PROJECT #2: Interview

Aim/Objective:

- You are required to submit a three-minute edited interview with a single individual of your choice for presentation on local radio. You must choose someone who you feel has something to say to the Brighton & Hove community.

- You must also submit a typed, 500 word, statement which critically introduces your submitted project work locating it contextually, theoretically and aesthetically.

I have decided to interview one of my sister's friends who she lived with during her time at university. His name is Fred Cassman, he owns and operates his own e-cigarette business which he started many years ago whilst he was studying at university. I thought this matched the criteria of the objective as the electronic cigarette business has in somewhat 'flourished' in the last 10 years and the fact Fred has now opened up a store for his business in town means he must have some impact upon the community. 

From listening to the radio from a young age, hearing countless interviews in various formats I understand that the most engaging type of interview contain:
- A gripping subject matter, relevant to society.
- They sound more like a conversation rather
- Have a fair and unbiased outlook on the subject matter

I aim to incorporate these aspects into my own project.

Securing the Interviewee:

Once I had chosen my subject, I enquired with my sister as to whether she would ask Fred if he would consider having an interview with me about his e-cig business and he willingly agreed. I then got in contact with him over facebook and informed Fred about where the interview would take place, how long it would be and what sort of interview this was going to be. I thought it would be best if the interview was recorded in a studio booth on campus as this was going to be a informative speech package in the form of an interview, so I wanted there to be clarity within the dialogue, thus having no ambient sound distraction and pure concentration on the dialogue. When we both came to a conclusion of where and when the interview would take place, I then had to construct interview questions for the interview and research the topic area of discussion - electronic cigarettes.

Research & Planning:

By this stage, I knew little about the electronic cigarette. I used to sell a form of electronic cigarettes in the supermarket I used to work in and I knew that they were a way of helping smokers to quit tobacco/nicotine by smoking a replication of cigarette smoke, almost like a vaporiser pen and I knew you could get them in different shapes and sizes and flavours. But I had no concrete understanding of what e-cigarettes are and their impact on people and the community.

So I researched the electronic cigarette and found a few interesting articles and interviews online such as:

1. E Cigarette Uptake & Marketing - A Report Commossion by Public Health, England

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/311491/Ecigarette_uptake_and_marketing.pdf

Notes:

- E-Cigarettes are battery operated devices that aim to simulate combustible cigarettes. They do not contain tobacco - they operate by heating nicotine and other chemicals into a vapour that is inhaled.

- The role of the tobacco industry in manufacturing and promoting e-cigarettes, while continuing to sell conventional cigarettes, has been questioned.

- There are concerns about the current marketing of e-cigarettes and whether that marketing may appeal to children.

- E-Cigarette market is estimated to be worth £91.3million a year (3) It increased by 340% in 2013 to reach £340 million by 2015.

- In the UK, there are an estimated 1.3million e-cigarette users.

- The first e-cigarette on the UK market to be available as a medicine will be manufactured by a tobacco company.

- The marketing may appeal to children as well as adults. They are marketed as a cheaper, healthier alternative to smoking and also positioned as socially attractive and part of a rapidly growing trend.

2 . Whether they're called 'e-cigarettes' or 'vaporisers' the market is heating up!

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jun/26/e-cigarettes-market-vaporisers

This article, written by Rebecca Smithers for the Guardian this year goes onto discuss E-cigarettes marketing and industry and how the merging of tobacco companies in the e-cigarette business are impacting the business.



3. An Interview with an inventor of the E-Cigarette Herbert A. Gilbert

This article helped me come up with a structure for my interview and how even though I'm running the interview, the vast amount of talking shall come from my interviewee
http://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk/ashtray-blog/2013/10/interview-inventor-e-cigarette-herbert-a-gilbert.html#comments




3. An Interview about the E-Cigarette with Dr. Jonathan Foulds

http://www.witf.org/smart-talk/2014/03/smart-talk-e-cigarettes-patient-portals.php

Constructing the Interview Questions:

Now I had more information about the e-cigarette business and how they worked, back up with stats and statistics, I could now construct an interview with questions that could trigger a debate with Fred as well as to informing the listeners. I knew that the speech package I was constructing could seem a bit patronising to certain members of the audience who may already be aware of the e-cigarette business and how it's developed, but the point of this speech package was to inform the uninformed. On the other hand, I wanted this speech package to inform the listeners about what an e-cigarette is and how they have impacted Fred's life and others around him.
I wanted this piece to be personal to Fred, rather than a broad discussion of the e-cigarette industry on a national level. I constructed a script for the interview which I sent to Fred a couple of days before the interview so he was aware of what he was going to be asked to prevent as much stuttering and pondering in the interview when it came to the informative questions I had planned. Here are the questions I have planned to ask him:

Questions:

1.    So Fred, tell us a little bit about e-cigarettes, what are they and how they operated

2.    How you first get involve with the e-cigarette business to eventually having a store in Brighton?

3.     E-Cigarette usage in the UK has tripled to two million in the last two year. Why do you think they’ve become so popular?

4.     I’ve seen e-cigarettes come in all shapes and sizes, some looking exactly like a cigarette and others appear to look like ink pens or tyre gauges? I guess what I’m trying to get at is how do you know if someone’s using an e-cigarette?

5.    There over 10 million adult smokers in the UK, so it’s a huge market, It’s also very expensive here, with cigarettes costing up £8 for a packet of 20. How much do e-cigarettes cost?

6.    What impact do you think you’ve had in the community since opening you store in Brighton?

7.    There are concerns about the current marketing of e-cigarettes and whether that marketing e-cigs may appeal to children. They are marketed as a cheaper, healthier alternative to smoking and also positioned as socially attractive and part of a rapidly growing trend according to a report commissioned by the Public Health. What do you make of this Fred? Do you think the way e-cigarettes are advertised promote smoking?

8.    What do you make of the health issues surrounding e-cigarettes? The big question many of us ask about them is, are they safe or harmful?

9.    Do you believe they’re the first step to stopping smoking?

10. Some analysts argue that the entrance of big tobacco firms into the industry sector blurs the line between e-cigarettes and conventional tobacco, thus making e-cigarettes a gateway for users into actually smoking… Do you think this is true?

11. How do you feel about the big multinational tobacco companies monopolising on the industry?

12. Do you have else you want to say to us before we run out of time?

I thought having 12 questions would be more than enough questions to cover the 3-5 minute window of the interview and that not all these questions would even get asked as some could trigger a more lengthy answer for discussion or that Fred may give a simplistic answer. 

Interview Plan

As my interview for a radio show is a speech package to inform, I'll need to put my interview into context for the listener. Therefore, I shall open the piece on stating statistics of the e-cigarette industry and how popular they have become in the UK, then I'll introduce my interviewee. If my piece is going to be more personal towards Fred, I also need to explain to the listener who he is and his affiliation with the e-cigarette market before going into the discussion about the positives and negatives of the e-cigarette market and how Fred's business starting from deliveries from his bedroom to opening his own store in Brighton. Once the core piece of the interview is done I shall also need to add an outro for my piece which I want to conclude the piece and a poignant rhetorical question which will leave the listener thinking about the speech package they just heard, making it a more memorable piece. It may even be more emphatic if Fred ended the piece.

Post Production of the Interview

Now that the interview was recorded, I would have to edit the piece to cut out stuttering and pondering between questions as well as giving the dialogue certain sound effects to give a more clear and natural feeling interview. By using Adobe Audition I was able to put on effects such as reverb and vocal enhancers to the interview which gave the interview my desired sound effect. Since the interview I had recorded was over 10 minutes long, I would have to cut out a big majority of the interview to keep within the project criteria as well as insuring that the transition was fluid between each question. Some of my questions had to be re-recorded as Fred's voice sounded a lot more dominant compared to mine so this needed to be balanced. As this was recorded in a voice over booth, I added a parametric equaliser effect which will adjust the frequencies within the interview to a centre frequency. Thanks to Mike Russell's video tutorials on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x__NthInRs) I was able to manipulate the audio into a more professional sounding speech package. I also re-recorded my own questions in the interview so my questions were moulded around his answers and also gave more voice more depth and dominance than the first recording as I was sitting a little further away from the microphone. Many cuts of stutters were also taken out from the piece which gave the interview more pace.

Conclusion

I enjoyed this project. It pushed me to use technology that I had never used before and also to communicate and contact with people which I've never met. Fred was a great person to interview, he clearly had a sound knowledge on the field of electronic cigarettes and it was a pleasure to go for a coffee with him after the interview where he offered me a possible weekend job for his company! Editing the interview was the most tedious part of the project as it consume a lot of my time find the right effects for the sound piece and of course cutting down the feature time. If I could improve any aspect of my interview it would be to add an outro to summarise the speech package/interview or possibly to of got Fred's business partner involved in the interview as well which would give the interview more depth of debate. In regards to what I aimed for, I believe my piece was engaging and relevant to everyday life in the society we live in. It's debatable that my interview had an unbiased outlook, however my piece became a more informative piece which promoted Fred's business. I believe this project was successful and has taught me a lot of interview skills as well as giving me confidence with sound recording equipment and software.

Click Below to Play

https://soundcloud.com/gwhale25/e-cigarette-interview-with-fred-cassman-of-mist-e-liquids