How to Get Better Looking Interviews
When you’re capturing your own interviews - be it as an interview of possibly an employee or an ‘off-camera’ testimonial, then there are a couple of things you can look at to help improve your shot composition…. and those are ‘head-room’ and ‘eye-space’.
Weird sounding terms, so let’s get Head Beard Bruce to explain further in the video.
Headroom
Headroom is really the space between the interviewee’s head and the top of the frame and ideally you want to leave a bit of room here.
Leave too much and they will look like a shorty, and don’t leave enough and you could end up cutting off their head. So for us, we tend to leave about a palms width between the top of their head and the frame.
In all honesty, because we shoot 4k;- a higher resolution of image which allows us to zoom in on the frame, by shooting a bit wider (allowing more of the person to show in the shot) we know that we have an option to zoom in and re-position the frame in the edit. Watch the video at 1:30 to get a visual demonstration of this technique.
Eye-space
Often with ‘off-camera’ interviews - which are generally used for testimonials -it is common to place the individual being interviewed off to one side of the frame.
And if you have you interviewee set off to one side of the frame, it is pleasing to the eye of the viewer to give them some eye-space. This is the space into which they look.
So, if you sit the interviewee off to the right hand side of the frame, it is visually pleasing to allow them to look across the frame to the left side of the frame.
If you watch police/crime dramas or movies that have a twist, you’ll often find that the director/DOP positions the character who is feeling uneasy or uncomfortable with little ‘eye space’ - this is a deliberate move to make the viewer feel unsettled.
Let’s Wrap This Up
So there you go - two quick methods that can really help improve the look of your next interview or testimonial business video.
As ever, I hope this article and video have been useful and interesting.
We would love to hear your thoughts down below, be it in relation to this, or to ask a different question.
If this topic has been of use/interest to you, we run a free Facebook Group: How to Shoot Video For Your Business - its specifically designed for business owners looking to learn how to shoot their own videos.
And, of course, if you’re looking for a video production company in Perth to assist with your next marketing video project then we’d love to have a chat.
