I’ll admit it that this title makes this sound like a really simple and easy thing to do but there is more to it than just set up the camera with the person you are interviewing lined up on the third and looking off camera. I could have called it “the one thing you do wrong every time you frame an interview,” but I would like to think that I have more credibility than buzzfeed. Granted, that still isn’t saying much.
In this video of Lars Lindstrom, the DP of Llama Nation, explains in-depth how to set up two cameras for an interview. The first thing is making sure that the person who is asking the questions is at eye-level with who you are interviewing. It is also important to get that question asker sitting as close to the camera as possible because if not you are going to have the interview person’s axis of view way off.
The next thing is camera placement. Usually you have a wide and a tight camera and usually (I almost wrote always, but then remembered that every rule in filmmaking can be broken) you will have the wide camera farthest away from the person being interviewed and the tight camera closet. When it comes to height place the tight shot slightly higher than eye level because it creates a more flattering look on the person being interviewed. The wide angle will be a bit lower and what this does is allows you show the environment behind the person and avoid looking at the floor.
All that being said – watch the video and you can see for yourself how the cameras were set up and the difference these tiny things make.
Hope this helped you out and that you were able to learn something new. Don’t forget to enter the contest that we are having to win $100, $50, and $25 store credit to any of our products. Plus we will be doing a store wide sale depending on how many people sign up. 100 = 10% off, 200 = 20% of and so on until 501+ = 75% off. We reached our first goal of 100 Entries which means that the Cinema Spice sale has officially begun!
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