Section 3.1. Interviews


3.1. Interviews

What's great about an interview is that you know it's coming. You've got time to set up your tripod, arrange the lighting, and connect an external microphone, as described in Chapter 2. (Do all of this before your subject arrives, by the way, since nothing makes an interview subject more nervous than having to sit around beforehand, just growing apprehensive.) Because you've got this extra time to plan ahead, there's no reason your interview footage can't look almost identical in quality to the interviews you see on TV.

Chapter 2 describes the basics of good camcorder footage. Well, in an interview situation, the same tips apply. Lighting is important: avoid having the brightest light behind the subject's head. Sound is critical: fasten a tie-clip microphone to your subject's lapel or collar .

Above all, use a tripod. You'll be glad you did, not only because the picture will be stable, thus permitting the audience to get more "into" the subject's world, but also for your own sake. Even the lightest camcorder is a drag to hold absolutely motionless for more than five minutes.

But interviews offer some additional challenges. If you've ever studied interviews on TV, such as the 60 Minutes interviews that have aired every Sunday night since 1968, you realize that the producers have always thought through these questions:

  • What's the purpose of the interview ? The answer affects how you shoot the scene. On 60 Minutes , the purpose is often to demonstrate how guilty or shifty the subject is. Bright lights and a black background help to create this impression , as do the ultra -closeups favored by the 60 Minutes crew, in which the camera is zoomed in so tight that the pores on the subject's nose look like the craters on Mars.

    In interviews that aren't designed to be especially incriminating, however, the purpose of the interview is often to get to know the subject better. The setting you choose can go a long way toward telling more of the subject's story. Set the interview somewhere that has some meaning for, or tells something about, your subject. If it's a CEO, shoot it in her office across her handsome mahogany desk; your wide establishing shot will telegraph to your viewers just how magnificent this office is. If it's your grandfather, shoot it in his study or living room, where the accumulated mementos on the end tables suggest his lifetime of experiences. (When possible, get these cutaway and establishing shots before or after the actual interview, so as not to overwhelm your interviewee or waste his time.)

  • Who's going to ask the questions ? In professional interviews, of course, the camera person doesn't ask the questions. One person operates the camera, while another conducts the interview. If you can arrange to have a buddy help with your interview, it'll go a lot better. She (or you) can chat with the subject while the lights and microphones are being adjusted, for example.

    If you, the camcorder operator, absolutely must double as the interviewer, take your microphone situation into account. If your subject is wearing a tie-clip microphone, then your questions will be recorded very softly, as though coming from far away. If you're not using an external microphone, you'll have the opposite problem. Since you're standing right next to the camera, the sound of your voice will be very loud on the finished tape, in unfortunate contrast to the much fainter sound of your subject's replies.

    You can usually find solutions to all of these problems. For example, you can use a single, omnidirectional mike (see Section 2.4.3) that sits between you and your subject. Or you could connect two external mikes to your camcorder by way of a portable mixer, which accepts (and lets you adjust the volume of) several inputs simultaneously . (Radio Shack and video-equipment Web sites sell these items.)


    Tip: If you are both the camera operator and the interviewer, and you decide that you want to be on-camera along with your interview subject, use the remote control that comes with most camcorder models. Open the LCD screen and rotate it so that it's facing you as you sit in front of the camerathat's the only way for you to frame the shot when you're not actually standing behind the camcorder.
  • Is the interviewer part of the interview ? In other words, will the audience see the person asking the questions? If so, you've got a challenge on your hands. You've got two people sitting across from each other, facing opposite directions, but only one camera to film them with.

    If you ever saw the 1987 movie Broadcast News , you know how TV professionals solve this problem. Before or after the interview, they capture some establishing shot footage of the two people sitting there face to face. They also take some footage of the interviewer alonenodding sagely in agreement, smiling in understanding, frowning in concern, and so on. They film him asking the questions again, even after the interview subject has left the scene. Later, when editing the finished product, they splice these reaction shots into the interview footage, as you can do in iMovie. The audience never suspects that the entire interview was shot with one camera.

    On the other hand, in many interviews, you don't see the interviewer at all. You hear her voice, but you don't see her on-camera. (A disembodied voice like this is called a voice-over . Voice-overs are extremely common in TV ads, movies with narration, and episodes of The Wonder Years .)

    Sometimes you don't see or hear the interviewer, such as when the producer just wants a comment or sound bite from the interview subject. In those situations, invite your subject to phrase his answers as complete sentences. Otherwise, after the questions have been edited out, you'll be left with an interview subject saying, "Yes that's right no, I don't think so," and other unhelpful utterances.


    Tip: If you, the interviewer, will ultimately be edited out of the movie, you can greatly assist your own cause by framing your questions cleverly. Avoid yes-or-no questions. Don't ask, "Were you happy with your performance?" Instead, ask, "Tell us about how you felt," for example.That's what professionals do. Now you know why, when asked "You just won the Olympics. Where are you going to go now?" nobody in the Disney World ads ever just says, "Disney World!"
  • How long will the interview be after editing ? If the finished product will be more than a couple of minutes long, think about keeping your viewers' interest up by introducing some variety into the camera work, as described in the previous chapter.

    Capture some wide shots, for example, for use as cutaways. That way, when you edit the interview in iMovie, you'll be able to offer a refreshing change of shot now and then.

    Cutaways are also ideal for masking cuts in the interview footage. It's a convenient fact of life that you can't see somebody's lips moving when filming from behind them, or when the camera is far away. In other words, you can use a cutaway even while your interview subject is still talking. Your viewers won't be able to detect that the cutaway footage was actually shot at a different time. (TV news editors use this technique all the timethey briefly cut to a shot behind the subject's head in order to conceal an edit between two parts of the same interview.)

  • How conservative is the interview ? The answer to this question affects how you frame the subject in your lens. Some interviews are designed to be hip, like the ones on MTV, the Bunting's Window computer show shown on airplanes, or fight sequences in the old Batman series. These might feature a handheld camera, off center framing, or even a camera mounted off-kilter on its tripod for that added wackiness.

  • If wackiness isn't exactly what you're going for, however, the framing shown in Figure 3-1 is about right.

    Figure 3-1. As in any footage, interviews should offer some variety of composition and zoom amount. But for maximum viewer comfort , most pro video interviews capture the speaker from shoulders up, with a little bit of space left above the head. (Here, you're seeing more of the subject's torso, just so you can see the tie-clip microphone.) If the subject is supposedly looking at something off-camerathe interviewer, for exampleprofessionals leave some talk space in the shot. That is, a little extra room in front of the person's face, as shown here.
  • How is the shot set up ? In most interviews, the interview subject doesn't look directly into the cameraexcept when she's recording a Last Will and Testament. Usually she's looking just off-camera, at a spot a couple of feet to one side of the camcorder, or even directly across the camcorder's line of vision. That's where the interviewer should sit, so that the subject looks at the right spot naturally.

    The camcorder should be level with the subject's face, which is yet another argument for using a tripod.


Tip: If you're the interviewer, here's one tip that has nothing to do with the technicalities of your camcorder and tripod: Listen to the answers. Many inexperienced interviewers are so busy thinking about the next question that they miss golden opportunities for further lines of questioning. Worse, the interview subject will detect that you're not really paying attention, so the interview won't go nearly as well as it could.



iMovie 6 & iDVD
iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual
ISBN: B003R4ZK42
EAN: N/A
Year: 2006
Pages: 203
Authors: David Pogue

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