05 • Preparing Your Narrator
23m 55s
Learn how to prepare your narrator for the interview recording through a pre-interview.
LESSON OUTLINE
1. Conducting a pre-interview
a. Learn more about your narrator
b. Share why you are involved in this project
c. Explain the full interview process + release form to your narrator
d. Set up and test all tech needs for your narrator
e. Answer any questions or concerns they may have
TRANSCRIPT
Lesson 05: Preparing Your Narrator
Hi again, and welcome back to Self Evident's oral history training and archiving program. This is Lesson 05: Preparing Your Narrator. So today, I’ll walk you through conducting a pre-interview with your narrator, so they can come prepared and ready to go for your interview.
Conducting a pre-interview
A pre-interview is a prep meeting with your narrator before the official recording day. So this pre-interview is not recorded. It's not part of the oral history interview, but it's a perfect opportunity for you to do five big things.
One, learn more about your narrator. Two, share why you're involved in this project. Three, explain the full interview process to your narrator. Four, set up and test all your tech needs for your narrator. And five, answer any questions or concerns they may have.
I'm going to walk you through each one of these steps.
Learn more about your narrator
First, this pre-interview is a great way for you to learn more about your narrator. You want to ask your narrator for a brief bio, so that you have a better understanding of their background and where they come from. You also want to know some stories or topics that are important to them to discuss. So whether you ask them straight out or you hear the way that they talk for so long about a specific topic or get really excited about something, it's probably important to them.
And then you'll also want to know if there's anything that they don't want to discuss. This is a good guide for you during the conversation, when you start to hear that we're moving towards something that they had told you they didn't want to talk about, then you can use your soft interview skills, and we can check in with them to make sure that they're feeling safe and comfortable during the interview.
Share why you are involved in this project
Second, you'll want to use this pre-interview to share why you're involved in this project. So what brings you to this project, to this work? Like what skills, lived experiences, curiosities. And why is this project and interview important to you? So these questions may sound familiar, and they come straight from our interviewer reflections. So I highly recommend that you go back to your interviewer reflections, your responses to them to guide how you share why you're involved in this project and why it's important to you.
Especially for folks who may not have ever been asked to share their stories before, it could be hard or just new to imagine why people would want to hear it and also to imagine the impact of their stories. Remember, you may get questions from your narrator like, why should I record an interview with you? Why do you want to talk to me? Why do you want to hear those stories? They're not a big deal. And this is totally understandable.
And so go back to your interviewer reflections and use these reflections to explain why it's important to you as the interviewer, as a listener, as a community member, to hear these stories from them and why it could also be important to other people. So be open and honest about the impact of their stories on you and on other community members.
Some examples that have worked for me in the past, especially with my elders, are things like telling them about present and future family members, being able to learn about their roots and histories that they lived, that we may not have been able to experience, but have gotten us to where we are today.
Or you could talk about present and future students, including our own family members, that could learn about our histories in schools and in museums. Extra bonus if you're able to bring them with you to a museum that shows bits of your community's histories. Then you can experience that in-person with them and see the impact of seeing these histories. You can also share these stories with and/or remember families that are far away. And you never know who else can relate to or share their story, and that can be so powerful.
And the way that you answer their questions about why it's important to you and to others to hear these stories will be really helpful for you when you're talking them through the release form and why we want to share these stories beyond just you and your narrator and share them with people that could find value and be impacted by these stories.
Explain the full interview process & release form to your narrator
Third, you'll want to use this pre-interview to explain the full interview process to your narrator. So that's before, during and after the interview.
What does your narrator need to prepare / set up? How?
So what does the narrator need to prepare and set up ahead of time, and how can they set all this up? So this includes their recording space, their technology, topics that you may want to discuss during the conversation, so they have an idea of where to think of the stories that they want to share, and how the narrator can get themselves comfortable before the interview. So that includes bringing tea and water, if they need it. Using the bathroom beforehand. Finding their most quiet place with all their distractions turned off. Putting on headphones, if they have them. And then making sure they're just generally comfortable and cozy for this very personal conversation. And then a big deep breath.
What will the interview be like?
And then you'll want to let them know what the interview itself will be like. Will it be recorded? Who's asking the questions? How long is the interview? Especially for people who are doing an interview for the very first time, you want to let them know exactly what to expect when they show up.
So how long should our interview last? I know, when we're in conversation with someone and they're telling us all of these amazing stories and we just want to learn more and more, and it feels like our conversation could go on forever. It feels like we could talk forever. But we do have to think about our narrators and ourselves as the interviewer too in this experience. So we recommend that an hour to an hour and a half is the sweet spot length for the time of your interview, because we've seen that people start to get tired and lose focus, if the interview lasts more than an hour and a half to two hours. You know, it can be a lot for your narrator to talk for so long, especially if they're talking about things that are really personal to them. It's also important to remember that it takes a lot of energy to actively listen and engage for a long time as the interviewer.
So even if you are super interested in their stories and want to keep hearing more, save some stories for next time. It's also helpful to you and your narrator to have some time to process the stories that were shared during the interview and the feelings that come up from them. It may bring back even more memories and feelings to share next time, because remember this oral history interview should just be the start of many conversations to come between you and your narrator.
What will happen with the interview recording afterwards?
And finally, what will happen with the interview recording afterwards? This is a really important part to share with your narrator because this can determine what they feel comfortable sharing with you. So will it live just in the archive? Is there a possibility of it becoming something else afterwards? Do you want to share it with your family and friends? Have this conversation with your narrator before the actual interview day during this pre- interview.
So why is it important to explain this release form to our narrators? Well, remember this whole interview process and oral history interview is a co-production with your narrator. And so they should be involved in the decisions of what happens with their story.
So often, we've seen media not inviting storytellers to be part of the process. Instead, they just do whatever they want with narrators' stories. And this is an opportunity for our narrators to decide how much of themselves they want to share in their stories. Just like the stories they choose to share with us. And it's also an opportunity for us to talk through with our narrators how they could feel more comfortable sharing their stories publicly and giving them options to make this more accessible and feel more comfortable.
Some examples could be making parts of themselves less identifiable in the digital archive, like choosing the name that they would prefer to have in the archive.
And so, to make sure that you and your narrator can make the most informed choice on how you share your stories, we at Self Evident want to make sure that you fully understand what signing this release form and contributing to our Story Archive mean to you, your narrator and your interview recording.
Self Evident’s Story Archive release form
So a lot of thought and care have gone into putting this release form together because this project is grounded in the belief that our Narrators and Contributors should be the authors of their stories. And so, because of this, our Contributors and Narrators will be the owners of the original copy of the story recording to share and use as you and your narrator choose.
At the same time, we believe that stories can be impactful to listeners far beyond the interview itself, whether someone stumbles upon it in the Story Archive or it becomes the seed that inspires future school curriculum, museum exhibitions, radio shows, movies, advocacy, and so much more. And we hope that this digital archive and the stories within them become an incredible resource for people to learn about the vast range of lived experiences of Asian Americans.
And so our team at Self Evident would love to help you share your stories with future listeners, students, educators, researchers, journalists, media makers, and organizations who care about Asian American experience and could find incredible value in these stories. Through our three years and beyond of producing nuanced and challenging stories about Asian America and building strong community relationships all along the way, we firmly intend to preserve you and your narrator's authorships of your stories and advocate for responsible, culturally competent use of your stories, if it were ever, in fact, to be used as a resource for further learning. Our work on the Self Evident podcast has always aimed to even further bring listeners together in conversation around the stories we share to grow our communities’ capacities to create structures of mutual support with each other by deepening our understanding of and relationships with each other.
So what does this release form mean for you and your narrator then? Well, in order for us to do all of these things and share your stories with people that we trust, our release form asks permission from you and your narrator to share a copy of the recording with us and to grant us a non-exclusive license to share and potentially produce your story in the future. This license means that you are giving Self Evident the rights to: 1. Add your story to our publicly accessible digital Story Archive. 2. Share your story and only the information you choose to share with us in the archive with students, educators, researchers, journalists, artists, media makers, organizations who care about Asian American experiences.
It also would give us the rights to advocate for responsible culturally competent use of your story, if it's licensed for use in the future with media makers that we trust. And finally it gives us the rights to produce and show your story through Self Evident's media production company.
So, because this is a non-exclusive license, non-exclusive means that you and your narrator are also still able to give these rights to anyone else you choose. This means that you, your narrator and anyone else that you entrust with your recording can still create and produce whatever they choose with the recording.
On top of all of these potential places for your story recording, this release form also asks that you and your narrator keep us in conversation, keep us in the loop, if any concerns ever arise with your story recording or how it's shared, because we want to have this conversation with you and talk through these concerns, these questions, and these issues, rather than taking them to court or taking them outside of our communities, where we can talk them out and really understand the context from which you're coming from, your perspective, so that we can think of a plan to address these issues together. Although we don't anticipate this happening, we want to be fully upfront and honest and open and show that we are here, if you ever have any concerns ,and we want to be here to talk it out and talk it through with you.
Explain the release form to your narrator
So how can you explain all of this information on the release form to your narrator? Well, we suggest a few key things to share with your narrator. First, share that your recording, the photo, and any information that they choose to share will be shared in a publicly accessible digital archive. Within this archive, it will include your audio recording only, no video. And let them know that they can choose to use whatever name they want. That could be their full name, a chosen name, or anonymous. And if you and your narrator want to remain anonymous in the digital archive, it's so important to talk about how you can make sure of this during your recording, like using a different name. And remember to practice using this chosen name before the interview, so that you can get yourself used to it. And keep in mind that if you or your narrator choose to use a different name or remain anonymous for your archive entry, we do still ask that you sign your full legal name on the release form. But this form will never be shared publicly.
Also let them know that adding a photo to the archive is also optional. Sometimes people don't want to share a photo of their face, especially if they want to remain anonymous. We've seen people take pictures of something other than their face to visually remember the interview. Sometimes I've seen people take photos from behind, of the back of their heads, or even their hands or their shoes or where they conducted the interview.
And then let your narrator know what will and could happen with the recording. Like Self Evident could produce a story using your recording. And share why you trust Self Evident and show a favorite episode. A good one to share is our episode Saving the Seeds for our fruit lovers and our Diaspora Dance Mixtape, Volume 1 for our music lovers. So get them just as excited about Self Evident as you are.
Let them know that it could also be shared with other people and groups that Self Evident trusts to become a part of school textbooks, museums, TV and film, art, and so much more.
And remember to ask if they have any other questions, concerns, or need any more clarifications about any of the above. If you don't have an answer for them, be honest and let them know that you will try your best to find out the answer to tell them. Feel free always to reach out to us, if you have any questions or they ask you any questions that you want some help answering. We are more than welcome, we are more than happy to talk through this with you and help you out.
OK I know, so much information! But we tell you all of this upfront, not to overwhelm you, but really to make sure that you and your narrator are fully informed of this process with us. Just like the way that you are fully informing your narrator of the interview process, we believe that being honest and open with this information of where your story and recording can go is important for you and your narrator to decide what stories you want to share and how you want to share them with us in our digital archive and beyond.
And so, we hope that by setting it from the very beginning that we are open and intentional about talking through our process with you, that you and your narrator will feel comfortable, safe, and brave to share your personal story recording with us, as well as your questions, thoughts, and concerns all along the way, as we grow this digital Story Archive and oral history program as a whole together.
Set up and test all tech needs for your narrator
Number four, you'll want to use the pre-interview to set up and test all your tech needs for your narrator. So this includes asking them if they have headphones for the interview, helping them set up Zoom or phone for however you're going to conduct the interview. You'll also want to let them know how to best set up their recording space to keep all of the outside sounds out. We'll have more details on this in a later lesson, but you can start off by telling them that ideally, you want to be in a small room with low ceilings, carpeted floors or rugs, closed windows and curtains with no street view, a desk and a comfortable, not squeaky chair to sit in, and no noisy appliances, like a fridge, a radio. And all of these things will make it so that we have less outside sounds coming in, and we can just focus on the stories and the voices of the people in the interview. Also let them know that you'll send them some more information on how to best set up their room to minimize these outside sounds. We'll have a short list for you to easily send over to your narrator ahead of time for them to set up their room. And then ask them if they have any additional tech needs that you can help out with.
Answer any questions or concerns they may have
Finally, you want to use this pre-interview to answer any questions or concerns that they may still have. So this can be questions about the interview itself. Like what questions are you going to ask me? Or what else do I need to prepare or do I need to get dressed up for this? If you don't have an answer, that's okay. Just let them know and be honest about it and let them know that you will circle back with them, once you do have an answer for them.
You can also use this space to ask your narrator if there's anything that they want to know about you. Remember in this conversation, both of you will be involved. So just as you are learning about your narrator through your questions, your narrator is also learning about you. So be open and be yourself. And just like in our interview, if they ask you a question that you don't feel comfortable answering, you can say exactly that.
Finally, to close out your pre-interview meeting with them, let your narrator know that you'll check back in with them one to two days before the interview, to send them a reminder of the interview time and location. You'll also send them a document to find the best place to record in their homes. You'll also send them two to three themes that you're excited to ask them about in the interview. This will give them an idea of what kinds of stories that they'll be talking about and where to focus. And finally ask them one more time if they have any additional questions or anything that you can support with to make them more safe and comfortable and brave for this conversation.
Recap: Conducting a pre-interview
So a quick recap of how to prepare your narrator through your pre-interview. Remember that this pre-interview is a prep meeting for you to do five very important things.
First, learn more about your narrator. Second, share why you're involved in this project. Third, explain the full interview process to your narrator. Fourth, set up and test all your tech needs for your narrator. And finally, answer any questions or concerns they may have.
Before the next lesson
And before you jump into our next lesson, we recommend that you meet with your narrator for a pre-interview and apply these skills that you just learned. What you learn about your narrator during this pre-interview will set you up for our next lesson: Asking Thoughtful Interview Questions.