The most important thing to remember when preparing to be interviewed is to relax. We are here to help you convey your key messages and put across any key information you may want to include in your video. The more relaxed you are, the easier this is. People often remember and convey information more clearly when they aren’t in a panicked frame of mind.
In some instances you will have had the opportunity to see the list of questions we aim to ask, don’t worry if not, we often adapt our questions based on your previous answers. The key thing to remember in this instance is to not over prepare. This may sound silly, as you may ask can you really be over prepared for an interview? But trust us when we say that writing scripted answers for the set of questions we have sent makes for a very awkward and stiff interview.
People don’t convey emotion when reading off of a piece of paper and often become flustered when they trip on their words that they have so carefully prepared. They’ll often lose their camera eye line and to the audience, that can make you seem unconfident and unsure of your own thoughtfully constructed answers. People respond better to a conversational interview, and we as interviewers can recognize areas that could be elaborated on further, rephrased or condensed. Our advice to you would be to read our questions and just note some of the key messages and points you’d like to get across, you can elaborate on these during the conversation and often new things will come to mind when the conversation is flowing with us.
Another important thing to remember is not to worry about being ‘perfect’. You will inevitably stumble on words, overelaborate a point, repeat yourself, mispronounce a simple word, muddle the order of your sentence and be faced with a whole lot of ‘umm’. It doesn’t matter. This is the reason we have the editing process, any little snags can be cut out and your points can be condensed and reconstructed for better structure, anything that wouldn’t be able to be fixed in post we’ll ask you to redo. Don’t be afraid to stop and take a moment, or to restart your sentence when you lose your train of thought, it happens to the best of us! Have patience with yourself and take your time, and if you get stuck our job is to help you.
Overall, the most important thing to remember is to just be natural. When natural, all of the above will just settle in and it’ll make for a great interview. Think of us as friends that you’re explaining the topic that you’re passionate about to, you wouldn’t worry about tripping on your words or losing your train of thought. Having a camera pointed at you shouldn’t change that. You have been chosen to convey the key messages for your video for a reason, you know the topic and the answers! All you need to do is relax.