Despite being a control freak, prep is not about control. It’s about creating enough structure that I can actually stay present once the camera rolls.
After doing a ton of formal interviews that’s how i’ve come to think of it.
There’s a version of prep that can become a trap. You do so much research, build such a detailed question list, and map out the emotional terrain so thoroughly that by the time the subject sits down, you’re no longer meeting a person. You’re meeting your idea of them.
That’s obviously not great.
For me, prep is about setting up the sandbox to play in. It’s about doing enough work ahead of time that I understand why each question matters and what the overall thematic question is that is guiding the story forward. The paradox is that the more prepared I am, the less tightly I need to hold onto the plan.
Research is everything, but it can’t become a cage
The first layer of prep is research.
I want to know the basics of a person’s history, of course, but I’m also looking for something more subtle: how they express themselves. How they talk. What they return to. What they avoid. Whether they speak in clean, polished anecdotes or in fragments. Whether they seem guarded, performative, reflective, funny, restless.
It feels a bit like cyber-stalking, but you can learn a lot from social media and if they are a public person, from other interviews or press they’ve done. If the person is prominent, I’ll often watch other interviews they’ve given because I want to understand the rhythms they fall into.
At the same time, I try not to let any of that harden into certainty.
It’s impossible to arrive without preconceived notions. Research always shapes the way you approach someone. But it should not become a barrier to discovering who they actually are in the room. The goal is to arrive informed, not closed off. To know enough to ask better questions, while still leaving space for the person in front of you to surprise you.
Learn the world around them
I’m also a big believer in researching not just the person, but the world around them and their community.
Where do they live? What kind of community are they a part of? How does that environment shape them? How does the world react to them? What pressures, assumptions, or contradictions exist around them?
Space reflects character.
A home, a workplace, a neighborhood, a gym, a wrestling ring, a church basement, a dressing room: all of these places carry information. They tell you something about routine, identity, aspiration, memory, and control. Even before the subject says a word, the space is already talking.
Understanding that space helps me think both editorially and visually. It helps me understand not just what I want to ask, but how I want the interview to feel.
Build multiple paths to the heart of the story
I always prepare questions ahead of time. Usually a lot of them.
But I don’t think of them as a script to stick to. In reality, they are on-ramps to different routes towards truth.
If I know where the emotional core of the story lives, I want more than one way of getting there. Sometimes a direct question works. Sometimes it shuts someone down. Sometimes the way in is through memory. Sometimes it’s through place. Sometimes it’s through contradiction, through asking about something adjacent, through letting them circle the thing before they can actually enter it.
Remember, interviews are a chess game. You need strategy and you need options. You need to understand where the pressure points are and where the room might open.
But if I get too locked into where I am on the page, I stop paying attention to the person sitting across from me.
Usually I’ll ask a few questions from my sheet, get the conversation moving, and then put it down. From there, I want the actual interaction to guide us. If I need to go back later and make sure I got everything I need, I can always check the sheet again myself or have a producer help me circle back.
The point is that it should feel conversational. Casual, even. The subject should not feel like they are being marched through a questionnaire.
Remember: Palms up.
Keep the crew aligned with the meaning of the interview
Prep is not just about me. It’s about the room.
I want the team to understand what this interview is doing in the larger puzzle that is a film. Interviews are as important visually as they are audibly, and if the crew understands what the person represents emotionally or structurally, the room can support that.
On Rewind Selecta, for example, we adjusted our lighting approach depending on who we were interviewing. For up-and-coming artists, we leaned into darker, more stripped-down single-source interviews that gave a sense of grit and determination. For legends of reggae, we embraced fuller, more cinematic book lighting that honored their place in the history of the genre.
Those choices weren’t arbitrary. They came from understanding what each interview meant inside the larger story.
Protect the room
I’m also a big believer that during the interview, the interviewer should be the primary point of contact with the subject.
The subject is already self-conscious. They are already managing how they look and sound. Too many people talking to them, adjusting them, or throwing in questions can push them inward fast.
The way I think about it is: the subject is a scared baby animal. If too many hands reach in at once, they retreat.
So I try to protect the room.
One practical fix I use is a shared notepad with the team. If people have thoughts, follow-up questions, or little things they’re noticing, they can drop them in there without interrupting the flow. I’ll glance down occasionally and work things into the conversation naturally. The same goes for hair and makeup adjustments, continuity concerns, or lighting notes. It keeps the subject from feeling surrounded while still allowing the crew to stay engaged.
And I’m especially careful about anything related to appearance. If something needs to be adjusted because it’s unflattering or distracting, we handle it quietly and gracefully. The last thing I want is for someone to suddenly become hyper-aware of how they look on camera. The second that self-consciousness spikes, you can feel the person pull back.
Communication with the crew is key because the environment is part of the interview.
Emotional prep matters too
The last kind of prep I think about is emotional.
This matters just as much as logistical prep. Maybe more.
There are interviews where the challenge is not finding the question. It’s preparing yourself to hold the weight of what might come back.
I felt that very strongly on a brand film I directed for Axonius. The campaign juxtaposed the complexity of cybersecurity with the complexity of people’s lives. Simone Biles and adaptive athlete Amy Bream were part of it, helping highlight stories of people who had faced extraordinary challenges. One of those subjects was an eight-year-old girl named Alex, who was living with an extremely rare condition called Gorham-Stout disease, which causes the disintegration of bone.
It’s a serious, life-threatening disease. It is ongoing. It is something Alex will be living with for the rest of her life.
So sitting across from Alex and her mother was one of the toughest interviews I’ve had to do. Not because they were difficult subjects. Not because they weren’t camera-ready. But because of the emotional weight of this story.
It was one of the first interviews where I felt like I needed to prepare emotionally in advance.
I needed to spend time thinking about the responsibility of telling that story. What it meant to do it justice. What it meant to sit across from a child and her mother and ask them to revisit something so painful, while still making space for dignity and humanity and care.
And both Alex and her mother were incredible. They gave us so much. It was a beautiful interview.
But the moment I stepped off set, I wept.
It was like my body had been holding itself steady long enough to do the work, and then finally let go. I really believe the only reason I could stay grounded during the interview was because of the prep. Not just the questions, not just the research, but the emotional reckoning beforehand.
Prep is what makes presence possible
That’s what prep is for.
Not to make the work rigid. Not to overdetermine every moment. Not to prove how much you know.
Prep is there so that when the unexpected happens (and it always does) you’re ready for it.
You understand why the question matters. You understand what the scene is doing. You understand the theme, the larger current, the thing underneath the thing. You’ve built enough structure to be able to adapt without losing the center.
By preparing, you set up the sandbox to play in.
And once you’re inside it, you can actually listen. You can respond. You can notice the thing that no research could have given you. You can be present enough for the real magic of filmmaking to happen, which is almost always the part you couldn’t have planned for exactly.
That’s the whole point.
Prep is not there to replace presence.
It’s what makes presence possible.
-Adam
Get in on the conversation!