I’m the one who actually listens. I listen to hear you, not to talk. I’d rather have the person I’m interviewing say everything and me say nothing. It’s not about me. It’s about the other person. It’s about getting that connection. It’s about truly listening.
“And you can feel that when you’re with someone who just accepts you in a profound rock bottom sort of way.”
This is a video presentation in which I will explain to you what my show will be about, what it will look like, and how it’s going to happen.
“Here we go! And action!”
I’ll be the director, interviewer, producer and editor. There will be another producer/AD and sound person. Plus, two people behind the camera.
“To have a very structured look and tons of apparatus and crew and equipment I think will be a real detriment to the show. By being lightweight we were then able to create something that was more authentic to what we found when we went on the ground.”
And in post I’ll work with a sound mixer, colorist and a graphic designer.
“The challenge was to be real, stay real, and at the same time, be the host of a TV show.”
The interview style is not a regular studio sit down format. This is real life.
“I detest competent, workmen like storytelling. You know, the times that we do that I’m very unhappy with that.”
I wanna meet these people where they wanna meet. I wanna go where they take me.
“Like where?”
“Everywhere!”
The cinematography.
The cinematography will have a kind of a raw sense to it, but be very high in quality. And the way I want the show to feel like is that we’re voyeuristically looking at what’s happening between me and another person while I’m interviewing them. It’s intimate almost like the viewer isn’t supposed to be there. Like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. For the audience, it should feel like they’re watching a very high-quality home movie. It’s almost like it’s uncomfortable. But it’s exciting. It’s raw. It feels like you’re constantly going. It’s seamless. It’s match on action. It directly illustrates what people are talking about.
I’m going to give the person I’m interviewing their own camera so they can film whatever they feel like as I’m interviewing them. So, if they feel awkward, they can just point the camera at me or they can point the camera on the camera filming them. And then I’m going to incorporate that into the final product.
Sound design.
“Let’s all experience something together.”
The sound design will be ASMR like, crisp, clear. Audio is so important to me. It’s all about sense memory. We see with our ears, and we taste with our eyes. And sound can be so comforting too. Just think of Ratatouille; the way taste triggers a memory.
Editing style.
What’s so unique about this, is that I’m also an editor. I see those small things that each and every one of use do. Those little things in our body language that makes us so unique. Not only can I tell the story of who somebody is by the way I interview them, but also in the editing room, where I can select the things, the moments that speak most to the heart. The look in their eyes, the way they moved their hands, the way they said certain words.
“Elio, Elio, Elio, Elio…”
That’s what’s so fascinating. All those little things that you do that are uniquely you. That’s what I want to get to.
“So, we ask each other questions?”
“Yeah, and you have to answer a hundred percent honestly.”
“Of course.”
Who am I as an interviewer? I’m the one who actually listens. I’m the girl you talk to in the women’s restroom when you’re drunk. I’m the person you can’t wait call to tell all the great things that just happened to you. I’m the person you sit up late at night to talk about life with.
“Just you and me.”
With me you don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to be anybody. You just have to be you.
“I’m not perfect.”
“Okay.”
It’s about making them feel heard.
The music I’m using is going to be picked by the person I’m interviewing. Music that they’re listening to right now. Because it’s all about their POV, right?
“I thought this song could be like a photograph, capture us in this moment of our lives together.”
Because these videos are kinda like snapshots, frozen in time. Where we get to see the person for who they are right now. Because ultimately, we’re verbs. We’re not adjectives. We’re constantly changing. And this music it can be something that they feel like they’re not able to express verbally, but they can express through music.
Graphics style.
The graphics style is gonna be minimalistic, newspaper, futuristic in style. Scandinavian minimalism meets Japanese art. 60s meets modern. I like this collage poster video by Chanel. It feels like a memory.
Sponsors.
I want to feature them in a creative, fun, innovative way. Maybe not necessarily as on the nose as Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee do with their Acura commercials. But something like that.
“What’s this?”
“Oh, this is just some Acura parts. They told me my product placement was getting a little too heavy handed. So, I thought instead of the whole car…”
“Come on man, I’ve got a hot yoga!”
So, who am I interviewing? Really, whoever is in the public eye. Most of us know who they are, but we don’t truly know who they are. It’ll be actors, directors, writers, artists, comedians, scientists, psychologists, activists, they care about the world around them. People who are brave. Brave because they allow themselves to be themselves. They’re not looking to be just like someone else.
“I mean you’re fascinating, right? Cause you’re creative and you’re smart. And you’re kinda fucked up.”
We’ll be talking about what it’s like being you. Is this what you imagined for yourself? How do you know you’re doing the right thing with your life?
“Me?”
“Mhmm.”
What is it that makes them feel like they wanna say something to the world?
“Part of our task as human beings is to try to understand who we are and what it is to lead a human life. And so, the clearer we can get on that, the more we actually have authentic self-understanding.”
When we’re able to talk to one another in an intimate, honest, meaningful way, do we truly feel alive. Because we’re social animals. We get excited when somebody is going through what we’re going through.
“I think that one of the amazing things about human beings is that we all have so many emotions but we’re often so poorly trained to share them with each other that we will go pay money to sit in a dark room and watch people have them for us. There is some magical transformation that happens in us by witnessing the freedom that’s happening on stage.”
I want to leave the viewer feeling energized and hopeful. You click on these interviews, you listen to them, because they feed you energy and they make you feel good.
“Happy.”
These are things where you continue to think about them, days, weeks, months after because somebody revealed something really personal about themselves and it inspired you.
“In order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen. Really seen. What are we doing with vulnerability? Why do we struggle with it so much?”
“To talk about myself?”
I want to know who people truly are behind all the social media filters and their facades, the person they put up for the company they work for.
“We have so much pressure in the culture to try and make people do things a certain kind of way. And a lot of people are just fighting their bodies all day every day to be the way that the culture wants them to be.”
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight. And never stop fighting.”
Why do I want to do this? I want to give people some much needed rest, to not have to fight yourself all the time. I want you to find peace in yourself. And I want to make it popular to not be fake. In whatever way these people I’m interviewing, however they found that peace in themselves to just be themselves, maybe that can inspire you to find peace in yourself.
I guess that’s it.
Bye.