Unprofessional Shoot Interviews

[Ted Sheckler]

I have the Highspots network on their website and it's a really great site for independent wrestling and everything in between. One of the things they have a lot of are shoot interviews and I like to just sit and play video games with a shoot interview on.

Something I've noticed is how unprofessional some of these interviewers are. I'm listening to an Orlando Jordan shoot interview right now and a phone has rang twice, a guy on the Highspots crew has picked up the phone, answered it and you can hear him speaking in the background to someone as Orlando tries to answer questions. You can tell Orlando is getting annoyed by it all and who wouldn't be with some idiot in the background chatting away while you're trying to talk.

Highspots aren't the only ones guilty of this. Rob Feinstein and his crew are absolutely terrible with this as well with them sometimes recording as people walk knock on doors, walk into rooms, introduce themselves to one another or the increasingly annoying RF interrupting guys mid sentences or refusing to ask a follow up question 

With the network I don't pay for this content by itself but if back in the day I'd dropped twenty dollars on an interview where the unprofessional operations of these guys was firmly on display I think I'd be quite angry. The only company not guilty of this stuff is Sean Oliver with Kayfabe Commentaries he must either edit stuff out or *gasp* have a closed set during an interview.

Anyone else annoyed by all of this?

[Cranjis McBasketball]

If the phone rings during Austin's podcast, he owes you a beer.

[chazraps]

When was the Highspots was from? They usually have very high quality stuff. Ever since the infamous Kendrick/London shoot, they've really gone above and beyond with their in-house stuff.

[Deleted]

Kayfabe Commentaries are really the only ones who make proper presentation a priority.

[One-Armed Drummer of Defrebel]

I remember a New Jack shoot where the entire thing was shot in a really cheap hotel room and halfway through some dude just burst in.

[Ted Sheckler]

Feb 16, 2017 0:31:11 GMT -5 chazraps said:

When was the Highspots was from? They usually have very high quality stuff. Ever since the infamous Kendrick/London shoot, they've really gone above and beyond with their in-house stuff.

It was 2 years after OJ was released so I'd say very late 2007 or early 2008.

[GuyOfOwnage]

Feinstein is just a terrible interviewer all around. He sounds like he's just sitting behind the camera with a list of questions and almost never tries to engage the person he's interviewing. They could offer an interesting anecdote and he'll just be like "oh cool, next question".

[chazraps]

Feb 16, 2017 1:04:52 GMT -5 Ted Sheckler said:

Feb 16, 2017 0:31:11 GMT -5 chazraps said:

When was the Highspots was from? They usually have very high quality stuff. Ever since the infamous Kendrick/London shoot, they've really gone above and beyond with their in-house stuff.

It was 2 years after OJ was released so I'd say very late 2007 or early 2008.

Yeah, sadly that's how the shoot industry pretty much was as a whole at that point. I don't think it's really fair to consider that par for the course for Highspots though considering when the industry stepped up they upped their game as well and for many years now have been making some of the best output in the industry, especially compared to one of the other entities you mentioned who just hang their banner and lob "any memories of..." word association games for four hours.

[ThankGodForSidJustice]

Feb 16, 2017 1:24:01 GMT -5 GuyOfOwnage said:

Feinstein is just a terrible interviewer all around. He sounds like he's just sitting behind the camera with a list of questions and almost never tries to engage the person he's interviewing. They could offer an interesting anecdote and he'll just be like "oh cool, next question".

Can't stand shoot interviews where he's conducting them. He just sounds like the biggest dunce in the world. I also find it annoying how he always says the same things in every interview like a brain dead idiot. You can always count on "uh how did Randy treat Elizabeth we've uh heard uh a lot guys say he was uh overprotective of her" or "what were your uh thoughts on the British Bulldogs, it's well known uh that Dynamite Kid uh was a great ribber uh" or the incredibly annoying and unnecessary "I was going to get to that" every singe time the interviewee brings up a topic on his default list of questions he has for every interview that he hasn't got to yet. Just shut up and let him/her finish. I don't know his name but the other guy who does interviews for them is way better and I don't understand why they don't just use him every time. He did Scott Hall's first shoot (the one where he's not drunk) which was probably my favorite shoot ever. He's actually engaged and listens to what the interviewee is saying, leading to good follow up questions and much better conversation.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

The interviewer in the Jerry Jarrett shoot was worse than Feinstein if that's possible. The guy looked like if he didn't knew who Jarrett was and had to prepare about an hour before.

[Ted Sheckler]

Feinstein's incessant "I was there for that" during ECW guys interviews has to be the biggest pet peeve I have when it comes to shoot interviews. The wrestlers never care, the audience doesn't care it seems like just him and his buddies that care.

This is a guy who did a shoot with himself though...

[Ultimo Gallos]

Feb 16, 2017 3:23:25 GMT -5 Ted Sheckler said:

Feinstein's incessant "I was there for that" during ECW guys interviews has to be the biggest pet peeve I have when it comes to shoot interviews. The wrestlers never care, the audience doesn't care it seems like just him and his buddies that care.

This is a guy who did a shoot with himself though...

He did two shoots with himself.

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

I came across some shoots with various territory guys that most companies would never bother with because they weren't huge names (some weren't names at all outside 1 or 2 territories.)

I picked up ones with the Mongolian Stomper and longtime Knoxville referee Mac McMurray.

Stomper's was filmed in his living room, as he sat rocking in a lounge chair. You can hear the sounds of the chair just as well or better than Archie.

Mac's looks like it was shot in a conference room or something, and would have turned out fine except something that sounded like a vacuum cleaner kept kicking on, forcing a cut each time.

[The 1Watcher Experience]

The only shoot that actually annoyed me was the RF one with Shane Douglas and Francine that was recorded with them in a pool. The sound was so unbelievably low that even if you held your ear up to the speaker with your volume maxed out you still couldn't hear them. I later found out that every copy was like that and I was annoyed even more that he had the nerve to release it anyway.

[auph10imitated]

Most of the old school shoot interviews are like that though, it doesnt bother me, they had a raw and real feel to them. Its different these days with podcasts and shit. Cant say it bothered me really

[Mozenrath]

Feb 16, 2017 6:15:15 GMT -5 The 1Watcher Experience said:

The only shoot that actually annoyed me was the RF one with Shane Douglas and Francine that was recorded with them in a pool. The sound was so unbelievably low that even if you held your ear up to the speaker with your volume maxed out you still couldn't hear them. I later found out that every copy was like that and I was annoyed even more that he had the nerve to release it anyway.

Similarly, I saw one with Vader where, look, I know the guy doesn't talk that loud in his normal voice, but it was like he was a sophomore looking at porn on the family computer at 11 PM on a schoolnight, he was talking so quietly while sitting in what looked to be some living room. Turn the f***ing mic up or ask him to speak louder, or spring for subtitles, maybe, because holy shit.

It just makes me think of Foley talking about a plane ride he had with Terry Funk where Funk was telling him a story and Foley just politely nodded along, not having the heart to tell him he couldn't hear shit over the plane's engine with Funk's soft voice.

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

Not saying it's the interviewer's fault, but didn't Slick fall asleep in the middle of a shoot?

[Deleted]

Feb 16, 2017 3:01:37 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

The interviewer in the Jerry Jarrett shoot was worse than Feinstein if that's possible. The guy looked like if he didn't knew who Jarrett was and had to prepare about an hour before.

I listened to 5 minutes of that one, then switched to something else. Jarrett himself sounded like he didn't want to be there.

[Ted Sheckler]

I listened to the Jarrett interview about two weeks ago as well and remember thinking it was quite unprofessional. It was a 3 hour interview but the person doing the interview was someone I'd never heard before and he was pretty bad. As someone else said, it sounded like he didn't know what he was talking about.

Also, no really unique questions were asked. This is a guy who at one stage was selling 5000+ tickets a week to buildings and had been involved in the business for 40 years and you don't ask how he did it, the differences between then and today, education on the Memphis style etc. It was all just "Memories of Jerry Lawler at this time?" and "Did Bill Dundee and Jerry Lawler get along?". Also, Jarrett's four years in TNA were brushed over in about 10-15 minutes as the interviewer rushed to get to the name association segment.

[James Fabiano]

Feb 16, 2017 1:24:01 GMT -5 GuyOfOwnage said:

Feinstein is just a terrible interviewer all around. He sounds like he's just sitting behind the camera with a list of questions and almost never tries to engage the person he's interviewing. They could offer an interesting anecdote and he'll just be like "oh cool, next question".

LOL he'll pretend he was listening.