Conducting interviews independently? I'm an early career researcher who would like to conduct interviews for a research project on my own, and I was hoping to get some advice about whether this sort of thing is advisable. 

I recently graduated and published my work in a peer reviewed journal, and I'm planning to continue my research through a PhD sometime in the next couple of years. However, I would also like to work a documentary type project related to my field of study, not for an academic audience but for the broader general public. 
I'm not currently affiliated with a university though, and have never conducted any interviews before (all my work so far has been archival), so I'm a little concerned about the ethics of my doing so without any kind of official backing. I'm not even sure if this is something I COULD get backing for as it would be a side project anyway.

Due to my area of research the window of opportunity for conducting interviews is rapidly closing, and I'm concerned about missing the chance. It wouldn't be feasible for me to wait until I'm more established, as the younger interviewees are already in their early 80s.

Would it be possible, and more importantly ethical for me to be doing this? Could I get funding for this? And should I be getting a university or other academics involved?
There is a whole science about conducting and structuring interviews, and drawing scientific conclusions from it. If you are unfamiliar with it, then the interviews you will conduct are likely going to be poorly designed, and you may not be able to get out of them what you wanted, or with as much clarity as you hoped. That doesn't mean than it may not be entertaining, or of interest to the public, but it's probably still worthwhile reading up on how to best do interviews.

An entirely separate question is institutional backing. It is not unethical or wrong to conduct interviews as an individual -- journalists do it all the time. But you will need to have the approval of an Institutional Review Board (IRB) if you eventually want to use the interviews for scientific research you want to publish.