This video is sponsored by Nanlite.
Over my career one of the setups which I have shot most regularly are interviews.
It’s a skill that every cinematographer should have, particularly when starting out. Therefore
in today’s video I’ll go over the three different steps which I take whenever I shoot an interview.
As interviews can, and have, been shot a million different ways there are endless possibilities for
expression. For that reason I will of course be generalising. I will introduce the basic
techniques which work best for me, which can hopefully be applied to a range of situations.
I’ll use some footage which I recently shot for a short doc, which included a sit down interview,
as an example to illustrate the concepts of placement, lighting and framing.
If you find that you like the video I’d appreciate it if you could give it a thumbs up,
as it really helps out the channel.
Before setting up any lights or even taking out a camera it’s important to thoroughly scout the
shooting location in order to determine the best place for your subject to sit for the interview.
To find the best spot there are two main factors I take into account:
the background and the natural light sources.
First, I always try to find a background which
is both representative of the subject and which has depth.
That’s why many cinematographers consider a plain white wall to be the absolute worst background
as it lacks both character and depth.
In this case, the subject of the documentary was a ceramic artist.
I took a walk through her studio and found a section of wall which included her workbench,
tools, shelves with ceramics and a large clay piece which was a work in progress.
To me this background most identified with the character of the subject.
It also had depth, which is generally more pleasing to the eye.
By this I mean that there is a gradient between elements which are closer to the camera
and elements which are further away.
The other consideration is light. This background included a strong,
sunny backlight from a large storefront window, some ambience from a window at the back entrance
and overhead, tungsten house lights.
I knew that by turning off the house lights I would be left with a natural light which could be
worked with and which already covered two of the three points of lighting: backlight and key light.
It’s important to note that in the world of documentary you should be prepared to
adapt and to quickly come up with a plan B in a moment. That happened on this shoot.
The director and I had lovely plans to shoot the interview at night and make it nice and moody.
However, when we found out on the night of the shoot that the location had a bar next
door to it that played loud music all night, our plan had to change.
As much as cinematographers may not want to admit it, getting good sound takes priority.
The only time we could re-schedule
where the sound would be usable was for a little sliver of time the next morning.
So just like that we needed to light the interview in a totally different way - as a day scene.
Before we get into the lighting section I should mention that this video is sponsored by Nanlite.
For the interview and documentary footage in this video I used a selection of their LED lights.
Nanlite produces an affordable range of quality products,
such as their bi-colour monolight style Forza 300B and 60B, which I love using as strong,
easily dimmable sources which can be powered off mains.
Another light I used was their pocket-sized LED,
the Litolight 5C. It’s great as an eyelight or for some quick fill on the go.
Nanlite’s magnetic, battery powered RGB Pavotube 6C is great to set up in the
background of a shot on any metal surface or if you need a different coloured effect light.
Nanlite offers a host of other LED lights as well as accessories, such as a softbox and eggcrate
for beautifully diffused light or a projector mount which can be used to
shape and control light or achieve textural lighting effects using different inserts.
Visit the link in my description for more on their broad range of LED products.
Although it’s certainly possible to only use natural light when shooting an interview,
there are a couple reasons why adding artificial light is the norm.
For one, adding light from a continuous source will help
to maintain the same consistent look throughout the length of an interview.
For example, an interview could run for two hours, by which time the sun could’ve shifted position.
Sometimes in the edit, they may even want to put a segment from minute one in the interview
next to a segment shot an hour later.
Having artificial light sources doing most of the illumination
will minimise these shifts in lighting and maintain a more consistent look in the edit.
Adding artificial light is also a creative way of making an image more dynamic and
less flat and boring, by introducing different areas of light and shadow,
which is generally more visually appealing.
With that being said, it's still important to think about what the natural light will do.
In this interview I took a bit of a calculated risk by choosing this background.
As I wanted to use the storefront window in the frame, I had to be aware of the light outside.
When we started shooting the sun was already high in the sky,
there were no clouds and I knew we could only shoot for an hour, max.
For those reasons I was fairly certain that the ambient light from outside
would remain more or less the same throughout the interview.
However, if rain clouds suddenly came out of nowhere and the ambient light
dropped significantly I would’ve been in trouble.
If I was shooting a longer interview over the course of the day then I may have been inclined to
change my background so that the window was framed out, but for this short interview I took a chance.
Now that I was aware of what the natural light was doing,
I could start lighting by firstly turning off the house lights.
Big ambient light changes such as closing curtains,
pulling down blinds or turning on house lights should be done up front.
As I mentioned that left me with two sources of light,
a low level key from the front and side and an overwhelmingly powerful backlight.
To avoid overexposing or ‘blowing out’ the highlights in the back window I needed to balance
the backlight by adding to the key light from the front and to the side which was already there.
For the key, I mimicked the same left to right direction of the light that was coming from
the window. I set up a Forza 60B light and added a softbox to it with an eggcrate grid.
An eggcrate helps to channel the light so that it is more directional and has less spill.
I then added a scrim to the front which softened the output of light.
Softening the light creates gentler shadows and makes the source seem a little more natural.
I placed the light slightly higher than head level to avoid creating pronounced shadows on the face,
and angled it so that it hit her face from about 45 degrees.
This created contrast between the two sides of her face.
I also decided to warm up the key light a bit to around 4,500K.
I find that slightly warmer light reacts nicely with darker skin tones.
It also created a subtle colour contrast between the cooler,
daylight coming from the windows behind her and the warmer light on her face.
Now that the lighting levels were a bit more balanced I decided to add a backlight.
I liked what the backlight from the window was already doing,
so to add to it and retain lighting continuity as mentioned,
I placed a Forza 300B with the same softbox and eggcrate setup behind her and to the right.
I raised the light and hit the back of her head, camera right.
As mentioned I think creating different areas of light and shadow makes an image more engaging.
So in this case I now had the left of her face lit up,
the right of her face in shadow and the far right back of her head lit up. Light, dark, light.
And if we include the background, it’s segmented into even more contrast zones,
dark, light, dark, light.
Creating different zones of light and shadow next to each other in the frame is a common
technique employed in interviews. If an area is totally lit at the same level across the frame
it can lack a feeling of contrast and depth.
To accentuate and bring out a ping of light in the eyes
I then added the little Litolite 5C under the frame, dimmed far down so that it
didn’t affect the overall light levels but just enhanced the eyelight a tad.
Finally, to add a bit of light to the background and break up the empty section of wall a bit
I took a Pavotube 6C and stuck it to the metal shelf using its magnets.
I warmed up the light to around 3,200K to again create a bit of contrast and balance
between the cooler window and the warmer practical.
The light may seem out of place, and maybe it is, but as we’d already established this
practical light in the background of some of the B-roll which we’d already shot,
I’m hoping that it doesn’t draw too much unwarranted attention.
So, whether you like or dislike the lighting here I think that the principles from it are
still valid: supplement the naturally occurring light, balance out the lighting levels to avoid
under or over exposure, always consider the three lighting points and create contrasting plains of
light and shadow, as well as warmer and cooler colour temperatures to create visual interest.
Just like with lighting, there are many roads that you can go down with framing an interview shot.
It’s important to keep in mind that how you compose your frame
is going to affect the way in which the audience views the subject and the story.
Interviews are either shot with a single camera
or multiple cameras which cover different angles and shot sizes.
Having a second camera is useful as it allows you to have two different cutting options in the edit,
typically a medium or wide and a close up shot.
Editors can then cut between the wider shot for more contextual or general answers
and go to the tighter shot for more intimate or emotional moments.
But, shooting with two cameras is not always an option.
One single camera tactic is to use a zoom lens, which gives you the ability to quickly
frame a shot either wider or tighter depending on the tone of interview. This is where you’re
basically being the editor and selecting the shot size manually through an optical zoom.
You could also shoot on fixed focal length lenses and either maintain the same frame
throughout the interview, or physically start wider and then move the camera closer
as the interview starts becoming more personal.
When framing there are five variables which I consider.
Number one, shot size. The tighter a shot is the more intimate and personal it will feel, however
there’s a point where getting too tight stops being personal and starts becoming claustrophobic.
Number two, angle. A camera can be set up anywhere on the axis from 0 to 90 degrees.
A traditional angle is from around 45 to 70 degrees but interviews can be shot more
unconventionally by framing straight on at 90 degrees or in profile close to 0 degrees.
Number three, headroom. This is the amount of space between the subject’s head
and the top of the frame. Decreasing headroom by ‘giving them a haircut’ or chopping off the top of
their head can start to feel claustrophobic, while having lots of headroom can be a bit unsettling.
Traditionally, subjects are framed with a small amount of space above their head.
Number four, breathing room. This is the amount of space between the subject’s face
and the edge of the frame. Again, decreasing this space tends to feel more claustrophobic,
while increasing it tends to give a greater feeling of ease.
Number five, eye line. This is where the subject is looking and is best achieved by placing the
interviewer in that space. Conventional eye line is just off to the side of the camera.
However this can be experimented with and some productions even choose a straight to camera
eye line, where the subject looks straight at the audience, breaking the fourth wall.
While considering all of these factors it’s
important that you also always keep in mind the background of the shot.
When shooting multiple interviews for a film I like to pick a way of shooting and
maintain those same stylistic preferences throughout the different interviews.
This enforces a coherent visual look across the film.
Hopefully this video outlined the basic cinematography decisions
which need to be made when filming an interview.
If you enjoy this content and would like to see more of it please give the video a like
and subscribe to the channel. Otherwise, until next time, thanks for watching and goodbye.