TV Interview Camera Position

When shooting video interviews there's a certain choreography that goes on among the three principle people to ensure that they look and sound right.

Here, Larell Mackey is shooting, Lynn McGrier is the reporter and Candice Mayben is being interviewed.
Larell is positioned right over Lynn's shoulder so that he is seeing and recording Candice so that we see her full face, not a profile shot.

The microphone needs to be within six inches of the interviewee so that high quality sound is recorded.  If the mic is too far away from the subject the recording may be weak and there could be the hiss of "room noise" picked up.

If the interview is correctly choreographed, the end result will be an interview "head shot" that looks like this.

Good job team!

For more tips, check out this short video on framing and composition.

Following are interview shots that are not so good! 

Framing is off here. His head should be more to the left, not centered but more in the left third. Think rule of thirds. 

Same problem here. Framing is awkward. He should be more to our left. 

This shot is awkward because of the way we see the reporter's hand and the mic she is holding. Crop the shot so that we don't see the hand and only the top of the mic or no mic at all. 

This one is not as bad, but again zoom in so we don't see the reporter's hand.

Plus the subject is too centered in the shot. 

With two subjects, efforts must be made to not show awkward reporter arms. Solve by zooming in more. Have the two stand closer to each other perhaps. 

"Five Questions" with Jordan Beagle and Jaylaan Riley

This is a "Five Questions" segment my students are doing in my Advanced Television and Production and Editing class here at South Carolina State University.

The purpose of this assignment is to build skills and experience with shooting, editing and producing. The students also get to host and be a guest. So there are really three different aspects for them to experience.

Thank you Jordan Beagle and Jaylaan Riley for the fine job with this "Five Questions" interview!   

There is a second part to this "Five Questions" assignment. That is to insert a background image (photo or video) into the interview. This is why it is shot in our TV studio against the green wall. Chromakey is now possible- the layering or compositing of different visual elements.

I used this "Five Questions" jpeg (first created on PowerPoint) to be seen behind Jordan and Jaylaan.

Here are the steps involved in making this video magic happen in Adobe Premiere Pro. 

I really like the job done in this "Five Questions" by Kiiyah Stokes- Jones (producer/videographer/editor), Lynn McGrier (host) and Alexis Rabb (guest). Substantive topics and nicely put together by the talented Kiiyah!

I also want to highlight the job Alexis did with producing her video, with Kiiyah as host and Lynn as the guest. Lynn's audio was low but in editing Alexis was able to boost her level. I also like the writing and use of embedded links by Alexis.