perform your homework as a monologue — show the research inside the question, then shut up

5. Edit the conversation for story

Pass 1 — string out. Remove all interviewer questions and dead air. This clean cut is the foundation; the story lives in the guest's voice alone.

Pass 2 — condense. Remove: over-long pauses, repeated information (they said the same thing three ways — keep the sharpest), stammering/self-correction. One condensement pass or several trim passes — either way, tighten before judging.

Pass 3 — shape for narrative. Select sound bites that carry key messages and emotion. Order answers so each one sets up the next. Cut away to B-roll / visuals for context and to keep talking-head segments from dragging. Pace the cuts to the rhythm of the delivery: quick cuts for energy and tension, longer holds for reflection. Keep the pauses where the guest is genuinely re-experiencing a story — cut the ones where they're spinning their wheels.

Ethics (non-negotiable). Tightening is allowed; meaning-change is not:

• Never create a false relationship between two unrelated quotes or reorder to imply false causation
• Never cut the softening "buts" and "excepts" that qualify a statement
• Never cherry-pick to show the person in a poor light, or show an emotional reaction without its cause
• Never hide a pointed question when the answer only makes sense with it

Output Contract

For each interview, produce:

1. Guest brief (1 page): 5-line research summary → 3–4 themes → question drafts grouped by arc (Opening / Act 1 / Act 2 / Closing), each tagged by tier (information / scenario / emotional-truth), minimum 60% scenario or emotional-truth
2. Session plan: target length, must-get sound bites (what the episode cannot ship without), no-go topics
3. Edit notes: string-out cut location, condensed selects with timestamps, and an ethics pass signed off (no meaning changed — yes/no per answer retained)

Operating Rules

1. No question the guest has answered publicly before goes in unmodified — find the new angle or cut it.
2. Information questions are banished from final drafts. If it's in the brief, it never gets asked on mic.
3. The interviewer speaks ≤30% of the time; measure it on playback if in doubt.
4. Silence is a tool, not a failure. Count to three before rescuing a pause.
5. Unverifiable claims by the guest get flagged for the editor, never repeated as fact in narration or titles.
6. The ethics pass is mandatory, not optional — a tighter edit that changes meaning is a rejected edit.
7. When in doubt about a cut's honesty, keep the wider context.