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Technical Suggestions for Interviews:
Here are some tips for creating professional looking interviews.
Use a Tripod
Of course, you’ll have a camcorder. Next importantly is a tripod. Interview subjects don’t move much so even the best hand-held camera work can result in poor footage.
Audio
For high-quality sound, an external microphone is important. But if you’re stuck with your built-in mike, make sure the interview subject is seated close to the camera and you are not in a noisy location. Shoot a couple tests and play back the footage. Headphones are an absolute must, both for monitoring voice quality and for detecting any interfering background noises.
A lapel mike (wired or wireless) works well, or you can mount a cardioid or shotgun mike to a table-top stand and place it close to the speaker and just below the frame line.
Lighting
In a nutshell, you want decent light. Shooting outdoors in the middle of the day can give you even lighting that generally looks good. Just be aware of where shadows fall. Shooting indoors gives you much more control. When shooting indoors make sure your set up includes at least two light sources- one on your subject and one on the background. These do not have to be professional lights with barn doors or umbrellas. Lights around your house can work fine. Create a soft light to illuminate your background and a stronger light to lite your subject. It may take two lights to evenly light your subject or one light if you want a dramatic looking stage look. Usually you don’t want the light on your subject to be dimmer than the light behind him/her or you end up with a silhouette.
Composition for Interviews
Direct the interview subject to focus his/her attention at a specific point to the immediate right or left of the lens (not directly at the lens but not too far away.) Ideally the subject is talking to someone standing next to the camera. We don’t want the subject confused about where to look or looking all over the place. Then shoot subject so he is not dead center but slightly right or left of frame with his/her eyeline going across the frame to the opposite side. For example, subject is slightly frame right with is eyeline looking towards frame left.
Generally use a medium shot. Shoot subject from head to waist. Wider for establishing shots where subject is moving. Make sure there is always a decent background that doesn’t distract from the subject.
EXAMPLE OF GOOD FRAMING AND COMPOSITION
Keep the camcorder back from the subject. A long camera throw, as it’s called, keeps the hardware out of the subject’s face and the telephoto lens setting makes for pleasing closeup shots.
Light the background by moving the subject. Working with minimal lighting, you’ll illuminate the background with spill from the key and fill lights. Watching your monitor carefully, move your subjects toward or away from the walls behind them until the subject lighting makes the backgrounds just slightly darker than the foregrounds.
Use slightly low camera angles. Generally, people look more impressive when shot from just below eye level.
Make the best use of camcorder mikes. When forced to record audio with the built-in microphone, move as close to your subject as possible. Since wide-angle lenses tend to produce unflattering closeups, try to stay with wider waist- and chest-level compositions.
INTERVIEW TIPS:
Make the interview a conversation between two people so that the subject will talk freely and tell stories rather than feel on the spot and awkward. We don’t need to see the other person but it will make the dialogue flow more naturally. Start with a list of open ended questions. If a question doesn’t elicit an interesting response, feel free to go off in any direction you want. The goal is to get interesting, personal stories that are touching, funny and revealing about you. This is not easy to do but involves time and many questions.
EDITING TIPS:
Again, these do not have to be polished perfectly edited videos. If you are unable to edit your video at all then include the entire tape but indicate the areas you would like viewed.
But be sure a variety of types of footage. Show the best moments from your interviews mixed with plenty of additional footage. Keep it moving and keep it interesting. Show your video to friends to get feedback.
TYPES OF FOOTAGE:
B-ROLL: After the subject is done talking go back
and shoot coverage of whatever subject was talking
about. Also establishing shots- shots of subject’s house. Shot of subject’s town- ‘welcome to…’ signs, landmarks of place. Shoot the subject (talking head) but also get action shots of the subject riding his bike, walking, driving his car. Sometimes interview subject playing tennis or driving. Much more dynamic. Definitely get the subject talking while transforming or playing with robots.
CUT-AWAYS: After the interview is over go back and shoot what subject was doing with his hands, feet. A dog sitting in the room watching the interview. These allow the editor to cut away from the subject more easily.
THE INTERVIEW: Obviously you want to shoot the “talking head” interview. Tips on how to do this are listed above.