Planning testimony interviews
right from the start

Module by module — from a single interview episode (preparation, shooting day, edit, subtitles, documentation) to a series with an educational module. On request the calculation is structured to fit funding applications, so you can insert it as a cost item into your grant application. All quotes are net plus 7% VAT (reduced rate for artistic-cultural services); concrete figures are discussed in the first conversation.

Funders such as EVZ and federal or state programmes support media formats in historical-political education — the applicant is your institution as the sponsoring body, not the producer. The sensible division of labour: you apply, I provide calculation blocks, a timeline and reference material. Allow about three months before the application deadline. Funders in earlier projects of mine include the NRW Foundation, savings bank foundations and federal programme contexts.

Questions that make a biography tangible: origins and family, daily life before the rupture, the rupture itself, arriving, passing on. More important than any question: open phrasing, tolerating silence, and letting the interviewee decide how far to go. A question catalogue is available on request — it is part of every production, and can also be delivered separately.

Exactly as long as documented. Every person needs a documented consent with scope (exhibition, web, social media) and duration. Importantly: clearance for the exhibition does not automatically mean clearance for the website. I keep a clearance matrix per project — so your institution stays verifiably clean.

The bottleneck is rarely the technology but access: people who would not tell their story in front of any other camera, and the experience of guiding those rooms. External also makes sense for solo production without crew costs, or when material must be documented to archive standard. I am happy to work together with your media unit — delivery in formats it can process.