What others have said
Jeffry Frieden, Harvard University
Working with Faculti was a pleasure. The videographer was talented and well-informed, and the interview was painless – even pleasant. The Faculti staff quickly prepared and presented the video clip on the Faculti website, and did an excellent job with it. I have received nothing but compliments about the video, and look forward to working with Faculti again
Trevor Marchand, Emeritus Professor, SOAS
Faculti research insights are an invaluable resource for students and general members of the public exploring disciplines and issues. They are also important for researchers to share their ideas and thinking with broader audiences.
Olivier Blanchard, former Chief Economist IMF
A nice interview (20 minutes) on the paper on US inflation with Ben Bernanke (nice in the sense of giving me time to say things, rather than the typical 2-minute piece on the radio or tv)
Matej Černe, University of Ljubljana
What a fun experience that was – pleasant, professional, efficient. The way research dissemination is supposed to be done.
Refet Gürkaynak, Bilkent University
Doing this was a pleasure.
British Universities Film and Video Council
Faculti’s videos are professionally made and the participants present their ideas clearly in an unadorned, simple way, largely relying on direct, to camera communication, without any other audiovisual aids. A simple idea, well executed.
Key Preparation
The Interview (30 minute process)
- Journalist attends meeting and outlines process again.
- Journalist will ask the questions one by one to structure the interview, to inject pace and to keep the process on track.
- Journalist checks framing, lighting and audio (more below- see tips)
- Interview recorded and sent to editors.
- Post production team get in touch about next steps and the editing process.
Our Researchers and Journalists
Primarily the journalists are there to support and structure the interview for you. All our journalists are trained professional journalists, most of them undertake the research for the paper they interview but this is not always the case due to the volume of interviews we now do annually. We always try to match our journalist academic training with the interview subject in question. Some of our journalists have interviewed 2000-3000 academics each and have therefore read everyone of those articles to undertake the interview. Most days the journalists are in interviews between 12 and 16 interviews of academics daily, sometimes two an hour.
Our Office Staff and Editorial team
We also have a team of office managers to support with covering the logistics of 8000 interviews across the world and editors to make sure the academic is presented entirely as is with no bias. We put a lot of effort into ensuring we are well prepared for you.
Our Audience
Predominantly the global higher education, academic and research community, however now many professional users deliver the platform such as banks, hospitals and schools, for example University College London, Imperial College London, London School of Economics, Boston University, University of Toronto, Melbourne University, NUS Singapore, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Korea all deliver Faculti, as does the National Health Service (NHS) to its medical and health staff.
Our audience metrics show that there is a clear correlation between those who watch interviews and those studying, researching or working in that field. So we always suggest, “What does your subject-specific audience need to hear?” If it doesn’t address that audience need, it may be extraneous.
Support Video 1: The Production Process
Support Video 2: The Video player
Simple steps to a great Faculti interview (please read)
A key part to the interview and the communication of your work is that we do not want to lose the academic weight of the piece. So please do not feel you need to dumb the work down or gloss over the details. Based on the 8000+ figures we have covered so far and both researcher and audience feedback, we have some tips…
1. Engaging and pacey interviews: Try to keep responses to each question between 3-5 minutes, with 5/6 questions that’s around 20 mins.
2. Keep it simple, but not too simple. The Faculti audience want to hear the detail. We also do not agree that academics have to be ‘dumbed down’ to be accessible, its utter nonsense, we believe the 8000 interviews show that this isn’t the case and we are proud to make videos that are intelligent and engaging.
3. Please do check your background. Video providers such as zoom allow for you to blur your background should you wish. We love a bookcase or a whiteboard! Who doesn’t? But for us as long as the framing is great, its what you convey that matters. Do drop a little note on your office door highlighting that you may be out of touch for 20 minutes if possible.
4. Please do check that the camera, lighting and microphone work before the shoot (a headset is fine). Give the lens of your laptop or iPad camera a wipe to make sure the picture isn’t degraded by grease or dust – we often open laptops with our thumb on the lens.
5. Check that the light falls in a neutral manner on your face. Avoid direct sunlight or back lighting if you can.
6. Framing (see below): Ensure that the lens is more or less at head height to capture your head and shoulders. If you’re using a laptop, you might want to raise it a certain amount. Otherwise the shot can be unflattering – right up your nose!
Other than that our editors are brilliant so please dont worry, its really enjoyable….remember 8000 figures globally have enjoyed the process, so please dont worry!
Framing guidance:
