Special F/X: (Sort of) Via Satellite
The secret to staging remote interviews is not a network television budget.
You see it all the time. A network news anchor turns to a nearby monitor and interviews a special guest live via satellite from a city on the other side of the world. It's a feat that requires billions of dollars of sophisticated equipment. For this conversation to take place, the interviewee's image and voice must be converted into digital information, shot into space, bounced off an orbiting satellite, then received and decoded by the network. At the same instant, the network shoots back the voice of the anchor so the two people can communicate. Meanwhile, the production crew broadcasts glitch-free video and crystal clear audio live to your living room in real-time as the interview takes place. Pretty impressive, huh? Well, maybe.
The truth is that those satellite interviews aren't always what they appear to be. Oh, some are real, most certainly. But every now and then you'll catch a Dick Clark Bloopers special or a local news reporter using a trick similar to the one I'm about to share.
Making video is all about selling an illusion to your audience. Every time you make an edit you manipulate time and therefore tweak reality. Here's another one for your bag of video tricks: the secret to making a believable satellite interview for your next project.
First, stage the interview with both the satellite guest and interviewer present, but only the guest miked and on-camera. Have the off-camera interviewer ask each question as if this were the final interview, being careful not to step on the guest's answers. Don't stop the camera. The goal is to leave this session with an unedited tape of the interviewee saying hello, pausing to listen, answering a question, pausing to listen to the next question, and so on. At the end of the interview the guest says an appropriate goodbye to the interviewer and stage one of our illusion is complete. No editing required.
Next, prepare a set from which your host will conduct the "remote" interview. The scene may or may not include a news desk, but must include a prominently displayed monitor secretly hooked up to a VCR. Play the tape shot earlier so the image of the guest appears on-screen. Position your interviewer so that when the tape is played on the monitor the two appear to be looking at each other. The scene will be most believable if you shoot the interviewee talking directly to the camera and then position the monitor at a slight angle in the scene. Phase two is now complete.
The final element needed to make our satellite interview believable relies on the acting ability of our news anchor. Referring back to the original script, play the tape while the interviewer interacts with the pre-recorded guest. For best results, run the audio from the videotape and the mike from your host through an audio mixer. Voila. The remote interview: not quite live, not exactly via satellite, but a video effect worthy of network broadcast.
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