Blog #7 NPR Fresh Air/ Terry Gross

I listened to an episode of "Fresh Air" on npr.org hosted by Terry Gross that she interviews the director of the new movie 'Where the Wild Things Are'. Spike Jonze, who also directed 'Adaptation,' is Gross's guest for the 20 minute episode that discusses many features of the film.

Gross knew quite a bit about Jonze's personal career and accomplishments, which made easy transitions from question to question. Jonze seems like a very timid guest judging by his voice, but Gross is very accommodating with her questions and tone.

She opens their interview with a thorough background of the film that was once a children's book. It then transitions into a clip from the film before she explains how the author of the book and Jonze had been friends for 14 years and decided mutually to do the adaptation.

Her questions allowed Jonze to drag on a bit which is well suited for a radio interview, but Gross knew when to cut in and direct the focus of the dialogue in a different direction. This was part of Gross's strategy, allowing Jonze to elaborate on the themes of the adaptation and allowing his train of thought to dictate the order of her questions.

I wouldn't say Jonze had inadequate answers but some of his responses were a little longer than they needed to be. To prevent him from turning monotone, Gross would re-direct the interview by asking a question about the general topic he was discussing.

She made Jonze feel comfortable by laughing at all his jokes and allowing him to speak. She did interrupt on a couple of occasions, but it was done in a skillful and apologetic manner. I don't believe they had much of a relationship before the interview besides being mutual admirers of each others work.

From this interview I learned that the interviewer should allow the interviewee to speak far longer. I also learned a few things about how Gross weaves her questions based upon the material Jonze would give her. Another thing Gross does is ask "how" quite often which I observed is an excellent strategy towards attaining a lengthy response in an interview.