- In this video we're gonna look at
how to shoot an interview in person
with two or more people,
the different styles of interview shots,
the different camera angles to use
and how to get that interview audio just right.
And a heap of other interview setup tips
that you need to get great results fast.
(relaxing music)
Hey, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video
where we help you amplify your business
and brand with video.
If you're new here,
make sure you hit that subscribe button
and all the links to everything we mention
in the video are linked
in the description box below.
So let's jump into it.
Interviews are an awesome way
to create some incredibly powerful content.
When they're done right
they can look so easy to pull off,
but in reality there's a lot of little things
that can go wrong,
a lot of gotchas and simple mistakes
that can leave you with a steaming pile
of (bleep) footage that you won't even realize
until you get to your editing studio.
If you've ever had it happen to you
then you'll totally understand
where I'm coming from.
But we're here to make sure that
that doesn't happen again.
So get that notepad out
because we're about to run through
all the key things that you need to know
to nail that next interview.
And while you're watching,
let us know in the comments
what's your number number one tip
for the Primal Video community
to get better results when shooting
an interview in person.
And check out everyone else's tips
that they're sharing down there as well
because there's always a ton
of sweet insights down there.
And make sure you stick around
'cause I'm also gonna share four tips
to help you out
while you're shooting your interviews.
Okay, so we're talking
about in-person interviews.
Now, this is where everyone is
in the same location.
These aren't interviews done over the Internet
or online with Skype or Zoom.
If that's what you're interested in,
we have already done a video on that topic
and I'll link it up in the cards there now.
So what we're looking at is the different styles
of interviews or different types of interviews.
And it could be
that you've got one person on camera.
It could be that you've got two people on camera.
It could be that you've got a single camera shoot
or a multi-camera shoot.
So we're gonna run through each one of them
and even how you can use some
of them in combination.
And we're also gonna cover some simple tips
to get better results as we go along.
So first things first,
just like any other video you're going to create,
the most important thing
that you need to do first
is all your planning and research.
It is so important to have all of that dialed in
before you step in front of the camera,
before you set up and bring someone else
into your shot to be interviewed as well.
So in this planning stage you need
to at least have a plan,
an overview of the things you wanna cover.
But ideally, you're looking at
what questions you're going to ask
and the story that you want to tell.
Now, in a lot of cases you do wanna leave
this a little bit open-ended,
because the person that you're interviewing
may go down a bit of a rabbit hole
and that could be exactly
where you wanna take it.
You might not have known that at the start
but you might like where it's going,
you might wanna explore that further.
So you definitely wanna have a plan in place
with a lot of the questions
that you definitely want to ask.
But I would suggest that you leave a little bit
of leeway or freeboard in there
to let the interview take its own path
to some degree.
Now, you don't wanna get way off topic,
but you can actually uncover some really amazing
things by just letting the interview take its
own course a little bit.
Now, you also wanna make sure
that you've got enough batteries
to last the entire interview.
Now, it sounds really obvious
but when we're shooting documentaries,
each interview can sometimes go
over the three hour mark.
So you wanna make sure your cameras
are powered by mains power wherever you can.
Same with your lights,
wherever you can plug something in,
plug it in so you don't need
to worry about batteries.
But always have enough batteries to last
that length of time as well.
Now, the next part of the planning
and logistics and everything you gotta do
is to lock down your location.
Now, when you're picking a location
you obviously wanna find somewhere
that has enough room for the amount
of people you wanna have in the shot.
So if it's just one person
then you can get away with a much smaller space.
If you want two people on camera,
you need a bit more space.
It could be a couch that you need to fit in
or a couple of chairs.
So I'd be mindful of that.
But also, when you're picking your location
you wanna be mindful of things like the light.
Is there natural light?
Is there light coming through a window
that might change throughout your shot?
Is there a heap of background noise
or the potential for background noise.
It may not be there while you're setting up
or actually starting your shoot,
but it could be things like planes coming over
or trucks or traffic or kids outside,
dogs, people mowing the lawn.
Who knows, we've come
across pretty much everything imaginable
while filming documentaries and things.
So it's a good idea if you can
scope out the area first and try
to find somewhere with as little
of those environmental variables or things
that are beyond your control as possible,
so they're not gonna change and stop you
in the middle of your interview.
Now, when you're typing all this together
and you're looking at the types
of actual interviews
and the framing of your shot,
this is really gonna come down to the outcome
that you want to achieve with your interview.
What do you want it to look like?
Now, typically when you're setting up
to interview someone like this,
there's three main setups that you've got
that you'll need to decide from.
The first one is one person on camera.
So this is just the person
that you're interviewing.
They're the only person that's being filmed.
Your next option is to have two people on camera.
So the person that's asking the question,
it could be yourself,
and the person that you're interviewing,
maybe sitting on a couch
or on separate chairs or something.
But there's two people in that one shot.
And the third option is to have both people
involved and both people filmed
and recorded on camera,
but they're not sitting next to each other
so they're two individual shots.
And the two shots are then edited together
in your editing to pull
it together as one interview.
And it will cut back and forth
between one person and the other person.
No matter which one of these you choose,
the setup is obviously gonna be
a little bit different for each one.
And your gear requirement is going
to be a bit different.
Obviously the amount of lights
and the amount of cameras that you're going
to need are gonna change,
based on which one of these methods
you actually choose.
Now, an easy way to improve the quality
of your interviews is to use multiple cameras
or multiple camera angles.
So how you could bring this into play
is you set up one primary camera,
which is maybe a wider shot.
And then you use your second camera
on a slightly different angle,
which is zoomed in more on the person's face,
giving you a tighter shot.
So that way, when you're editing
you can actually cut
and change between the two angles.
But this will also give you the ability
to cut the interview down
without the viewer noticing.
So you can actually do things
like cut the person's sentences in half.
Take a little bit from here
and a little bit from over here,
piece them together and all you need
to do at that point is switch the camera angle
and it will look like it was a seamless take
or that the person said it flawlessly.
Now, if you wanna achieve something
really similar but you've only got the one camera
then you can set up a wide shot
and then zoom into your footage
afterwards in your editing.
But this is really only gonna work if you're,
say, shooting in 4K or really high quality.
And then you're gonna output your video
at a lower quality 1080P,
this would give you the ability to zoom
into your footage without any quality loss,
essentially giving you two camera angles
from the one camera.
Again, you're gonna need a 4K camera
and be outputting 1080 as your finished product.
Now, we do use this,
depending on the client shoots,
especially if it is something
that is a really quick interview
or something where there's not a lot of room
or it's just not feasible
to have multiple cameras there.
We'll shoot in one 4K camera
and we'll output the end product at 1080.
But it essentially gives us two camera angles,
a wide and a tight.
Now really, the only other thing you need
to decide on is are you looking at the camera,
like down the camera lens
or are you looking off camera?
So for most interviews and especially
on the documentary side of things,
the person being interviewed
will never normally look directly
down the camera lens.
They'll actually look and talk
to the person that's interviewing them,
which is generally sitting right next
to the camera.
So the end result is
that the person being interviewed
is looking slightly off camera.
So if there was someone here interviewing me now
then I would be responding to them
on either this side or this side.
The only time that you actually
wanna have someone presenting
and looking at the camera
is when they are talking to the viewer watching
or the person watching.
Like, I'm communicating directly to you guys.
I'm looking at the camera lens.
I'm not being interviewed by someone.
I'm not having a conversation with anyone,
except for you guys.
So I'm having a conversation with you,
so I'm looking and talking to you.
If you're interviewing someone
and you're having a conversation with them,
then they need to be looking at you,
which you should be slightly off camera.
Now, this does change a little bit
if you're both in the one shot.
So say you're interviewing someone
and you're both sitting on a couch,
obviously the two of you are wanna communicate
and talk between each other,
but you'll probably also wanna
bring the viewers in and get them involved
in that conversation as well.
So if you're the one that's running the interview
and you're sitting on the couch
and you've got someone next to you
and you're interviewing them,
then you might do all your introductions
and introduce the person that you're interviewing
to your viewers by looking at the camera.
But then the actual interview itself
would take place on the couch.
So it will really come down to the outcome
and what you're looking to achieve.
But as a general rule,
if you wanna involve the audience in your videos
and you wanna talk directly to them,
then that's when you're looking at the camera.
If the focus is on the interview itself
and the viewers are just coming along for a ride,
like a behind the scenes
on an interview that's going on,
then there is no talking to camera at all.
The communication is just
between the person asking the questions
and the person answering the questions.
Now, when you're setting up your tripods
and getting your cameras to the right height,
you wanna make sure that your cameras are set
just below eye level for whoever you're going
to be interviewing.
So if they're sitting down then the cameras
are going to be pretty low down
to be just below eye level.
And a really important tip too,
if you're gonna be interviewing the person
and you are not on camera,
so you're sitting next to the camera,
you wanna make sure that your eyes
as the interviewer that's not on camera,
are at the same height as the camera lens.
So that way the person that's being interviewed,
while they're looking at you and talking to you
and answering your questions
isn't looking up or down from the footage
that's being recorded by the camera.
So you wanna make sure that they are looking
the same eye level as you are,
which means that you may need to slouch down
or stand up on your tippy toes or whatever it is
to get your eye level to the right height
or the exact same height as the camera,
so that the eye level for them looks perfect
in the end resulting footage.
And as with any other video as well,
the closer you can get the microphone
to the audio source,
so the person's mouth that you're interviewing,
the better the audio is going to be,
the clearer the audio.
Now, if you've only got one person
that you're interviewing,
then a Lavalier or Lapel microphone
could be perfect to get
that microphone nice and close.
You could stick it to their shirt,
their jacket, their dress,
whatever you like.
This will also work
if you've got two people on camera,
but you will need one
of those microphones per person,
so that their audio is consistent
between the two of you.
One Lapel or Lavalier microphone isn't going
to be enough to pick up good audio
for both of you.
Now, your other options for microphones
is a Shotgun mic or a Boom microphone.
Now, this is ideal if you've got more
than one person that's going to be speaking
or you don't want to use Lavalier
or Lapel microphones.
Again, you wanna try and get the microphone
as close as possible to the people in your shot,
but ideally, you're not seeing
that microphone in your shot.
Now, the great thing about a Boom
or a Shotgun microphone is
that it will pick up audio in the direction
that the microphone is facing,
at a consistent level.
So if you got two people sitting on a couch
then one Boom microphone
and one Shotgun microphone would be great
to pick up the same level audio from both people.
So the audio from one person isn't going
to be louder than the other person.
The audio is going to be consistent
throughout that recording.
Now, if you're interested in the different types
of microphones and which ones that we recommend
then check out the video linked
up in the cards now.
So overall, the most important part
is to focus on the outcome.
What do you wanna achieve?
So make sure you outline everything
that you want to cover,
but have some freeboard in there.
Look at the type of shot you wanna capture,
whether it is one person,
two person or more people on camera.
What does that look like?
How do you see that playing out?
And obviously set everything up
according to that.
Those are my four tips
for getting great interviews
that I promised you at the start
of this video.
The first one is to get your guest
or the person that you're gonna
be interviewing, comfortable.
So if you have the opportunity to catch up
before the interview, that's awesome.
I'll always try to get on the phone
or on a Skype call with someone,
to almost do a pre-interview.
But essentially, for the best interviews,
you wanna be friendly enough with them
that they'll open up and share with you
the gold that you want them to share.
So you've really gotta build
that connection early.
If you don't have time or the ability
to do that before the actual day,
then try to catch up 30 minutes before.
Just have some light conversations
about the story and the sort of things
that they're gonna cover,
but without running through the actual interview.
It's really all about getting them comfortable
and relaxed so that they will relax
in the interview and share their gold with you.
And if they are someone
that maybe a little nervous about being on camera,
then you can always set everything up
and turn the camera on,
even press record.
Let them know that you're not gonna use
this first part and just start having a chat
or a conversation there.
That way they are used to the setup,
used to the lights,
used to having the microphones
and all of this gear in front of them
while the interview isn't actually started yet.
So by the time that it is,
they're already comfortable and relaxed
and ready to go.
Now, before you actually start the interview,
what I would suggest is that you give
them a rundown or an overview of how everything
is going to play out.
So a bit of a briefing before.
So let them know things like
if the video is going to be edited
that they have the ability
to retract anything that they've said.
Or to not worry about making mistakes
because all of those can be cut out.
So all of these things you can help
to make them relax.
But also, if you do have that ability later
and you are gonna be editing your videos down,
I probably recommend,
then let them know,
give them some peace of mind.
So let them know how it's gonna run down.
Let them know how long you think
it should go for,
the types of things you wanna cover.
It's gonna give them peace of mind
and it's gonna make them much more relaxed
and get you a better interview
at the end of the day.
Now, on the video side of things,
a couple of quick tips.
The first one is to sync all of your audio
and video gear by clapping
before you actually start.
So it's as simple as pressing record
on all of your audio recorders
and cameras and gear that you're using
and clap a couple of times,
maybe three times.
(man clapping)
And then it'll make it so much easier
to synchronize everything up
in your editing software later.
Now, we do have a video covering that process.
I'll once again link it up in the cards.
And the fourth tip that I've got for you,
again on the camera filming tech side of things,
is to use backup audio
or have a backup audio source wherever possible.
And it could be that you've got
a secondary microphone that ideally
you're never gonna use this thing.
This is your fail safe in case something happens
that you've still got good audio then.
So it could be that you're running
a second Boom microphone
or if you're running wide Lapel microphones,
that you're running a Boom microphone
just as that backup,
just in case.
So for any documentaries and things
that we're filming,
I'll typically use wired Lapel
or Lavalier microphones so that there's no chance
of anything going wrong with that.
There's no interference.
There's no batteries going flat,
so again, all to reduce the risk
of something happening.
But as a backup,
just in case something happened
with the wired Lapel or Lavalier microphones,
I'll always have a Shotgun microphone
that's positioned out of shot,
but is good enough audio that we could use
it if we had to,
so that we don't have to go
and reshoot the entire interview.
But it's purely there as a backup
with really no intention of using it
unless it's really, really needed.
All right, so now it's your turn
to go and put all of these things into play
when you are recording your next interview
and I'll see you soon.