Coursework: Script for interview with director

The final aspect to our coursework brief is to produce a script for an interview with the director of our low-budget horror film.

With no Covid, we would actually be recording this as a podcast with an interviewer asking questions plus an audio clip from the film itself. Due to the restrictions of lockdown and remote learning, we simply need to write the script for this podcast instead.

What makes a good interview?

The first thing to plan is WHO your director actually is: give them a name, give them a background and perhaps think about an interesting angle. For example, they could be an up-and-coming female director, or from a BAME background - both of which would be unusual in a white, male-dominated film industry. If you don't want to have an interview with the director, you can make it an interview with another member of the production team if you wish.

Plan the questions

Once you've worked out who your director is, you need to think of some questions the interviewer can ask them. You should find that 5-6 questions will be enough as long as you write quite detailed answers. 

Answer the questions in a conversational style

Remember: you're writing a script for a podcast interview. So the writing style can be conversational and quite informal. Make the answers sound like the director is really speaking. In terms of how many words, aim for around 300-400 words in the script in total.

Audio clip from the film

Your script also needs to include a clip from your film - so think about a 10-15 second audio clip which includes music, sound effects and perhaps a line or two of dialogue. Try and get across how scary/creepy/ exciting your film is from the short clip. It's up to you where you put this in your script - it could be at the start, middle or end but make sure the interviewer refers to it. Look at the example below for how this should be laid out.

Images

You need to use at least three images in total across your website so you may want to take an original image of a friend or family member who can 'be' the director being interviewed or perhaps a 'behind the scenes' shot of them with a camera. You could then add this to the website page along with the text of the script.

Who should the interviewer be?

This is up to you - it can be a made-up movie podcast host or alternatively a well-known film critic or journalist working in the industry. E.g. Possible interviewers to interview your Director:

• Mark Kermode
• Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian
• Time Out magazine
• Den of Geek

What should the final website page look like?

Here's our website example page with the interview with the director. Note how the interview discusses things like representation in the media - if you're aiming for a top grade then the director interview is a great opportunity to show your knowledge of media issues and debates.

Here's another example interview from our technician Daisy's exemplar website for Scream. 

You may find this Google document structure helps you to write the interview script. You can then copy and paste the text into your website on wix.com. 

The BBC Writers' Room is a brilliant resource with real BBC TV and Radio scripts to read and learn from. For this task, I would focus on the radio scripts as this will help show you how to script a dramatic scene using audio. 

Good luck!