Documentary Interview Tips (page 3)

Interview by Design - Shooting Tips

Sit-down interviews are conventionally conducted in the world of the subject. Interview people in their homes, their place of work or wherever they live their lives. Interview locations should say something about the character. Your technical instincts will be to seek out an interior location where you can control the sound. But you can shoot a perfectly good interview outside in an interesting and appropriate location by using a wireless microphone.

For static interviews, consider using a unidirectional shotgun mounted on a boom stand. Bring it in from the top or bottom (great solution when you're a one-person band). Frame the interview in a pleasing way and, depending on the tone of the interview, use lighting to achieve the appropriate mood.

Don't shoot an interview with the subject sitting against a wall. You want to set up your interview shot with depth in mind. Move your interview subject well away from any background element to achieve this. In shot design, the convention is to separate the main subject plane from the background plane. In a sit-down interview, you don't want to be behind the camera. You can't have a decent conversation with the interviewee looking through the viewfinder. Get somebody to shoot for you, or lock the camera off on a tripod.

If directing, verify the framing of the interview - eye-level is best for eye contact. Make sure the shooter gives you plenty of lead or nose room in the direction your subject is looking. For the best eye-line, park yourself as close as possible to one side or the other of the camera. This way both eyes of the subject make eye contact with the audience.

Mix up your interview positions, sometimes to the left and sometimes to the right of the camera. That way, in editing, your talking heads won't all be facing the same way. Plan your eyelines so that you can cut opposing characters' talking heads together as if they were facing off with each other. Work out a cue protocol with your camera operator as to when you want her to change shot sizes. It's best to reframe during a question.

Typically, do the beginning of an interview in a medium shot when the interview is about introductory subject matter. Include interesting hand gestures. A wider shot also allows you to super a title in editing. As the interview becomes more personal and as the audience comes to know the interviewee better, it makes sense to shoot closeups, even extreme closeups, for the intimate portions of the interview.

Your shot list should include the following (if you are using the interviewer on-camera):

• Establishing two-shot of interviewer and subject
• Over-the-shoulder listening shots of interviewer and subject (shot during the warm-up chatter before the interview begins)
• Re-asks (shoot the interviewer re-asking the questions after the interview)

You can shoot the walk-and-talk interview from a tripod, but I find handheld to be the best shot for a show-and-tell, where somebody is demonstrating an activity. With practice, you can develop a fluid handheld technique for following the subject during an active interview - knowing when to slide away from the face to what the hands are doing and smoothly back again. As long as your lens is zoomed out wide, you will bring back plenty of usable dynamic material.

When shooting handheld, the beginner's instinct is to try to capture everything, zooming in and out, hunting and pecking and playing the trombone with the zoom trigger. Usually this comes back from the field as uneditable material and makes editors tear their hair out.

That's a Wrap

Interviews are privileged access to people who have agreed to share a part of their lives with the documentary maker. Entire bodies of work have piled up around the ethics and the process of conducting and filming interviews. Seek these out in libraries, bookstores and online.

Oxford defines interview as "a meeting of people face to face, especially for consultation." Your job as interviewer and director is to ensure that your audience comes as close as possible to that face-to-face encounter.

Peter Biesterfeld is a documentary maker, freelance writer and Professor of Documentary Production.