Good interviews and bad interviews

For our recent college project for Matt, we have been asked to look at good interviews and bad interviews. This is for our interview techniques work. What I discovered is that the controversial ones are the best types of ones to watch. Even the short lived ones on the red carpet for a big Hollywood movie for example at the premiere of Men In Black 3, Will Smith gets stopped by a reporter and the reporter starts to ask him questions about the film and then the reporter tries to kiss him. Then you see Will Smith slap him saying "what you doing man" then walks away - this is a classic case of an interview gone wrong.

Another classic example of an interview going wrong is with Michael Parkinson. He interviews Meg Ryan and throughout the interview she seems like she doesn't want to be there and is very blunt with him. In the interview when he was asking her questions she was giving him very short and abrupt answers with many just one word answers. In the interview you can see Michael Parkinson beginning to get annoyed with her. However, when I watched the interview it did seem that he put very little effort into the interview and the questions he was asking her. It appears that he did no research at all and that she turned up and he would hope for the best with the interview.

In contrast, a good interview I saw was when Mark Wahlberg, went on to the motoring programme Top Gear and was interviewed by Jeremy Clarkson. They were talking about his film career and his love of cars. He also did the star in a Reasonably Priced Car but what I found interesting about the interview is that his old rap career was not mentioned at all. In the 1990s he was part of the rap group called Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. The group didn't do very well and only released two albums. I would think if you were interviewing a big Hollywood star like that you would bring up the things that made them famous.

In the early 2000s TV shows like Friday Night With Jonathan Ross and The Graham Norton Show became more popular and were always on at 9 pm on a Friday night on the BBC and ITV. The Jonathan Ross Show was always controversial with famous people because some of the things he used to say to his guests and he would mock them. One of the most famous cases of mocking I can remember is when he had Eminem on the show and he started to make jokes about his ex wife Kim and joking that his daughter is going to be the next big rap star. When you watch Eminem in the interview, his face just looks like he is going to punch Jonathan Ross, or get 50 Cent to sort him out. I would say the telephone call with Andrew Sachs is a prank instead of an interview which I thought was so funny. It was where Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand rang Andrew Sachs saying I fucked your granddaughter, which I thought was funny and caused a national scandal in the media.

Bad Interviews happen all the time in the Media industry. Another one I can think of is when the rapper Lil Wayne is talking to someone about his music. The interviewer asks him a question that he doesn't like and ends the interview straight away and stops talking. The interviewer keeps trying to get him to talk and the interview ends with the bodyguard kicking the interviewer out. Another one was when Lil Wayne was sitting on a chair with the interviewer and starts to move his leg like he doesn't want to be there and kicks his drink over and goes "OMG that's the biggest fuck up I'm sorry" and ends the interview.

The type of interviews I like are with the big Hollywood stars on the red carpet where they talk briefly about the film and if they had fun doing it, etc. Also anything with Kanye West. because his interviews were always controversial and became so controversial that he now refuses to talk to the media. A classic Kanye moment was when he was live on TV and said George Bush doesn't care about Black People and the camera quickly cuts to Chris Tucker. That was a classic Kanye moment.