This summer I had the privilege of traveling to California though our 4-H program. I had just finished volunteering at Texas 4-H Roundup, which is our large statewide conference for workshops, trade shows, competitions and a ton of other stuff. I was the lead newscast youth producer at Roundup (the foundation president gets final say) I directed a "Man on the Street" segment so we could highlight the different personalities and people who had traveled to the conference. It went ok, what we shot was cut from the final edit (it's complicated) so we had to do reshoots the next night.
Later in California, I had much more creative control and took this idea with me. What struck me most was how welcoming the California members were at their 4-H state conference. We did have a few who were nervous, but most were unafraid of expressing themselves. Back in Texas, most people we interviewed acted standoffish or closed off for questions, and everyone had much more fear of being on camera and/or interviews. One hypothesis I have is Texas's conference is heavily competition based, so of course more people are stressed. But generally, people in Texas were noticeably more stressed. The social aspect certainly is contributing. In California, I believe 3 out of the 30-ish people we interviewed had a pride flag on them. In Texas, no one would do that (except me occasionally and one other volunteer). I'm thinking about this because next year I'll be doing this again. How can you improve an interview when everyone has a fear of expressing themselves.
