DIY Interviews
The first real test for any university student is negotiating the wilfully confusing maps that are dotted randomly around the campus. The large red spot indicating ‘you are here’ unhelpfully reminding you that ‘you are not where you need to be.’ Some students become so overwhelmed by the task of finding the location of their first tutorial, that they decide to defer only to discover that they can’t find an exit. Most make it out eventually, but it’s not unusual for gardeners to find the remains of a student under a hedge in April: Their unused psychology text-books, propping up their skull as a pillow.
Recently I found myself once more playing the academic version of the Hunger Games. I’d been booked to do an, in studio interview at Curtin FM to promote my season of Double Feature at Perth Fringeworld Festival and the station was cunningly concealed within the campus grounds of Perth’s Curtin University. I was given a building number and no further instructions. Let the games begin.
I was quite pleased when I worked out which bus to catch and allowed myself to drift into a dangerous level of self-confidence and didn’t realise that the bus was depositing me at wrong end of the campus. This is WA and even their small universities are the size of Luxembourg. I consulted the nearby cartographic puzzle and set off at a brisk pace in the 38 degree heat … in entirely the wrong direction. I only realised my misjudgement when I had reached the German border. Once I’d corrected my mistake, I began zig zagging my way through the labyrinth of outdoor modern art sculptures, peppermint gums and first year corpses. After stopping to consult the campus maps too many times, I eventually reached the Belgian frontier and stumbled into the air conditioned comfort of Building 004.56b.
(Curtin FM studios)
‘Can I help you?’ a silver haired woman asked as she passed reception, as sweat dripped from my nose onto the visitor’s book.
‘Yes, I’m here for a radio interview?
‘And you are?’
‘Damian Callinan’
‘Ok Dave, I’ll just go and see what’s happening?’
I sat down as she disappeared into the studio area. She was gone too long. When she returned she looked even less certain.
‘Sorry, you’re not Paul Taylor?’
‘No, I’m still Damian Callinan’
‘Right. Sorry, what do you … do?’
I explained who I was and the context for the interview. She nodded and left the room again … for too long.
‘Sorry Dave, I see what’s happened now. We have you down for tomorrow.’
I checked my diary. They were right. I was wrong. I had wasted most of my only day off risking my life to get to a radio interview that wasn’t happening. Whilst Paul Taylor went to air discussing the pitfalls of being a butter sculptor in Geraldton, I punished myself by walking home in the now 39 degree heat.
When I arrived the next day, the whole station was in on the joke about my ‘practice run’ the day before. Given my frequency of my visits, I’ve been told I've been included on their tea-room roster and the staff kriskringle.
I actually enjoy doing publicity interviews, which is handy as they are essential for independent artists to get traction in festivals where you are competing with countless other shows. Pre-recorded ‘in studio’ interviews are the pick of the bunch. You don’t have to worry about being cut off by the news or station promos and being in the room helps with the rhythm and banter. This 10 minute scheduled interview with Jenny went for nearly half an hour. It went so well that I was half surprised when she didn’t ask me to come down stay at her Margaret River beach house. If you’re reading this Jenny, I’m still open to offers.
Print interviews can also be fun. I like sitting in a cafe watching a skilled journalist condense your long answers into shorthand without breaking eye contact and wondering if they are judging you for ordering a second raspberry friand. Even ‘phoner’ interviews can be enjoyable, once you get used to the gaps in conversation accompanied by the tap of the keyboard as they conflate your answers into their 300 word limit.
(Shorthand notes from an interview I did for Adelaide Fringe Festival in 1915)
However, such intimate chats are now increasingly rare as we have well and truly entered the era of the DIY interviews. Economic and time constraints have given birth to ‘just add water’ survey style Q&A’s. For some volunteer-run publications this is not only reasonable, but necessary. However, I have found that better resourced publications are increasingly resorting to this impersonal form of journalism by numbers.
Emailed surveys remove the point of connection between the journalist and the artist. This is a vital link in the chain that helps create bonds within the industry. I still have strong connections with some journalists who interviewed me early in my career who, like ABC radio’s Fiona Parker, have gone on to stellar careers in communications.
It is less frustrating when some level of preparation is evident, but it’s hard not be cynical when you receive an emailed list of questions, with little or no trace of research. As you commence what can be a multiple hour writing task, it’s almost impossible to disassociate from the feeling that they are being paid for me to write their article. While I’m knocking out 2000 words in their name, they get to work on the next draft of their debut sci-fi novel about sentient forklifts.
Some recurring formats are simple and have a great hook. The Guardians ‘3 Things’ column has become a staple of their masthead. You can read the article I didn’t get paid to write here.
Damian Callinan - The Guardian - 3 Things
Sometimes the questions are very well researched and thoughtfully ordered. On occasions it’s helpful to be able to sit back and think of considered responses … but mostly I just wish that they had asked me the question with their human face voice. Considering all possibilities, the lack of a direct, verbal interview is forgivable if the correspondent has been diagnosed with Rogophobia; The fear of asking questions. However, it’s more likely that they suffer from Ergophobia: The fear of overwork.
This arts festival season, my inbox is currently over-flowing with generic interviews that I just haven’t got time to write. They’re a mixed bag, but one in particular seemed wilfully banal, frustratingly open ended and gave the impression that the compiler spent most of their communications degree, lost on campus.
I asked my performer friends on Facebook to share some of the questions they had been asked via DIY interviews. Interestingly, the post garnered some responses from arts journalists, who gave me some more nuanced perspectives about being on the other end. Their view was that the surveys allowed them to give opportunities to more artists who needed exposure in the competitive festival environment. While this is an honourable intent, I still think that artists shouldn't be made to feel they need to do all the work in exchange for publicity. For those mounting a new work, this is time that could be spent working on preparing the show.
Thanks to everyone who contributed ideas to the article. It’s not lost on me that I’ve asked you to write for me unpaid. Here are some samples. [Apologies to those I omitted]
Stephen Gates (Third leg of ‘Tripod’ and former lead singer of ‘A Kind of Pluto)
‘Who are you?’
Benjamin Maio Mackay (Actor, director & founder of Preachr Productions)
'Tell us who you are!'
Chris Franklin (Comedy legend and singer of the hit single ‘Bloke’)
‘Is your best mates name really Robbo? … No fuckhead, it just rhymes with yobbo.’
Ian Bell (DJ & world’s best music groupie)
‘How is this show different from last year’s show?’
Ned Townshend (Emerging Tasmanian comedian)
‘What does your comedy MEAN?’
Rebecca de Unamuno (One of Australia’s most brilliant improvisers)
“How do you plan your improv?”
Brad Oakes (Legend of Australian comedy and mentor to countless comedians)
‘What’s Carl Baron like?’
Kat Davidson (Brilliant comic, MC and ABC radio presenter)
‘Do you like comedy?’
Ellen Briggs (Comedian, author & co creator of the touring juggernaut ‘Women Like Us’)
‘What do your family members think of your show?’
Bev Killick (Comedy queen and actor)
‘What’s it’s like being a female comedian?’
Andrea Powell (Brilliant character comedian and Dean of Comedy at Collarts)
‘How to do you respond to people that say women aren’t funny?’
Jon Brooks (Whip smart political comedian and former drummer from the Guantanamo Bay City Rollers)
‘What can audiences expect from your show?’
To wrap this up, here is a genuine list of sample questions that I’ve extracted from my own DIY interviews over recent years. These have been coagulating in a pool of resentment that I’ve allowed to settle in the recesses of my misanthropy ducts. To get this out of my system I’m going provide the type of blunt, bleak, unfiltered answers, that I desperately wanted to write when I first read them.
‘How did you become a comedian?’
There is a cap on the number of comedians allowed. It’s like becoming a member of the MCG. You have to put your name on a list and then wait for someone to die. It’s generally frowned upon to knock off one of the older ones, but it does happen.
‘Do your kids think you’re funny?’
I have no children. I’m infertile. I did a show about my inability to have children called ‘Spaznuts’. I won awards for it. It’s on my website. Did you even look at my website?
‘Were you the class clown at school?’
I went to St Mary’s Primary School, Greensborough in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. The Sisters of Mercy nuns who ran the school, were well known in the 1970s for being the only teaching nuns who incorporated the practices of L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. Subsequently, there was no individual class clown. We were all passably proficient at all elements of clowning from Commedia Dell’arte to Bouffon.
‘They say that comedians are often sad when they’re not performing. Are you sad?’
My daily existence is a yawning chasm of loneliness. The only thing keeping me from oblivion is knowing that I have an upcoming gig in my diary. I yearn for release from this constant, unerring, debilitating self-loathing and emotional pain … but playing pickle ball helps.
‘It must be so scary up there. How do you handle hecklers?’
Since I started wearing the suicide vest on the outside of my clothing, it’s been happening far less often.
‘What would people know you from?’
I was actually the 3rd brother on ‘Ask The Leyland Brothers’ that ran from 1976 to 1983 on Australian TV. Each week my bros Mike & Mal would read letters from viewers asking them to visit a particular site somewhere in Australia or New Zealand. I had to travel in a crate strapped to the roof of the Volkswagon Combi. Each night I’d cook their meals, wash their clothes, remove Mal’s pubic lice with a special comb and send Mike off to sleep with the Inuit Throat Singing mum used to do when we were little. I was never allowed on camera, but once they needed someone to remove a king brown snake that had wrapped itself around the manifold gasket, so people might have seen me being put in the ambulance in the rear of shot.
‘What’s your average week like?’
Mondays I usually recreate the first world circumnavigation route taken by Portugese explorer Ferdinand Majellan in 1519. Tuesdays is pickle ball with Helen Mirren, Jacinda Adern and Spike Lee. Wednesdays I learn a dead language – it’s Old Norse this week so it’s going to be a long day. Most Thursdays I take my Hercules for spin in a parallel universe and airdrop food and first aid into civil war-torn New Zealand. On Fridays of late, I’ve been filling in as head oenologist at Chateau Lynch-Bages in Bordeaux to give Nicolas Labenne a break so he can train for the Portsea Pier to Pub Swim. Over the summer on Saturdays, I’ve been helping the Fremantle Dockers AFL men’s list make a sand mandala representing their perceived performance at training that week, and Sundays I clean the sails and work on the rigging of the Nao Victoria replica carrack, in readiness for Monday’s voyage
‘Tell us about your show’
As the audience enter the theatre, a 37 member Welsh men’s choir sit in a circle facing outwards. They are all blindfolded and are haplessly attempting to make a clay jug on fast turning pottery wheels. Each poorly rendered vessel is removed by a Vatican Guard and handed to an audience member who is made to immediately pay 10 euro via credit card on a square reader attached to the guard’s helmet. After all the pots have been sold, an actor dressed as Frida Kahlo enters on stilts and begins to play rope quoits with an actor dressed as Sporty Spice in an inflatable fat suit. Whilst they are playing, I come on and do stand-up comedy for 50 minutes.
‘Tell us a joke?’
Only if you write this article instead of me.