Guests arrive as themselves and become a version of themselves the moment the levels are set.
We have stopped fighting it. The first ten minutes are a warm-up we never intend to use; the recorder runs, nothing is expected of it, and somewhere in there the performance drops.
The warm-up, in practice
- No questions from the running order. None at all.
- Coffee stays on the table, and so does the noise it makes.
- We talk about the journey in, which is dull and therefore useful.
- Nobody mentions how long we have been recording.
The usable interview almost always starts after the guest asks whether we have started yet. That question is the marker we listen for in the edit.
The best answer of the night is usually the one given while the guest thinks the microphone is off. Ethically, that is a problem. We ask afterwards.
