The Promotional EPK (Electronic Press Kit) Interview

I’m often asked to drive video interviews for promotional purposes – and tomorrow I’ll be doing just that for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with a young Russian born but now naturalised American pianist, Natasha Peremski, whose parents emigrated to the New World when she was a very young and already dynamic pianist in order to give her the benefit of what was and still is a thriving and innovative new music scene on the West Coast of America.

Executing a successful and readily edited EPK video is a tricky business. You, the interviewer, are not in vision but tucked alongside or just behind the camera as a convincing eye-line for the subject. So any form of “conversation” is impossible as what is required is for the subject’s “answers” to be self-contained. As one whose interview technique is very much geared towards the idea of an informal conversation into which the listener or viewer can eavesdrop, having to remain silent, being unable to push forward with supplementary questions, or indeed respond in any audible way at all, is frustrating to say the least. Most of your “prompts” have to be prefaced with phrases like “Tell us about” and “Tell us why” with constant reminders to the subject that the response should always imply, if not repeat, the question.

Natasha is a lively talker, by all accounts. Half an hour will become 3-5 minutes. Soundbites rule, ok?