Shooting interviews is one of the most challenging exercises a videographer will face.  It’s even more difficult if you have to be the interviewer and also the camera operator.  If you have a lab assistant or student who can help with the camerawork, you can concentrate on the interview.  In many cases, though, you will be working alone or don’t want to risk having someone else mess up your shoot (however, they might actually be better than you with the camera, so it’s worth a try).

I like to treat the interview like a conversation. I go to the interview armed with a few, carefully-selected questions designed to elicit interesting answers, but just use these as starting points.  I let the subject’s answers guide me to ask more questions….much like a normal conversation would flow.  I think this approach produces a more natural and relaxed result, rather than the typical news report style of grilling the subject.  My objective is to make my interview subject look knowledgeable and likable.

We are so accustomed to seeing professionals conducting interviews on TV, which seem effortless, that we mistakenly think they are easy to replicate.  It’s not.  See the video below, which does a good job of showing how to and how not to conduct an interview on camera.