Talking points in video interviews focus the conversation and allow a planned, but natural, progress. Learn to organize talking points for video interviews from an experienced interviewer in this free film production video.

Before you conduct the interview, you need to establish talking points, so that you know what you're going to be discussing during the interview and that you're not flying blind. Now of course, there's probably going to be some impromptu as you go along, but you need to know what you're going after in general. So in order to do this, you should sit down with the subject and explain what you're looking for and what you need in a conversation. So, for example, let's say you're talking with an author and the point of the interview is to discuss the author's new book. Then you want to come up with a list of talking points, where did you get the idea for the book, what's your writing process like, what led you to become an author in general. And by figuring out these points with your subject, then everybody's on the same page and your subject will understand why you're asking the questions that you're asking and will be prepared to come up with some answers. If possible, work out the talking points of the interview with your subject at least a day before the interview, a week before is even better. So that way when the person sits down to speak, they've already thought about what they're going to say. Remember though that you don't need to strictly adhere to your talking points. If nothing else, the talking points will serve as a reminder to what information you need to get throughout the course of the interview. Because really, what an interview is, is you fishing for sound bytes and trying to get all the good sound bytes that you'll use for the video later on.