Never conduct an interview on a cell phone. Reasons?

• Makes post-production a pain in the butt. The person on the cell phone will sound 10,000 db softer than the person who used a land line. The poor sap who has to level the sounds will have bleeding eardrums by the end. And if it were recorded in mono (a single track) increase editing time by 300 hours.
• The call drops. For no and many reason. Lost signal, poor reception, Cylon attacks in the 5th dimension. And it’s such a pain to try and pick up where you left off.
• It’s difficult to hear your guest. I had a few interviews where the person was on their cellie and I had a devil of a time understanding what was said. I turned up the volume on my phone to no avail. It’s hard to conduct an interview, yet interrupt it every few minutes to ask the person to speak louder.
• Encourages poor telephone etiquette. Such as:
  • “Speak up.”
  • “Huh?”
  • “What was that again?”
  • “Repeat that.”
  • “I’m sorry, you chipped out there. Can you say that last bit again?”
  • (If you’re Canadian, add please to the end of each sentence)

My advice? Ask the person if you can them back on their landline. If the answer is no, reschedule the interview for a time when they will be close to a landline.

Remember, your goal is to make your guest look good. If you sound like a million bucks, but your guest sounds like crap, you’ll both have egg on your face. Plus, your production skills will be called into question. So, altogether now – NO CELLIES!

Tags: podcasting, podcasting tips, interviews, phone interviews