Top Adventure Racing Athletes are Not Robots

 

There is a common misconception that some of the top athletes in the world function at an almost robotic-like level. They’re goal-oriented, A-type, driven personalities who focus solely on their sport. Therefore, in an interview situation they must operate at a similar, rehearsed, almost anticipated manner. Fortunately, I’ve never known that to be the case for any of my documentary style work. Perhaps that experience is skewed because of the industry that I typically work within (adventure sports). But I feel that it also has to do with an obsessive desire developed during my childhood. I’m a sucker for any “behind the scenes” information. That interest has always driven me to seek out the “how” and “why” behind answers that interview subjects give on screen.

“How in the hell did they get him to say that?” Is it just the nature of the subject or did the interviewer lead them down a path? How did they make him feel comfortable enough to share that info? Those are just a few of the questions that bounce around my head each time I watch an interview. And they are questions that I try to ask myself when envisioning the answers to questions that I ask during an interview.

Currently, I am working on an Adventure Racing documentary. The doc is a look into the nuances of the sport, the competitors, and the stewards of the sport, over the years that Adventure Racing has been in existence. Through this process I have had the fortune to interview a few of the athletes (involved in adventure racing). I will have to interview a pile more. It’s something that I look forward to. Each one is unique, and each interview is like uncovering an origin story.

One of the questions that I receive quite often from people who know the sport of adventure racing is “how do you tell the story of an event or race and keep it interesting, when the top athletes are so good and so efficient?” You can’t capitalize on the story value of mistakes, because a lot of the times these athletes don’t make them. And if they do, they are minor. You can’t capitalize on drama within the team, as most of the time there is no drama. What you can write about, however, are their goals, apprehensions, their motivations, and the stories behind those things.  Those are what make them human.

We live our lives through an array of tiny stories. 

In an effort to help me write my documentary style interview questions I have kept to a number of truths that I have learned along my journey:

Each interview is a micro-biography

I never discount my subject’s history (I try to dig up as much info as possible) and I find great value in exploring what is temporally adjacent. What do I mean by that? I dig into last week. Perhaps the past year. What did someone say to them in the week prior that may have influenced their actions? We live our lives through an array of tiny stories. Each one of those tiny stories has influenced another story in some way or another. Although they are not always able to recall a distinctive nugget of a story when questioned directly, if I’ve written my questions properly, I can help lead them down memory lane. And hopefully a moment that influenced or shaped them may surface. These current, little anecdotes help the audience to relate and they bring another level of depth to the portrayal of a subject.

So how do I explore the temporally adjacent?

Social media is your friend
While I’m never able to prepare as much as I would like for those short span temporal questions, I have found comfort in the social media supports available: instagram, facebook, twitter. If my subject has active social media accounts, then I have a good opportunity to glean a hint of their past week or month.  This will help me form my documentary style questions.

Preliminary questions or conversations aren’t always a bad thing
There are some people that believe asking questions prior to a scheduled interview will take away from the authenticity of their subject’s answers on camera. I’m half and half on this one. As long as you’re not asking the same questions during your interview, you’ll avoid getting a rehearsed answer. When social media is absent or not helpful, I’ll sometimes come right out and ask them to recall a few things that stood out during the past week. This gives them time to think about their answer, and it helps me to frame my follow up questions for the actual interview.

What you put in is what you get out

I have watched many interviews that just seem to only scratch the surface of what makes people tick. Through the numerous interviews I have conducted for video and print I have learned that if I do the prep work well enough, with the proper research, and stimulating questions, the answers that I receive will be of similar quality. I never walk into an interview with cookie-cutter questions, those will get you cookie-cutter answers.

Avoid conflating people with their work

This is where the saying, “never meet you heroes.” comes into play. It’s a statement based on the realization that very often our heroes do not meet the expectations that we have set for them. We tend to associate our expectations with the value that we see in their work. If the work is some next-level masterpiece, then that person must operate on a similar level. To avoid this I try not to make assumptions. I ask them what makes them tick. I do my best to find out what makes them human and challenge the assumptions that I may have. Although I am sometimes disappointed at first with some of the nuances that I uncover, I have come to realize that those nuances are the beauty of life. They make up a lifetime of experiences which have made their work so admirable.

Always keep the cameras rolling

Another thing that I have found to be immensely useful is using the time immediately before and after our scheduled interview to chat, with the cameras rolling, of course. During documentary style work this is usually when a subject is most at ease. The moment you take out a sheet of questions or let your subject know that you’re going to start asking your questions, their demeanour will change. Some of the best commentary that I have ever received has been after the official interview has concluded, and we’ve run through all of the questions on my sheet. The most important point here (and I can’t stress this enough), is to get permission to use the before and after interview commentary.

Now go and write some questions.

For updates on progress and behind the scenes info on our Adventure Racing Documentary join our email list!

SUBSCRIBE