Rerecorded speech alignment

Ask Open-Ended Questions

As the video instructs, if you ask someone what their favorite color is, you are begging for a one-word answer. A simple way to get a more elaborate answer is to add 'and-why' to the question: "What is your favorite color, and why?". This elicits a more detailed, and often more useful, answer.

Wide - Medium - Close

Using a close-up is engaging and provides the best audio fidelity.

Cinematographers know all about these three types of shots: Wide, Medium, and Close (Close-up) and how to use them as story-telling devices. For the purposes of low budget interviewing however, we must remember to get good audio; so we are really limited to medium and close-up shots unless we have multiple cameras.

The Rule of Thirds

Utilizing the rule-of-thirds makes your shots more interesting.

We are all used to taking pictures on our phones these days - and usually we just center our subjects and shoot. However, professional photographers and videographers often use the rule-of-thirds to create more interesting compositions. The rule-of-thirds simple states that if you divide your scene into 9 equal boxes using two vertical lines and two horizontal lines; you should place your subject at the intersection of a pair of lines.

Additional Things to Consider

• Focus: Keeping your subject in focus is important and can be challenging if you have a shallow depth of field or your subject is fidgety. If your camera supports manual focus, we suggest using it so that the autofocus feature does not 'hunt' incorrectly if/when your subject shifts.
• Extraneous noise: Are there any fans or blowers in the room? If you can turn them off the (heat/air conditioning ) and reduce the white noise your audio will be better for it. Are you near a busy road? Can you shoot further away from the noises?
• Use a Tripod: If you can, use a tripod. Hand-holding a camera should be left only to most professional Hollywood camera operators.
• Resist the urge to Zoom: Watch high end productions, you'll be hard pressed to find a scene that uses zoom.
• Look at the Background: Is it distracting? Could you shoot in a different direction so that the background is more pleasing?
• Interview B-Roll or Cutaway: Take a minute of video from behind your subject or a closeup of their hands so that we can't see what they are saying. This may be extremely helpful when it comes time to editing.

Via http://www.joshpabstphoto.com/interviewing-101-tips-and-tricks/

Better audio in production

One long record for whole interview or many shorter ones? It helps in editing to have many small takes, but it looks like it doesn't help the subject when he/she sees me pressing the buttons. Any suggestions?

Looks good! I couldn't understand it, but it looks good. I've found the side shot is a great way to mask "shifty eyes" as the talent sometimes hunts around in their mind for their next thought.

I shoot allot of non professionals, many never in front of a camera.. many tense up really bad and just look uncomfortable.. had one today like that, she was a "hand talker".. and wasn't moving her hands, so she was putting that motion into her body (standing interview) had to straight up tell her talk with you hands.. once she did that she stopped swaying back and forth. You have to read them.. before "the interview" just get a feel for there natural habits..with general daily talk .. Nice weather out today. Sure is a nice facility you have here. BS talk.. just not related to the interview.. to get a feel for the natural state of the person.

One great tip if you have a shy person or really tense person: go through the interview and after going through your questions they are usually warmed up and relaxed.. Go back through some of the first questions so you get nice relaxed statements on those.. Like who they are what they do who they work for etc.. Can't tell you how much better it is.. also place the really important questions/topics near the end of you interview where they should be relaxed and more comfortable.

On the other end some people just love being on camera and well eat up every last minute they can , you have to reel them in a bit and Just straight up ask for concise answers.

Before questions, I tell them "if you feel like your rambling , you probably are, short answers are perfectly fine and actually encouraged, if we want to know more we will ask." For us, we are looking for those soundbite type clips, depends on what your looking for from the interview.

Also as your behind camera or off camera use facial expressions and body actions, that help the talent.. they are not typically just talking, they want a conversation.. converse silently with them using body language. If they make a funny comment, smile, chuckle silently ect.. if they had a good point or remark show them that you agree by nodding you head.. if they said something that wasn't understood well, make a confused look on your face. Use this silent communication to get what you want from them.

@alcomposer

Because it works.
Especially for people in small business.
Not sure about corporations, never did such things, they are mostly money hungry motherfuckers anyway.

@oscillian

Here is simple approach to such interviews.

• Easy questions first, just chat, filmed, but cutted.
• Small part showing her at work and introducing her by your voice (including that she is doing).
• Jump to studio with you asking "You are doing ... . How ... started doing this?" Idea in this part to find her passion towards her business. And ask specific questiuons about this passion (fastest delivery, and you know how good our packing is? we even hired designer for it...) As it is also always show viewers why THEY must choose her.

So, general idea is finding the reason why they are doing it. How they are doing it. And by more specific questions show viewers how different is it to usual approach to same business. Normally many things about personality will came along without you doing specific stunts to get them.

But this works for owners and similar people usually. For hired workers it can be tough.

By the way, depending on the purpose of doing your interviews / where they are destined to appear, why not include customers / colleagues / suppliers / marketing? You get a bit of a richer and more believable perspective if you include more points of view because (like most things) business is about relationships and not about one person working in isolation, plus you get more of a collective version of the truth.

Another thing to consider: is there a strong "angle" to your subject? Something that's common to these people in your series, such as "overcoming problems", "changing work practices", "getting into new markets", "growing the business" or whatever? Narrowing the questioning down to a few stong areas can help interviewees respond in a much more engaging way.

Only other tip is always ask them to say their name and spell it on camera - you can disguise this as an audio level-check, but it's amazing how useful that is. You don't want to get someone's name wrong - it seriously pisses them off.

I find the corporate video to be an awkward genre and I try to make them more doco style if the client feels comfortable with that. If you're showing footage of what the talent is talking about, it works better with the genre if you paraphrase their comments into a piece you read yourself and edit the shots to your own voice-over.

@astraban I like the "how" question advice - very good. I'll use that myself next time I do one.

Some other ideas:

1 - One that's worked well for me is "What's the one..." [followed by whatever you choose, such as "What's the one quality you need to be successful..." etc] as it can get you that killer summary which you can end your piece with. Remember you've got to edit this stuff afterwards, and anything that makes it easier is good. So nice to get short concise answers - which means asking short concise questions usually.

2 - Think about editing - if you don't get the answer which you know will cut well, ask the question again in a different way, maybe return to it later. If all else fails, and the interviewee is rambling, actually give them the words to say and ask them to repeat them back to you - might be embarassing but easier than not having the words! I've got one I'm editing at the moment (I didn't shoot or do the interview) where I'm really grateful they did this as the interviewee was all over the place.

3 - You don't always have to ask questions. You can say things like: "Take me through a typical transaction..." or "Explain what you're doing there..."