Posted by Richard Mooney who did the first interview with Susan.

Me and Susan Boyle: The three and a half minute video that changed my life

This content story will tell how I became the first journalist to interview Susan Boyle on camera and how that video went onto be officially named as one of YouTube’s Most Memorable Videos of 2009.

Having read the above paragraph I still can’t believe it. This was one of the craziest weeks of my career. Why have I not written about it until now? Four years later?

I was scared to. Scared being called a blatant self-promoter and of being defined by it I suppose. Looking back on it I think should have capitalized on this more. But I didn’t, and to be honest, that’s just fine (you’ll see why later). 

Not just another Tuesday

It’s a Tuesday following a nice three-day Easter weekend. For me it was nice to have some time of work and the ability to focus on my training and catch up with my friends (all twenty somethings and young professionals working in social work).

There was nothing spectacular about my weekend. I went to ASDA and bought some brown bread instead of plain bread actually. I started a diet and was advised that brown bread was healthier. I went to bed on the Monday night and fell asleep expecting a pretty routine beginning of the working week.

This would include updating the website homepages, rotating and refreshing news content, checking/analysing the weekend website traffic on Omniture and other general website “housekeeping” duties.

I worked as a multimedia journalist for the digital media department of Scottish and Universal Newspapers, now Media Scotland, at this time. The company is Scotland’s largest regional newspaper publisher and is the owner of the West Lothian Courier (WLC), Susan’s local newspaper.

At this time, I was based in the company’s head office in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire in the Hamilton Advertiser buildings. From here, I was part of a team of multimedia journalists responsible for producing and editing digital content for the group’s many local newspaper websites.

There’s an email in my inbox from my then editor with a home address of a lady named Susan Boyle. The gist of it goes; DROP EVERYTHING ELSE AND GET THIS DONE.

Apparently this local woman who was on the popular UK show, Britain’s Got Talent, was quite well received by the judges and he wanted me to do a video interview with her.

We used to get lots of locals who go on Britain’s Got Talent or X-Factor (another similar show) and run stories on them as well. These are great content, usually positive human interest stories from local people - the best kind for regional and local newspapers.

I thought this was just going to be another one of these stories and how wrong I was. 

Susan everywhere

As I was in the coffee shop I heard people speaking about Susan Boyle. As I hear more mentions of it and Britain’s Got Talent, my mind goes into overdrive and I’m putting two and two together. I see the front page of that day’s Daily Record (Scotland’s biggest newspaper) and then a news report about her audition on the Coffee Shop’s TV with the headline Scottish Woman Stuns Simon Cowell.

Bingo.

I get my coffee, return to the office and immediately set to work.

For the record, at that time I was not a regular viewer of Britain’s Got Talent or similar shows. If it’s on I’ll watch it, it’s entertaining. But I’d rather watch something like Zero Punctuation, or Dragonball Abridged for my own personal entertainment. That’s just me (I’m a geek).

I call up the Britain’s Got Talent press office and they tell me they are inundated with emails, personal interview requests and much, much more. I ask for a video interview or some phone time.  “There is no time for Susan this week, please call again later,” the press agent says before hanging up. “Thanks”.

Disappointed, I tell my editor but he gives some words of encouragement and says keep trying.

The local newspaper angle

I try again and this time I go for a different approach, I tell them that I work for the immediate local newspaper and that we’d be doing our readership a disservice if we didn’t get access to one of our own locals. There’s a five second pause. “Susan’s available for a 30 minutes this afternoon”, the press agents says. Jackpot.

I call the West Lothian Courier (Susan’s local newspaper) and tell them. They send a print reporter along with a photographer to accompany me. I gather up the video equipment and make a dash for Blackburn, West Lothian. I check and triple check the gear.

Battery working? Check. Tripod? Good. Microphone? Great, but probably won’t need it (this was before I realized the importance of sound in video) Questions? Check.

Half-way to West Lothian I realize I’m in need of petrol. Bugger. That takes an extra 10 minutes that I didn’t account for in my planning. Keeping within the speed limits I make it to Susan Boyle’s estate. It’s a typical Scottish suburb with old, grey-brick houses, surrounded by countryside.

I was expecting to see crowds of photographers, reporters and a media frenzy…but there was none. No one was anywhere. The estate was empty. Just a typical Tuesday.

Meeting SuBo

The biggest story-in-the-world and no one is on the scene, but me. That’s odd. I find her house and knock on the door. It opens and there is Susan, dressed in her Sunday best. She looks a little bewildered, but calm.

“Hello, who are you?” she asks.

“Richard Mooney, digital reporter for the Courier”, I reply nervously.

“Nice to meet you, come on in,” she said shaking my hand.

She is extremely welcoming and offers me some tea. Her home is cosy, warm and very traditional.

Pebbles, her legendary pet cat, is nowhere to be seen. We go the living room and sit down.

It was here that she started to get a bit nervous (which is very understandable given the situation at the time).

I set up the camera and ask her to do some talking into the lens to test the quality. For some reason it keeps on zooming into her face. I check the camera and it turns out it is stuck on zoom. After fixing it we begin the interview, I sit behind the camera,I reach for my questions and oh bugger! THEY’RE in the car!

Improvising with Pebbles

She was ready and so was I. Throwing caution to the wind, I went on instinct and just began by asking her some basic questions about her life and being on the TV.

Subduing her joy and excitement, Susan remains modest, despite touching the hearts of hundreds of millions. Incredible, I remember thinking to myself, this woman is literally the center focus of the entire world right now.

She was also slightly cautious about what she was saying, nervous perhaps, so the majority of her initial answers were short, to the point and straightforward.

After several minutes I draw blank during and search my mind for something to go on and I think of her cat. I decide to change tact and try to lighten the mood.

“You have a cat yet?” I ask. “Yes, Pebbles”

“How did she take the news?”

Did I just ask that? You idiot, Richard.

She looked confused for a split second then smiled, laughing saying, “Oh, you know the usual cat way” as she moved her shoulders in a pretend strut.

The whole atmosphere changed instantly. It became lighter, more relaxed and she opened up much more.

I was still nervous, as you can hear this from the video. Stuttering and the likes, but I think my approach here helped.

I thanked Susan for her time, wish her all the best and  tell her I’ll be in touch about know when the interview was uploaded.

It should be said that I was only given basic video training at work and the equipment was a designed-for-home-use Sony HD handycam and tripod. It was decent, not exactly top-of-the-line equipment, but not bad for local newspapers.

The elements of my early days as a journalist are reflected here in the video. It’s a simple shot with a medium-close-up of Susan, with so-so lighting and average sound. This interview was mixed with footage of her legendary Britain’s Got Talent audition. I used Windows Movie Maker, Audacity and the video was “topped and tailed” with the West Lothian Courier branding.

Below is the original and you can view the High quality version on my Vimeo page.

Next, I uploaded the video to YouTube and left it overnight and put it as a video response to SuBo’s BGT audition video. This was around mid-afternoon at 2.30pm and by finishing time, 5pm, the video was sitting at nearly 120,000 views.

The next day: Susan’s reaction to fans’ messages, Sky interview requests and refusing CNN

By 9am the video was approaching a quarter of a million views, this was strange for the newspaper as most of our videos were only getting watched by a few thousand local British people, with the occasional expat logging in from abroad.

This time our primary audience was the entire globe.

My inbox and the WLC website were inundated with requests and fan mail about Susan Boyle. We had people saying how much of inspiration she was, how they loved her, hundreds of messages of support and requests for interviews (people thought I was the only journalist with access to her).

With the messages of support, I wrote this article, Susan Boyle is doing what The Beatles did in the 60s. Later that day we were telephoned by SkyNews who wanted to interview me and my editor, but we didn’t want to go for it.

However, Sky News still used samples of the video, but the news presenter mistakenly called the newspaper the West Lothian Chronicle and not the correct name, West Lothian Courier. Frustrating? A little, but regardless it was still great to see my work on the TV.

I added a small teaser to the end of thatarticle saying that the next day we would put up an audio interview with SuBo and a few hours later I got a phone call from a producer at CNN asking for early access to it, but said we were running this as a WLC exclusive. Later NBC also called, but I had to tell them the same thing.

I had tried SuBo again all day but her phone was answered by a “PR assistant”. Then I called back after 5pm and got through to her for a follow up interview, which was recorded and you can listen to here.

During the interview I read some of the fan mail we received for her and her reactions are great.

As she has no internet in her house at that time, I am quite confident this may have been the first time she had heard directly what people what people were saying about her and not via PR people, TV or newspapers.

Much of her reaction was astonishment, surprise and glee. “This is unbelievable,” she said. “I’m overwhelmed.” After the interview, I spoke with her for five minutes and wished her all the best for the future.

That was the last time I would speak with her.

By the end of this day the video was approaching half a million views.

Two days later

The video had reached one million views overnight. I tried calling SuBo’s home again, but there was no answer and the press office were not granting any follow up interviews

One month later: Millions of views and a Brazilian TV show visits my office

I was working at the Wishaw Press and got a phone call from the office in Hamilton saying that a couple of Brazilians are visiting Scotland are looking for me. “Are you having a laugh?”, was my initial reaction.

It definitely couldn’t be football scouts as anyone who has seen me play will tell you.

I made my way over to the Hamilton office, met my editor and sure enough there was two Brazlilans coming to see us, from the network TV Globo - the world’s second largest commercial TV broadcaster.

What the Pebbles? 

I cannot remember the name of the show exactly, I think it was Fantastico, but it was shot in Glasgow was all about Susan Boyle. I met two men, one was a short fellow, a producer and the other was tall and spoke eloquently, with confidence. He wore a bright blue jumper.

The tall fellow introduced himself in the office as Zeca Carmargo. I had never heard of him. But in South America he is a big deal.

As he entered the office, with a confident brisk, walk, he asked: “Now where is Richard Mooney?”

“I’m here”

“Congratulations on the video Richard, very nice work!”, says Zeco sharking my hand.

“Thanks very much”

They asked for access to the original footage (which we gave them after paid a nominal usage fee) and were then on their way. I never saw the footage being used until only recently, but was glad my work would be used in Brazil.

The YouTube Honor

In December 2009 my editor calls me into his office and shows me an email he has received regarding my Susan Boyle interview. It’s from someone at YouTube he tells me. My first thought is, Crap, is it being taken down?! And then he lets me see the email.

We are pleased to inform you that YouTube is having a special video New Year’s Countdown through the month of December. Every day, a new video will be revealed in a special landing page, which will be promoted across the site. Your “Susan Boyle from Britain’s Got Talent first on camera interview” video is one of the 31 videos being honored as the year’s most memorable clips.

We added the video in early December, and then the wait for it to appear began.I could almost faint.

The video was to be added at http://www.youtube.com/newyears, where a different video for every day of December a new video was featured.

Day after day in December, the video did not appear. And I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to appear. Everyone said, it will appear eventually. I wasn’t convinced. I seriously believed it was all to good to be true. I mean out of the millions of videos on YouTube, mines would be named as one of the most memorable?

Then on New Year’s Eve, December 2009 it appeared. I found out at midnight whilst was watching Die Hard with a Vengeance. I jumped up and down with joy. I’ve never been so happy. 

Ya dancer! My family rushed into my room, I remember hugging them and jumping up and down with my dad. It was like celebrating a winning goal. Just amazing.

Epilogue

After the Susan Boyle interview I was profiled on Digital Ministry (a digital media website, to which I currently contribute), interviewed by The Times newspaper and was a guest on New Zealand radio station, Radio Live, twice.

News of the YouTube honor was covered by Journalism.co.uk, Allmediascotland, Hold The Front Pageand the West Lothian Courier itself. Simply amazing.

I thought next I would try something different so I applied for jobs at STV, the BBC, several newspapers and abroad. I had interviews at STV but never got the job, never heard back from the Beeb or the newspapers.

And then I was offered a post in 2010 at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia  to work as a content producer in their communications department, writing on tech and science.

KAUST is a new university aimed at providing international education to Saudis and international students alike. There’s no segregation on campus. Men and women are free to mix. The campus is highly international and feels like a small village. It’s very cosmopolitan.

There I met and wrote on some of the most influential people in science, business and higher education, including Frank Rhodes, several Nobel Laureates, Fortune 500 VPs and even Rolf Heuer, the Director General of CERN.

Meeting my partner there, Erin, a Taiwanese woman, brought me to Taipei where I am currently studying for a Master of Arts in International Communication on scholarship and also learning Mandarin Chinese, Tough language, but not as hard as you would think.

And that’s really that, I hope you have gotten something from this post, be it entertainment, inspiration or information. Otherwise, I’d just like to finish this with a message for anyone considering journalism or writing as a career path.

Do it. It may not be highest paying job in the world, but the opportunities and experiences you will gain are worth so much more. It’ll take you places you’d never believe possible and the more you stick with it, the more it gets better.