our victories.
STORIES OF AMERICA

INTERVIEW PROCESS

IN PERSON  - SPEAKER PHONE & COMPUTER - DIGITAL RECORDER

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You can send your interviewee a set of questions you may be asking before hand, but let their stories lead you. Always begin with the person's full name and when and where they were born.

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The Process - Coherent and Clarity.

There are a few basic steps to conducting the interviews. The most important thing is to choose a setting where you will have no interruptions, minimal to no background noise and the subject’s undivided attention. The first step is to determine if the interview(s) will be done live in-person, meaning the two of you are in a room together, or via the phone.

 

In Person

Place your phone an equal distance between you and your guest to make to insure you get the best audio possible.

 

Speaker Phone & Computer - when you call your interviewee be sure your phone mic is positioned near your computer's mic., and is on speaker setting. Go to online-voice-recorder.com to record from your phone directly to your computer. Once finished stop the recording and it will automatically save to your computer. 

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Digital Recorder - Put your phone on speaker setting, have your digital device close to your telephone mic, using your voice recorder, record your interview, transfer it to your computer and then upload your interview.

 

Test

It’s best to do a test prior to the actual recording. Record 2 different takes of about :30 seconds each, one with varying distances from the actual phone microphone to see which distance/placement gives you the best results, the other for volume levels alternating how loudly you and the person you are interviewing speaks, respectively. Once you have begun your recording it is highly recommended that you not touch the phone for the duration of the interview, and that you maintain the same distance and volume levels, thus assuring consistent levels and no jostling of the recording device. 

 

Sharing Audio Files & Pics

Once you’ve located it, click on it and share it with us via email cg.soa.tbe@gmail.com  by attaching it. Or, you can upload it onto our website at www.apkcg.com/soa-tbe. We do ask that all participants also attach photographs of you and the interviewee, respectively and one of the two of you together if you have one or can take one if you are doing the interview live. The file must be smaller than 25 MB to attach via Gmail, but that shouldn’t be a problem seeing as most of these interviews - if not all of them - will be brief and most photo file sizes are also small.

 

Phone Microphone Setting

There are different settings to your factory provided app/mic recorder - “Standard”, “Voice”, “Interview”, etc. I would tell you that there’s very little discernible difference between the settings, but you can try the “Voice” or “Interview” options and see which one you like; some “Interview options allow you to use both top & bottom mics, if your phone model had them. Then select the “File Type” (“MP3”) and “Save To/Storage Path” options. 

 

Before recording, check to see where the mic is located - top, bottom or both - to make sure your phone can pick up the audio from both you and the person you are interviewing. Most likely you are going to have to lay the phone flat or stand it up between the two of you with the mic as centrally positioned as possible.

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Have any questions please email us at cg.soa.tbe@gmail.com.