Introduction
While most directors dream of shooting the next great arthouse classic or Hollywood blockbuster, in the real world there’s bread and butter work that needs to be done while you wait for your big break. Much of that work involves shooting interviews. The good news is that interviews no longer need to look like corporate death warmed up.
In this section we look at techniques for filming interviews that people actually want to watch and—even more—listen to.
First up: we were actually surprised just how hard it was to find people with good advice on interview shooting. Even well known filmmakers on YouTube showed up with some nasty shadows and poor headroom in their compositions. We’d encourage everyone to check out Moviola’s three point lighting series and framing series as a foundation before adopting too much of the ‘Round the Web advice we have for you here.
Todd Blankenship shares his insights on interview setup. He offers some great tips like scouting the location, building a single, portable interview kit (he even shares his personal secret sauce here), and creating a catch light to add some energy to the face of an interviewee.