6 Tips To Shoot A Video Interview

One of the number one things I'm hired to do is shoot informational videos that are based on interviews. 

Things to know if you are going to be doing an interview for your brand. 

1. Do an Off Screen Interview

Often times when we see interviews it's a one on one on television interview. Barbara Walters or, Katie Couric sits down with some political guest, and asks the hard questions. This is the On Screen Interviewer technique. What you see there is a full production, with a light crew, sound team, multiple camera operators, make up and art department,  and a multi person editing team. And this may not be the way to go in a lower budget production.

Often times these interviews you're conducting, whether of yourself, or your guest need to be multi purposed. (Lynda.com has a great tutorial on this). In order to maximize that you want to do an Off Camera Interview, where the subject talks to an interviewer off camera, and doesn't make eye contact with the camera. 

You generally want to have the subject positioned with their torso to head in the frame comfortably on one side of the camera. Then, you want to have them look in the direction that is furthest from the edge of the frame. If a subject is not looking in the right direction it's jarring for the viewer. 

2. Mic Up

If you are shooting this alone, through your phone, or your friend's DSLR, you still want to capture audio. DSLRs don't capture audio well, and neither do phones. You can use your headphones to double as a lavalier microphone and tape it to their shirt. Make sure it's not in a place that it can pick up the sound of moving clothing. Then have your subject clap twice, in order to create slate sounds, that can easily help the in camera audio sync to the sound recording.  (Also try to record the room with no one talking or moving. This room tone track allows editors cover any sound discrepancies that can be heard when you remove audible mistakes like long ums, uhs, or stutters).

3.  Put the questions in the answers

Make sure that the subject incorporates the question into the answer. You want their answers to stand alone in context, and not need the interviewer's question for the response to make sense. Try to switch up the action verbs to give your subject a good number of response types. So instead of asking: What do you think about your field? Ask: What do you imagine the future of your field is? Something that can help them use more illustrative framing for their responses. 

4. Think of the edit. 

No one enjoys watching straight interviews. You may think you do, but think about any interview you've ever seen. If it's not cutting back and forth between the interviewer and the interviewee, then it's cutting to some kind of footage, picture, animation, type or graphic that accents the conversation. After the interview is over, spend a serious amount of time gathering these elements to be added to the final edit for increase viewing pleasure. 

5. Music

If your video is going to be used for commercial purposes, meaning; you're going to have this content paid for by a sponsor or subscription, then you have to get royalty free music. If this is for promotional use there rules are a little more lax. Either way, you're going to want to find a good sound to put underneath your video to create the right vibe for your viewer. 

6. Edit

There are a number of free editing softwares you can download. A popular free NLE is the iMovie. Althought it is not as powerful or durable as Premier Pro, Avid, or Final Cut Pro X. It is capable of doing the basic functions of cutting that you need to get the best parts of your interview.

Use these 6 tips to help you incorporate interviews into your brand development.  

Dusha Holmes Digital Media ...Maker?