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Teaching approach

How you learn to produce interviews, step by step

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The course relies on short lessons, independent practice with your own guests and written feedback from instructors on every assignment you submit.

Method

From first lesson to finished edit

Each module follows the same pattern: a short lesson, a practice task on your own material and written feedback. The cycle repeats five times, moving from planning toward delivery.

  1. Read the lesson

    Each module opens with a concise lesson that explains the idea and shows it with an illustrative demonstration guest. You read it at your own pace and note anything you want to try.

  2. Practise on your own

    You apply the lesson to your own interview, whether that is a real guest, a colleague or a friend. Working on live material makes the decisions concrete rather than abstract.

  3. Submit the assignment

    You send in the brief, question sheet, outline, recording or edit that the module asks for. Each assignment has a clear purpose so you know what the instructor will look at.

  4. Receive written feedback

    An instructor reads your work and replies in writing, naming what works and what to change. The notes are specific enough to act on without further explanation.

  5. Revise and move on

    You rework the assignment where the notes suggest it, then continue to the next module. Revision is expected, and each module's output becomes the starting point for the following one.

Principles

What guides how we teach and what we ask of you

Interviews succeed or fail on small decisions made well before recording starts, and on how a guest is treated throughout. These principles shape every lesson, every assignment and every comment an instructor writes. They also explain why the course asks you to slow down at the start, so that the camera time is calm and the edit is simple.

  1. Preparation

    Preparation comes first in every module. You write the brief before you meet the guest, draft questions before you sit down and plan the structure before you film. Instructors read your preparation closely, because a clear plan removes most of the problems that appear later in recording or editing.

  2. Clarity

    Clear work serves guest and audience alike. Briefs say plainly what will happen, questions are short enough to answer and edits keep the meaning of what was said. Feedback is written in the same plain way, so you always know what to change and why it matters.

  3. Respect for guests

    A guest gives time and trust, and the course treats that seriously. You learn to explain the topics in advance, to avoid surprises on camera and to cut an edit that represents what the person actually meant. Respect is a working habit, not an extra.

Independent study

How independent practice and feedback work together

Most of the learning happens when you work alone on your own material, then read what an instructor thought of it. The course is built around that rhythm. Three instructors each lead the part of the process they know best, so your feedback comes from someone who does that work.

Practising on your own interviews

You are not asked to invent exercises. You work toward a real interview, using your own guest, your own subject and your own equipment. This keeps the assignments useful beyond the course, because the brief, the question sheet and the recording can all be used again. Demonstration guests appear in lessons only as clearly labelled illustrations, so you can see a method before you apply it.

Marcus Bellamy on structure

Marcus Bellamy, lead instructor for interview structure, has produced long-form interviews for community events. He teaches how to shape a session from the first question to the close, and he reads your outlines with that experience in mind. His comments focus on where a conversation may drift and how to bring it back gently.

Elena Ruiz on filming and sound

Elena Ruiz works as a camera operator and sound recordist and leads the hands-on filming module. She reviews your practice recordings for framing, light and clean audio, and she suggests small changes you can make with the equipment you already have. Her notes often concern how to keep a guest at ease while you work.

Daniel Okafor on editing

Daniel Okafor is a video editor who teaches excerpt selection, pacing and file preparation. He reads your edit as a viewer would, noting where a cut helps and where it hides meaning. His written comments also cover how to name and package files so that a guest or event organiser can use them without questions.

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