From the course: Video Interview Production Techniques

Two people on camera

From the course: Video Interview Production Techniques

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Two people on camera

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- You're going to be asked to film a two person interview and some may say it's twice as hard. That being said, the same principles apply here as they do for every other interview, keep in mind your lighting and your sound. Right now, I've squared both of us off to our main light source which is the windows right behind camera. What that's going to do is evenly light both of us. You don't want one person to be in shadow and the other person over exposed, it doesn't create a very even frame. The next is sound, ideally you want each person to have their own mic, preferably their own Lav mic, that way you can isolate the audio to each speaker so it sounds nice and clear. You can, in a stretch, get by with one boom mic like we have above us here, centered between. That way it picks up both speakers but they'll both sound distant to the mic. This is not ideal but in worst case scenario you can get by. When it comes to positioning in camera, there are a couple of different ways to approach it. The first way is news style, using a stick mic the subjects face each other, the mic goes back and forth between the host and the guest, creating a conversation. This is very common in broadcast news. The second way is more a vlog style where both people square off to the main camera and talk directly to the lens. This is very engaging to the viewer but the two people aren't engaging each other. Works very well for educational style content but not necessarily for a conversational style interview. Which brings me to my favorite way to set up a two person interview, it's conversational style where both people face each other and they have a conversation. Ideally you would shoot this interview with two cameras, having one camera wide, capture both of us, and the other camera just isolated on your guest. This is over my shoulder over here. This is just on Derek, framed as if it was a single person interview. In post, you can cut in between these two interviews, cutting down the overall time of the interview and making it more engaging for your viewer. If you have multiple cameras, add them on. Have them, it'll help you in post production. Mimic this camera placement over Derek's shoulder on just your host if you have three cameras. One way I found to mimic a three camera shoot with only two cameras is after a guest leaves, take the guest camera, move it to the host position so it's just on the host and have your host re-ask all the questions. In post-production you'll be able to cut them all together to create a seamless interview looking like there was three cameras there. Keeping your people positions, your camera positions and how you're miking the scene in mind will make any two person interview a snap.

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