One of my favorite things about working in this industry is talking to people and learning their stories. And I've learned a lot of tips and tricks throughout the years for getting good on-camera interviews.
Here are a few to help you get the most out of your next on-camera interview.
Full transcript, apologies for any typos.
0:00 One of my favorite things about working in this career is talking to people and learning their stories. And I've learned a lot of tips and tricks throughout the years for getting good on-camera interviews.
0:11 First of all, whether the person is an actor and they've done this 1000 times, or especially if they're from the corporate world, or just a real person who's never been in front of the camera before, set a fun and relaxed tone from the moment they show up. You know, I shake their hand. Hi, I'm Walter. This is the crew. This is all of the equipment Have a seat. Is there anything I can get for you? Make them relaxed right from the get-go, especially if they've never done this before. And maybe they've only done it a few times. But even with experienced actors, you want to show Hey, look, I respect your time I, let's have a nice casual conversation. The more relaxed the person is, the more authentic the answers are going to be and the better your interview is going to turn out.
0:54 Have them look at you and not the camera. I mean that is kind of the norm but there are a lot of corporate videos I see out there where it's clear they forced the person to look at the camera versus talking off-camera. It takes a while to get comfortable doing what I'm doing right now, which is talking to an inanimate piece of glass and pretending that I'm actually talking to you. Especially for the uninitiated or people who are doing it for the first time. It's much better to look off-camera sit right off-camera, and just have me talk to you. Just you and I having a conversation. Just forget about that camera over there. Just you and I having a conversation. And sure enough, after a few minutes, they actually forget that the camera's even there, and now you're having a nice conversation back and forth.
1:36 Start off simple. Most people will start off with what's your name? What's your title, how long you been here, where you're from? And those are kind of just stiff, you know, the conversation starts off stiff. I usually will ask them to give me your name and spell it for graphics later. And if you do have a title, what is your title? That's just to get that information for graphics later. But I learned this from Director of Photography, he would always ask, what was your first car? Oh, well, my first car was... that kind of throws them off guard and it's like, okay, now, we're just talking about things that you know. And I might throw in, what's your favorite travel destination? Where do you love to go to eat? Now we're just kind of breaking down that stiffness, we're breaking down the barriers and we're making that person more comfortable. You see, the shoulders kind of relaxed, they get more relaxed. The more relaxed the person is, the better your interview is going to be. And it's really going to be that much more authentic, versus that stiff-person looking terrified, talking back and trying to give you the right answers. The more you're having a conversation, just you and that person, the better your answers are going to be.
2:45 Ask again. And I will even preface it by saying look, we talked about this about 10 minutes ago, 20 minutes ago. I'm just going to ask you again. Ask the question again because you might, well you will get a variation on the answer that you got before. And sometimes that second answer is completely better. Or a lot of times a second answer gives you a little extra, something that you didn't get the first time through. So now you're getting the rest of the story if you will. So don't be afraid to ask again. And especially if it's somebody who has never been in front of the camera, again, preface it by saying, look, I already said this before, but I'm going to ask you one more time. And then go ahead and ask it again.
3:26 Most importantly, and this is one thing that I see especially a lot of people who are new to the industry. Listen. You come into an interview, I've got my questions. I asked you the question, you answer, I'm going to go right on to that next question. You answer. I'm going to go right on to that next question. And you're not listening. You might have missed out on some great follow-ups. I try not to go into an interview with any more than 10 questions. If you have more than 10 questions unless it's a very, unless you're doing a documentary and you're going to be spending days with that person or an entire day with them personally. Typically, an on-camera interview is anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. I generally do not go in with more than 10 questions, because I'm going to listen, I am listening to what you're saying. And that was a very interesting thing that you just said. Now I want to ask you a follow-up. And that may lead to yet another follow up. And now we're going down this path. And I'm getting a story that maybe I didn't expect to hear. I still got my 10 questions that I want to do. But let's follow this path first. Because I can always ask these questions. I've got them written down, but I don't know where you're taking me. So let's see where that storyline goes.
4:36 Listen. Don't just be so embedded in what you're going to ask that you're not even paying attention to what's going on because you might miss a really cool story. So those are some of my tips for getting a good on-camera interview. I'd love to hear your thoughts.