ABSTRACT
The interview is an essential element of news and magazine reporting. It provides for a factual testimony from a participant or witness to an event. Interviews can be shot in a location that reinforces the story and possibly gives more information to the viewer about the speaker (e.g. office, kitchen, garden etc.). The staging of an interview usually involves placing the interviewee against a suitable background that may echo the content or reinforce the identity of the guest. Exterior interviews are easier to stage when there is a continuity of lighting conditions such as an overcast day or where there is consistent sunshine. The natural lighting will have to cater for three shots and possibly three camera positions – an MCU of the interviewee, a similar sized shot of the interviewer and some kind of two-shot or ‘establishing’ shot of them both. If it is decided to shoot the interview in direct sunlight, then the interview needs to be positioned with the sun lighting both ‘upstage’ faces (i.e. the camera is looking at the shaded side of the face) using a reflector to bounce light into the unlit side of the face. The position of the participants can be ‘cheated’ for their individual close shots to allow a good position for modelling of the face by the sun. Because of the intensity of sunlight and sometimes because of its inconsistency, it is often preferable to shoot the interview in shade avoiding backgrounds that are in the full brightness of the sun. After the interview has been shot, there is often the need to pick up shots of points raised in the interview (e.g. references to objects, places or activity etc.). In order for normal ‘invisible’ editing to be applied, the shots should match in size and lens angle between interviewee and interviewer.
