Vox pops are a staple of news gathering but can also be produced in a more creative way.

The vox pop is one of those classic devices in a journalist’s storytelling toolbox. It’s a snapshot of public opinion about a given topic, and more often than not, a controversial one.

But when you take the vox pop online and use it within a multimedia story, or produce web video content, there’s the opportunity to be creative and offer more than just producing a simple series of talking head shots.

Doing something different

50 People, One Question

These are a series of vox pops and are largely what they say they are: a lot of people attempting to answer the same question. As a whole it’s a little bit like a short documentary. And of course, as a vox pop, it’s much longer than what you might normally produce for news programming

The use of shallow depth of field certainly gives the film a more cinematic feel. This can be achieved with a DSLR camera or with a video camera using a lens adapter. It’s playful in the way the subjects are pulled in or out of focus in setting up each interview. I also love the end of the video where we see interviewees leave the frame.

Iraq Votes

This vox pop is part of multimedia package produced by AP Interactive in the lead up to the elections in Iraq in 2010. Click through on the image above to enter the website hosting the package.

From the screenshot you can see that navigating through the multimedia elements is straightforward via the drop down menu across the top. Voter Voices was the first element I clicked on and it instantly launches the video vox pop.

What makes this vox pop different is that it not only gives you a variety of opinions about the elections, but it also shows a slice of everyday life in a nation that is often portrayed through the prism of conflict.

The use of music is subtle, yet it helps convey a sense that we’re about to hear the opinion of ordinary people. Using setting up shots as a subject comes into focus and cutaways of people in the park makes for a very polished production and it suits this more in-depth multimedia feature.

Using a different program for editing

Following the 2011 Global Media Forum in Bonn, the DW Africa blog team had some good feedback from the short video vox pop we produced on the topic of should internet access be a human right. And, we had a lot of questions about how we produced the video – especially the layout and how we added basic animation to the clips.

Internet Access as a Human Right – GMF Vox Pop from DW Akademie – Africa on Vimeo.

Deutsche Welle’s Chiponda Chimbelu filmed all of the video interviews using a small Kodak Zi8 pocket camcorder and a Sennheiser microphone. Using this sort of small “flip cam” adds a bit of pressure in achieving a stable shot and sharp focus. After selecting the best clips to showcase a variety of opinion, we trimmed them very quickly using the open source MPEG Streamclip. We then turned to a program that you might not associate with video production: Keynote – Apple’s version of Window’s PowerPoint.

In Keynote we chose a simple black background for our slide, added some text for the topic, then dragged and dropped each video into the slide and with a little trial and error resized the six video clips. And, we must say that the initial inspiration for this vox pop was the opening titles of the American TV series – the Brady Bunch.

Once we had all our clips in place, we used Keynote’s Inspector tool to create the animated Pop effect and to adjust the timing for each video to pop in on cue. This took a little trial and error, but once that was set we simply exported the slide as a Quicktime movie.

For more details on using Apple Keynote in this way, check out this Larry Jordan tutorial.

Author: Guy Degen

DW Akademie trainer Dieter Herrmann (right) in Vietnam

A good interview should be informative, authentic, credible and sometimes even surprising. In the past two weeks, the participants in our workshop ‘Advanced Interview Training’ were able to discover the special benefits of this journalistic format.

Together with my colleague Uli Köhler, I am training journalists in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi. Our 15 trainees  work for Vietnam Television (VTV). Most of them are reporters in Hanoi, but we’ve also got the VTV correspondents to Russia and to China in our group. All of our participants are keen to learn more about conducting interviews and recording vox pops.

As Uli and I will leave Vietnam in a couple of days, the trainees are now working on their final productions. Their topic is ‘same-sex marriage in Vietnam’. They chose this topic themselves after an hour-long discussion.

Controversy and discussion about gay marriage

Why did they opt for a controversial issue like that? Because the law on same-sex partnerships in Vietnam will be changed soon and there is a lot of discussion in the country right now.

Working on a contentious topic like same-sex marriage is quite a challenge in an Asian country like Vietnam. But our  participants managed to find a number of interview partners like experts, officials, and of course some gay people as well. With some of them, it was hard work to get good answers on camera – or even just to get them to talk.

Surprisingly for all of us, it was no problem at all to get some really interesting vox pops.

Vox pop in Hanoi

Lots of people in the streets of Hanoi were willing to talk openly about gay marriage. Some were strongly opposed, others were strongly in favor of the idea – just like anywhere else in the world. But what I find interesting in Hanoi is that homosexuality itself doesn’t seem to be taboo at all.

As far as the work-flow in the production of our vox pops was concerned, our expectations were totally different than what we encountered in reality. We originally thought that we would have to record at least 20 to 30 statements from passers-by to end up with four or five sound bites that would be usable  for broadcast. But that’s not the way it turned out at all. In fact, almost all of the statements we recorded for our vox pops were clearly understandable and very usable.

As I write this, our three groups of trainees are busy editing their vox pops. And it’s already becoming obvious that each of them will be proud to show their productions during the closing ceremony of this workshop with VTV at the end of this week.

Author: Dieter Herrmann

Before you decide to produce a vox pop, you should make sure that the topic lends itself to this format. The spectrum of possible topics ranges from politics, business, sports and religion to social issues and everyday problems.

The best topics for vox pops are controversial issues that move the people. With these kinds of issues, you can be fairly sure that the answers you get from the people will be varied, interesting and usable. But other topics, such as consumer behavior, recreational activities, etc. are also possible.

What’s important is that the issue must be topical and of general interest. If only a minority of your listeners is interested in the topic of the vox pop, you run the risk that the majority of your audience will switch off. And it is very difficult to win back lost listeners.

As an example for a vox pop, we will use the same topic as in our first article – an issue that is topical, of general interest and – in this case – even controversial: the construction of a new pharmaceuticals factory in BIGTOWN. In this vox pop, we want to document what residents of BIGTOWN think about having to leave their homes in order to make room for the new factory.

How to ask the right question

Whether a vox pop turns out well or not depends largely on the kind of question you ask. It is important that you always ask the same question and that it is short and clear. Don’t change the wording from one person to the next – after all, you want the answers to fit together, but they will not fit if you keep changing your question.

Don’t ask a “closed” question – a question to which people can only give “yes” or “no” answers. This would inevitably lead to further questions – and before you know it, you’re caught up in a dialog.

Play through your question and possible answers with colleagues or friends before you go out to record your vox pop. This will help you see whether or not your question is well-formulated and whether you can expect interesting answers.

Example
Not good (Closed question):
“Do you mind having to leave BIGTOWN because of the construction of the new pharmaceuticals plant?”

A possible response could be: “Yes”, or “No, I don’t mind”. If you are lucky, the people may also give you an explanation. But it is also possible that the people you ask will turn around after the initial “yes” or “no”, and simply walk away. You will have got an answer to your question, but not one that you can use.

Better (Open question):
“How do you feel about having to leave BIGTOWN because of the new pharmaceuticals plant?”

This question makes a “yes” or “no” answer impossible. Instead, you will now get answers that clearly express the speakers’ critical or positive attitudes:
– “This whole issue makes me sick! They are treating us like dirt…”
or
– “I can’t wait to get out of here. This way, I finally get a new apartment. And maybe I’ll even find a job at the new factory!”

Make sure that you are always neutral when formulating your question, so as not to influence the answers.

Example
Not good:
“I suppose you feel sad about having to leave BIGTOWN because of the new factory?”
(Closed suggestive question that already more or less prescribes which direction the answer will take.)
Better:
“What are your feelings when you think about having to leave BIGTOWN because of the new pharmaceuticals plant?”

In the next part of this article, we’ll discuss some things that can go wrong while recording a vox pop and how to avoid them.

by Peter Hüllen and Thorsten Karg

All of these journalistic formats have one thing in common: they are produced and presented by professionals. And the other voices that appear in the sound clips are most often those of politicians, experts or high-ranking people.

The average citizen hardly ever appears on the air – unless the program uses vox pop. This expression is short for the Latin term, “vox populi” and means “the voice of the people”. When this “voice of the people” is heard, the audience knows that “normal people”, very much like themselves, also have a place in broadcasting. They feel appreciated and taken seriously by the radio or TV station. And this in turn strengthens the audience’s “loyalty” to the station.

For a “vox pop”, journalists ask a number of randomly selected people the same question, collect the answers and string them together. The different answers create an idea of the variety of opinions existing within the population.

Journalists usually conduct these “one-question interviews” in public places where you can find many different kinds of people.

A vox pop is never a representative opinion poll, but merely a random selection of responses. But as listeners love to hear what other ordinary people think, a vox pop will make any program more lively, entertaining and credible.

The duration of a good vox pop should be between one and two minutes.

A vox pop can be a good tool to raise interest in a topic. One way to use it is to confront studio guests with what average people say about a certain topic and then let them respond to the people’s views.

Example 1:
After asking ordinary people on the streets of BIGTOWN how they feel about the building of a new pharmaceuticals factory, you use the answers to put together a vox pop.

Afterwards, when you conduct a studio interview with the mayor, you confront him with what the people said and refer to the vox pop in your first question: “Mr. Mayor, you have heard some of the residents’ opinions. How do you feel about these?”

Or

Example 2:
You have a report in your program about a press conference, in which the mayor and the pharmaceuticals plant PILLCO announced that the new factory would be built.

In this report, the listeners find out what the officials have to say on this topic. But they do not know what the residents of the affected neighborhood BIGTOWN think about the plans. Do they all agree with the project? Are there also critical voices? Or are the people indifferent about what is happening?

Of course you could summarize in your own words that opinion about this project is divided, that there are both positive and negative views among the population. But this way of presenting that information would be pretty boring and very original.

It would be better to give the affected people a voice in your program: let the audience hear what the people say in a vox pop, which you can broadcast after the report.

That way, the listeners and viewers get all the information on the various parties’ opinions – and it is been presented in a very authentic and lively manner.

Vox pops are an instrument to present public opinion and help make your programs more dynamic. As the people voice their opinions spontaneously, they are often emotional, angry, funny or provide unexpected insights.

The voices of average people lend your programs more authenticity and credibility. Listeners and viewers can identify with the average people they hear and see on the air. After all, these are not politicians or experts who “talk down to them”, but ordinary people – just like them.
 

Pros and cons of the vox pop:
 

In our next installment, we’ll discuss how to find a good topic for a vox pop and how to ask the right question.

by Peter Hüllen and Thorsten Karg