Hello there. My name is Otto Beck and I'm a cinematographer
and producer at HayotFilms Video Production based in Prague,
Czech Republic. Today I want to show you our corporate interview
set up and talk about some details which will help you to
film interviews properly. Let's start with our cameras. Last
year we upgraded to the Canon EOS C70 and a Canon EOS R5.
Let's talk about our C70 as a main A camera for this set up.
It's really great that the camera has an RF mount, which
means you can use both EF and RF lenses. Also it gives you a full
frame equivalent image, if you use EF lenses with Canon mount
adapters. It gives us an extra f-stop, which is awesome when
you're shooting inside to keep the ISO low. We normally use the
Canon EF 70-200mm IS lens with this adapter and it's a great,
sharp lens for close up shots.
For this interview set up, we're using the Canon C70, with my
favourite lens – the Canon RF 24-70mm F2.8 IS. It's a really
sharp lens with a fast IS, which really helps to stabilise
the shot while we're shooting b-roll handheld. I like keeping
it between 35-55mm at f/2.8 in these kind of interview setups,
which gives you enough bokeh for the separation of the
interviewee from the background. We always shoot in 4K UHD XF-AVC
in 10-bit Canon Log 2 at 25 frames per second, using long
GOP compression. It gives you so much flexibility in post to play
with cropping or reframing if you deliver the final video edit
in Full HD. Also, we connect audio straight to the mini XLR
inputs of the camera. We always use two sources of audio, like a
wireless lavalier and boom shotgun mic, in our interviews,
because sometimes a lavelier might sound clearer in noisy
locations and sometimes a shotgun mic sounds more natural,
or you can mix them in post to get the best results.
For proper white balance we use these small white cards. You
have to sit with this card in the interviewee's spot, where
normally all lights are directed. After doing this, we
zoom to the card and let the camera choose the right white
balance.
Now let's talk about our B camera. It's a Canon EOS R5. So
in this interview set up, we're using it with a Canon EF
70-200mm IS, using an adapter for close up shots. Our video
settings are 4K 25 frames per second Canon Log 3 IPB. We use
IPB because it helps us to keep file sizes small, because the
interviews can be very long. If the interior space lets you
shoot in crop mode, I would suggest doing it, because 4K
crop mode in R5 is oversampled from 5.1K, so it's sharper than
normal 4K and it's easily matched with the C70 in terms of
sharpness in this mode. We use this camera as a gimbal camera
with an amazing lens, a Canon RF 15-35mm F2.8 IS. 4K, 120 frames
per second, full frame in 10-bit is a dream to shoot smooth
b-roll with this camera. The recent firmware update which
gave us Canon Log 3 means now it's very easy to match with the
Canon C70, even if it was shot in Canon Log 2.
Now let's talk about our framing. Our C70 is in front of
the interviewee, at the eye level, and our lens is at 60mm.
The person will be looking slightly left from our main
camera. This means that our B camera will be on his right. So
we put the Canon R5 with a Canon 70-200mm at 100mm in crop mode.
The B camera has to be located more on the side of the
interviewee. So when we cut to the B camera in post, it will be
at a different angle than our main camera. If you're shooting
towards big windows and you want to keep the outdoor exposure
under control, I would suggest using ND gels for windows.
After we are happy with our framing, we start positioning
our lights. It's important that our key light is on the other
side than our B camera, so it means that the fill light will
be on the Canon R5 side. For the fill, you can use a diffuser, or
we sometimes use LED panels with a softbox to fill the other side
of the face if we need. For the backlight or hair light, we use
the focusing LED light or LED panels. These lights are great
for controlling the spread, and focusing the light to the exact
spot you need. Our last step is very important. Put the person
asking questions next to the main camera. It's crucial to
have someone at eye level.
I hope these tips help you to get better results when setting
up interior videos in corporate environments.
Thank you for watching.