Here's one of those questions I said people should send in, though she sent it in before I posted that. Jennifer Luchsinger writes to ask…
I am new to Comic-Con (been there '08, '09, '10). I like to ask questions of the panelists, but after making a total idiot of myself with Kevin Smith in '08 ( just to put it in perspective, he asked me if I was into getting tied up…in front of the crowd in Ballroom 20. Oh, my.) I wish to make my inquiries a bit more specific and relevant to the panelists in which I am interested. (…and to answer KS's question, the answer is "no." :) ) I'm just your basic geeky fangirl who loves comics and creativity, and wants to know more about the people who bring them to life.
Having been a panel moderator for what now amounts to years, can you think of any questions that can be (or should have been) avoided in a panel? How do I word potential questions to the panelists to make them time-efficient? I'd like to ask questions that are things most people (or fans) might like to know, and make them timely and present-relevant. Any ideas? An answer would be gratefully accepted.
Well, you just asked a perfectly good question there, Jennifer. Let me see if I can lay out ten simple rules that will help not just you but anyone who tries to ask a question from the floor, any floor…
- Listen to the panel before you ask something. You'd be amazed at the number of people who ask a question and the answer is something that the panelist said forty minutes ago. If you came in late or weren't paying attention, maybe you shouldn't have the floor.
- There's a rule most lawyers have in grilling someone on a witness stand: Never ask a question if you don't know how they'll answer. You don't have to follow that rule in asking questions at a panel, either as a moderator or audience member, but there's also nothing wrong with it. A lot of times, I know the person has a great story about eating a cheese sandwich so I ask, "Could you tell that great story about eating cheese sandwiches?" Or maybe, if I'm lucky, I can be more graceful about it and still achieve the same result. This is what most TV talk show hosts do for a living. Johnny Carson would say to a guest, "Someone told me you had a weird experience in a canoe." Roughly translated, that meant: "The Talent Coordinator who did your pre-interview suggested I set you up to tell that canoe story you told them." And don't think Johnny didn't know exactly how the canoe story went before he asked for it. It's fine to ask someone a question for which they might not have a great answer…but it's also not a sin to set them up to tell a good story. Just don't pretend too much that it's spontaneous or you'll look like an audience plant.
- The faster you can get to the question, the better.
- And if there are multiple folks up there, preface the question by saying if it's to one of them, two of them, all of them, whatever.
- Most panelists do not like vague questions like, "What's it like to be so famous?" or "What was it like to work with So-and-so?" There are exceptions to this but usually, a question that includes the phrase, "What was it like…?" is too vague a question. Vague questions usually lead to vague answers, and vague answers aren't usually that interesting.
- Here's a way you can be valuable. You've been sitting, listening to the discussion before they get to the part where the audience gets to ask things. Did you notice something missing? Some important area that got skipped over by accident? Someone recently sent me a recording of a two-hour panel discussion with Mel Brooks, Susan Stroman and other folks who were behind staging The Producers on Broadway. For some reason — and I'm sure it wasn't a deliberate snub — they got through the whole thing without mentioning Nathan Lane. If I'd been there and able to ask a question, it would have been about him. And I'll betcha the folks on stage would have been grateful that someone caught their glaring oversight.
- In much the same way: Sometimes, you go to a panel with six people on it and only five of them get to speak. So direct a question to that quiet, neglected person.
- No one appointed you spokesperson. Sentences should not start with phrases like, "On behalf of everyone here…" and "I know I speak for everyone in the room…" People who say this stuff don't seem to comprehend the difference between an applause-evoking compliment and a question.
- On the other hand, ask something on behalf of everyone. I've had people get up at the mike and act like they're having a private conversation with a panelist, discussing some personal matter that would only be of interest to them.
- Mainly, remember it's not about you. This is probably the biggest problem and it's the reason a lot of panels don't do Q-and-A with the audience. Too many questioners don't really have a question. They just want to talk about themselves in front of an audience and maybe pretend they have some sort of relationship with the important people on stage. So the rule here is don't talk about your life, your career, your work, how you discovered the panelists' work, etc. It's possible to craft a reasonable question that might require you to allude to such things…but don't.