Why a structure check comes before the shoot
Most interviews that wander were planned loosely in the first place. The guest arrives, the cameras are ready, and everyone assumes the conversation will find its own shape. Sometimes it does. More often you end up with forty minutes of pleasant talk and no clear thread to cut from, and the editing falls to me, Daniel, to rescue.
This checklist belongs to the stage of Module 3 where you decide whether a plan is ready to use. It is not a drafting exercise. You already have questions and a brief for your guest. Now you hold the whole session up and ask whether it will stay focused from the first minute to the last.
Work through the points below with your outline on paper. A plan that passes each one is not guaranteed to produce a perfect conversation, but it gives you something firm to return to when the talk drifts.
Check the opening
Start with the first three minutes. A good opening settles the guest, tells the audience who is speaking and why they should listen, and leads into the main subject without a lurch. Read your opening question aloud and ask whether the guest could answer it comfortably without preparing a speech.
Many people open with a long introduction of the guest, read from a biography. It rarely helps. A short line from you, followed by an easy question about the guest's own work, tends to relax both sides and gives the editor a clean start.
Also decide in advance where the guest will look and how you will cue the first answer. These small agreements belong in the plan, because nerves in the first minutes are the usual cause of a stiff recording.
- The first question is easy to answer in a minute or two
- The guest's introduction is a sentence or two, not a biography
- You know how you will signal the start of recording
Check the main thread
The middle of a session needs one central line of enquiry. Ask yourself what single idea the audience should understand by the end. If you cannot state it in one sentence, the interview has no main thread yet, only a collection of topics.
Then look at the order of your questions. Each one should follow from the one before, so that a listener never wonders why the subject has changed. Where you do need to shift, plan a short bridging sentence rather than hoping the moment arrives naturally.
Finally, mark the two or three questions you must not skip. When time runs short, which it often does, you will know what to keep and what to let go without deciding under pressure.
- One sentence states what the interview is about
- Questions follow on from each other in a visible order
- Must-ask questions are marked, the rest can be dropped
Check the pacing and the time you have
Count the questions and compare them with the time booked. A common fault is a plan with twenty questions for a thirty-minute slot, which forces you to rush the guest or abandon the end. A guest who gives thoughtful answers may need three or four minutes each, so be generous in your estimate.
Think about energy as well. Place a lighter question or a story from the guest's own experience after a demanding section, so the conversation has room to breathe. This also helps later, because varied pacing gives the editor natural places to separate excerpts.
Leave a small buffer. If your plan fills every minute exactly, any tangent will push the close out of the session.
- Questions fit the booked time with a small spare margin
- Answers are budgeted at a realistic length
- A lighter moment follows each heavier section
Check the close
The ending is the part most often left to chance. Decide how you will bring the session to a stop and what the last answer should leave behind. A closing question that invites the guest to name one thing a listener could do or read next gives a firm, useful finish.
Avoid ending on a question you have not heard answered before, since a surprise can send the guest off on a new thread just when time is up. Know the likely answer, then let them say it in their own words.
Plan the thank-you and the final cue for the camera too. A calm, unrushed last minute tells the guest the conversation went well, and it leaves the editor a clear point to cut.
- The last question is one you expect a settled answer to
- The thank-you and final cue are agreed
- Nothing new is introduced in the final minutes
Check what happens when the plan fails
No plan survives every guest. Before you decide the structure is ready, ask what you will do if an answer runs long, if the guest goes quiet, or if they raise something you did not expect. Having a response ready is part of the structure, not an afterthought.
Write down a polite way to steer back to the thread, and one or two spare questions you can use to restart a stalled moment. These cost nothing to prepare and make you far calmer on the day.
Last, tell the guest, in your briefing, how the session will move. People relax when they know the shape, and a relaxed guest is the best protection a structure has.
- A spare question is ready for a silent moment
- You have a phrase for returning to the main thread
- The guest has been told the shape of the session
A structure is ready when you can say what the interview is about, how it opens, where it must go and how it ends, with room for the unexpected. Run these checks on paper, change what fails, and only then book the camera time. Ten minutes spent here saves far more in the edit, and the conversation itself is better for the guest.