7. Аудирование: поиск запрашиваемой информации в интервью: все задания

Presenter: As far as I understand, work experience is important for an interpreter. How can a beginner get it? 

Liza: I think aspiring interpreters shouldn’t overlook the advantages of volunteer opportunities. There are many places which offer opportunities for polishing your interpretation skills while volunteering. Many of these opportunities are in the medical field, although there are some for future court or business interpreters as well. Internships, both paid and unpaid, can also help.

Ayla: I don’t think there is. Anything can be a poem, and when I write, it’s just putting the words down on paper. I don’t really have any kind of preconceived idea of what its final form will be. It just all kind of comes spilling out with me from the same place. Poetry doesn’t necessarily need to be some elite, erudite thing. I think that those boundaries should be broken down. Everything I write comes from the same instinctive place anyway.

Presenter: That’s wonderful. Could you maybe share your favourite memory of your father? 

Bob: Um, let me think. I guess it would be about our trips to Florida. We had this old van that we drove to Florida 13 times. We didn’t have any money for the vacation really, so we were living out of the van, sleeping during the day in high temperatures and fishing under the bridges at night. It was a lot of fun. I was encouraged to do things like that by my dad. I think these kinds of experiences taught me some valuable skills for life.

Michelle: I just told people the truth about women and heart disease. That it kills more women than men, and more women than all cancers combined. People are shocked. Many haven’t ever heard the statistics, and the facts speak for themselves.

Paul: Yes, I did. I don’t like to disassociate myself from the people I’m working with, but that was a very particular time. I needed to restore myself, and silence for me is one of the greatest restoratives, and The Blue Ridge Mountains are the most silent place on God’s earth.

Presenter: Did you continue writing at college? 

Alyson: Of course, in my freshman year in college I submitted a couple of short stories to a university-wide creative writing competition called the Hopwood Awards and I won a cash prize. My university was a large one so the prize was fairly competitive. That felt like the first serious evidence that I might actually have some sort of real knack for writing. My work has been recognized not by my friends or an encouraging English teacher but by complete strangers who’d picked my work out of a large pile of entries. 

Judy White: I think whether writing dialogue for plays or narrative fiction, you have to pay attention to your characters, more so than to the rules of whatever medium in which you’re writing. I like to picture my characters and imagine their speech patterns, the sound of their voices, conversations they might have. Sometimes I’ll write snippets of dialogue and think: ‘That’s a nice couple of lines, but would this character really say that?’ So for me, it’s more about respecting the characters, trying to stay true to their voices.

Maggie: I’ve always played moms. I once played someone who wanted to be a mom. The thing with the role of a mother in our legacy, in world history, in world mythology, is that the role of a mother encompasses the entire universe. There is no limit to what you can express if you are representing that in a story. I’ve just got nominated for an Emmy for playing a mother!

Presenter: In your opinion, what should a young person take into consideration when choosing an artistic career path?

Brenda: I think a young person should keep an open mind and try out as many things as possible. Don’t limit your options when starting out because there are so many things to learn from in all the fields of art. That’s not to say that specialising is not good, but I think it will be beneficial to be open to different possibilities, as there is a lot of crossover among them. I think if you keep exposing yourself to various types of art, you will eventually find out what really resonates with you and keeps you motivated, and that will lead you to your artistic career.

Vanessa: Read as much as you can, not just the things you’re told to read to parents, tutors and reviewers. Read anything, both good books and bad ones. Whatever genre you wanna work in, you’ve got to get a sense for when you’re improving.

Presenter: Speaking about the coming conference, what would you say is the major benefit for attending publishing events for writers as compared to, say, online resources on the subject? 

Julia: I think the major difference between online and face-to-face events is energy. Whenever I’ve taught or attended an event, it’s the energy in the room that I really notice. There’s a rich atmosphere of expectation, optimism, and motivation that you don’t get if you’re sitting alone at your computer. There’s also the opportunity to swap stories with other attendees, learn from the questions that are asked and the answers given by the speaker. There’s a sense of community that you don’t get online, and people often leave feeling fired up, motivated, and determined.

Kim: Sure. Lisa, my heroine, is selfish and ambitious, and I prefer to put the needs of others first. Also, she is very athletic – a lot more than me. I work out twice or three times a week and Lisa goes to the gym daily. She also has a million friends, whereas I have a couple of close friends and spend time with family more.

Peter: You know my coach’s words on the day we won the national championship were: ‘Guys, don’t let this be the most important day of your lives. There are bigger things in life, bigger things to enjoy.’ so, I can’t even tell you the last time I thought about football, even professional football. I am at a different stage now and life is just as exciting as it was before.

John: I didn’t invent that style of photography, but I’ve been thinking about it since I was only nine years old, when I was swimming and snorkeling around the jetties of New Jersey. I would put my head above water and see clouds, lifeguards, the beach, and people. Then I’d put my head underwater and I would see silverfish, spider crabs, all sorts of other things. It was like escaping to a world that was dreamlike. Today we use wide-angle lenses and a special underwater housing to make these photos come to life. I recently published a book of my half-and-half photos called Two Worlds. It’s an idea I’ve had for quite a while and it took me thirty years to get the pictures together.

Lisa: Well, I definitely have a lot of kids who come in and say that they have anxiety. I tell them that everybody has anxiety. That’s how you cross the street without getting hit by cars. That’s how you get your work done <…> Anxiety is what protects you from yourself and the world around you.

Presenter: As a writer, what do you think about drafting and drafts? 

Stacey: <…> Of course, my first drafts are huge messes and it can take me multiple revisions to even pin down the basic plot arc. I used to think revision was 100% about the critical brain because that’s the only part I use when editing others. I certainly wouldn’t want to let my free writing brain loose on someone else’s work but I’m starting to think there may be room for it when I revise my own.

Peter: Some people try to change themselves to make new friends and this is totally wrong. In fact, that’s the worst thing you can do. It may be great initially to get those new friends but the friendship was established with you being a different person. In the long run, it’ll be tiring to uphold a new image and, in the end, your new friends will feel cheated because you are not the person they befriended.

Carl. By the time I got to college, I was mentally burned out. I disliked football, but I persevered because I knew football was my ticket to college. I didn’t have anyone to pay for college, so I had no choice. So I stayed with it. I felt like I owed it to my family and myself to keep at it. In the NFL, if you get injured, they cut you from the team and bring on other people. I got injured. While I was recovering, I got the opportunity to be on America’s Next Top Model, and that turned out for the best. I never looked back. 

Presenter: What are some of your current and future projects that you can share with us?

Alice: I’m currently working on a screenplay and a new political parody.

Presenter: Can you tell us about the Future of Story Conference coming up in Los Angeles and what your role is?

Alice: The Future of Story Conference is for screenwriting what WrestleMania is to professional wrestling. A bunch of authors of popular books on the business will be gathered in one place. I’ll be participating in one of the panels.

Presenter: What are the benefits for writers attending this conference?

Alice: Well, being able to meet and talk to authors of books they have read or heard about is important because it puts a human presence to the words. I’ve gone to events like Listen the Past as a young writer and met and talked with authors I read and admired. I still recall talking with Harlan Ellison and Ean Arconce.

Paul: The industry is becoming more and more specialised, with many departments, but I do encourage young artists to work in visual development. That department is in charge of finding the look, and that is an incredibly creative and lovely career to go for.