Thursday 25 June 2015

Interviews for Dummies

Interviews are a key part of any informative programme, weather it is a documentary or a news report, interviews will always be used to reinforce the information that is given. There are numerous ways in which interviews are made effectively and that all comes down to the theme and the subject of said interview. There are some general themes that are often made as interviews, these are mostly comedy and informative, obviously depending on the subject. In this guide I will be telling you the key things you will have to follow to ensure your interview is professional. These steps are, Camera Techniques, Mise-en-Scene and Framing

Camera Techniques
It all comes down to personal preference with your camera techniques, however there are definite ones that are going to make your interview look professional and generally good. So, the first one that you could use would be single camera technique. This is where the camera is set up on one person throughout the entire interview (obviously the interviewee) with the questions being asked by someone off screen. This will force the audience to focus mainly on the interviewee, rather than switching between him/her and the interviewer. This is a basic technique that you could use, and for what it does it is very successful and it should not be underestimated. Another technique that could be used is Multi Camera techniques, this is fairly similar to single camera, but with more than one. In an ideal situation you would have two cameras set up, on on the upper torso of the interviewer and the same on the interviewee. You would film the entire interview, not moving the camera once and in the editing process you would cut the clips so you can see the interviewer when he asks the questions and then see the interviewee when he answers them. This is good because it gives a bit of variation of who you are watching, rather than looking at just one person the entire time. This is a very professional technique and is probably used the most out of any other camera technique. Something you can do along side this technique is called "The Noddy" this is where you will cross cut either the interviewee or interviewer nodding, over their opposite talking, showing that they understand what is being said, or that they approve.

Mise-En-Scene (The setting or surrounding of an event)
The Mise-En-Scene within interviews is imperative when it comes to setting the scene of the interview and making the interview itself more entertaining and easy to watch. It is fairly simple to take advantage of this aspect, obviously it depends on your own topic/theme, but it will work with absolutely anything. For example, if my interview was with a professional sportsman, i would think about setting the interview in a gym, or in a sports themed location. It is fairly self explanatory from there, use the theme of your interview and try to set it in a location that is heavily linked with that. A real life example that has been used is the interview with Aaron Taylor-Johnson about the film Age of Ultron. This interview has the theme of films, and it is shot on set of the film, with Taylor-Johnson sitting on one of the cast chairs. Mise-en-scene also covers the smaller things like costume, it is not always apparent, but most of the time the interviewee is wearing something to do with their profession, so using the same example from above, Taylor-Johnson wears his actual costume from the film to give the audience a bit more to look forward to.

Framing
When making an interview it is always important to think about framing, this is because it will make your interview look much more professional and also look much nicer, and as result make it more entertaining. Framing can be used in several different ways to achieve different effects some of these being emotions. For example, if the interviewee is sad then the framing would often be much closer up, displaying how sad he/she is. However if they are happy they would often try to get more of the body in so you can see the gestures and body language that would portray this. A particular technique that would help get a nice frame is the rule of thirds, a basic technique used by every film maker, this is where there is a grid of nine boxes over the screen so you can see a more specific spacing of the images on camera, with this you can choose to focus more on something else by putting it nearer the middle.







The image above shows exactly how the rule of thirds can make your image look much better. Although it isn't to do with interviews, it still works the same way.










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