Every Interview Style Explained (A documentary masterclass)

we're talking interview styles this is gonna be a classic educational video we're going through all the interview styles in documentary filmmaking so let's get into it the first style i'm just to call standard this is when you have someone sitting looking just off to the side of camera this is where you put your interviewer as close to the lens as possible that's my suggestion because the eye line look i'm looking just off to the camera you can already tell that i'm not looking at the camera i'm looking at the camera looking off the camera looking at the camera off camera so don't put someone over there because now you're getting a lot of the face you want to see both eyes that's how we connect with people but a standard interview is the safest way to approach documentaries it's been kind of the more traditional way it's often how i do my films and the way to make it a bit more juicy is i like to use a floating camera to the side where i get that side angle the camera's moving i can go from their hands to their face shallow depth of field it feels a bit more cinematic i would say to use a very overused term but i like shooting from that side and the key with these interviews is always have the person looking towards the light wherever your key light is make sure they're looking to that side because then you'll have the shadow side on the opposite and that's where you'll put your b camera or if you have them looking off this way they're going to be looking into the shadows and it's not as nice when people have full shadow on their face rather than looking into that beautiful light the pros of this style is that it's very safe and easy to do the con it's just that it's very safe it's probably the least creative approach but that's okay because it works and sometimes though it can feel a bit distant if you just have a side angle this person staring off into space you don't always feel connected whereas if you do the enterotron that's number two which is coined from an amazing documentary filmmaker errol morris that's where you're looking down the barrel of the lens why it's called in teratron is he would use this kind of video display two-way mirror glass similar to a teleprompter and he would display his face over the camera lens and it would be two-way glass so you wouldn't see it on the image but he would be talking to the person looking right down the barrel there's cheaper systems of this that just use mirrors but the great part about that is what's happening right now in this is i'm connecting with you i'm looking into your eyes and you're looking at me and you're beautiful in every single way don't let anyone ever tell you that but we get to have a connection even though i'm just staring into a deep dark black hole of the camera lens and where the enterotron style excels is that it's more intimate it creates a better connection with the audience in my opinion than other styles because you're looking directly at them now the con of it is that it does require some technology one benefit of it is in my cnn film is they interrotroned me into the interview i was in canada and rod here was down in la and we were talking together i was just over zoom and he could see my face on the zoom screen and it felt like we had a conversation so it is a cool style it's sometimes overused but you do see in a lot of documentaries these days and so it's a great way to try out and one little thing is if you have someone who's a bit more confident you don't necessarily need the entertron you can just ask them to look directly into lens when they talk but usually looking into a lens is a bit intimidating the next interview style is conversational this is where you get two people talking about a topic and you shoot it kind of like a traditional scripted film the difficulty of this is you're often gonna need two cameras to cross shoot or you're gonna be good at getting what we call the counter shot this is the person listening you can see the scene from battleground i did this on my own it's very intimate and it feels like something happening in real time but what i had to do at the end is i had to go back over and just ask quasi to nod and listen which can get awkward at times but man it's such a natural style of interview and you can prompt the people to talk about certain subjects but what's great is they make it their own this is truly one of my favorite styles of documentary interviews because it feels the most natural conversational when pulled off authentically can be one of the more powerful interview styles in a documentary and in our course they're out of documentary we break down a ton of different scenes from our feature-length documentaries where we do conversational style mike really implements this quite amazing in his films he'll break down full scenes in his award-winning documentaries of how he shoots conversation interviews on his own to make it look like there's two cameras and he does an amazing job of prompting them in a way that never feels like there's a director so it feels like you're just a fly on the wall and if you're interested in art of documentary we're opening the doors september 12th you always hear me talking about this this is launch season and i have to talk about it because you'll miss out we don't open the doors again until march of next year and what is art of documentary well it's our course in academy it's a huge community of over 2 500 filmmakers who are making amazing films right now we get to encourage each other we do monthly zoom calls we have over 140 videos between our three modules which go into how to tell stories how to find documentaries how to never get stuck in your edit how to increase your business as a filmmaker so you can go shoot these documentaries these passion projects everything you've ever needed to know about filmmaking not just the gear and technical not just how to use luts or transitions but how to actually tell a story doesn't matter what camera you have in your hand or what technical knowledge you have if you don't know how to tell a good story and that's where art of documentary comes in to help you complete the films that are on your heart and that you know you're meant to make the world needs your voice and you don't have to make those films on your own so come be a part of the art of documentary doors open september 12th we'll have 30 off but let's get back to the tutorial i just get excited about aod so our fourth interview style i call this the host plus standard this is where you have that standard interview where someone's looking just off camera but instead of looking into the void we actually get to see what they're looking at which is a reverse angle of a host this is typical of news journalist films you'll sometimes see people like michael moore implement this into their films you get to see the conversations that's happening but the way the filmmakers approach this is they're not avoiding the fact that it's actually a sit-down interview it's two people in a very traditional sense sitting in chairs well lit talking this best works like i mentioned for journalist pieces or films where you've decided to put yourself in the movie to be honest it's not my favorite style but it is effective if you're doing a journalist style documentary but there's another version with a host called host plus conversation and again i've just coined all these terms there might be other terms you can leave them below this is that anthony bourdain style this is where we're not just watching a conversation but we're aware there's a host and they're prompting the person with questions but we get to watch them conduct that interview in a very casual sense so it's a conversation but the host is there to help guide it along the downfalls of this is that again it can get boring at times if we're just watching someone try to ask questions that may not be working but the engaging part of this is that it's fun you get to do it wherever you want you can do it in a car you could do it walking in a field there's many different ways to approach the host plus conversation style and if you again are in your own film if you've put yourself in this film or you're following a host it's a great way to keep it natural and it doesn't feel so stagnant the next style i want to talk about is what i call in the moment this is where we're seeing two people walking it's a bit similar to host plus standard but something is happening on camera again it's like watching a conversation except for watching two people do something and you're grabbing bits of the interview that way you sometimes see tv shows do this where they'll have them doing a task they'll do like basket weaving or something i don't know if we can even find b-roll of that but this gets away from the host conversation style and again begins to feel more authentic because it doesn't actually feel like an interview feels like more of an organic natural conversation and the last interview style is just standard voiceover this is where you don't have the person on camera but i would always encourage you if you can shoot that interview because you never know when you need to cut to it but films like killer be killed or my latest film about tornadoes i mostly rely on voice over in those films but i still shoot the interviews for that one or two moments where i do cut to them you'll watch killer be killed we filmed that entire interview and joel narrates the entire film but we only cut to it like twice and that's where i would rather show engaging b-roll that embodies what he's saying than just sitting there watching someone talk but i think voiceover is a great way for you as a filmmaker to push yourself to push yourself to shoot more real-time scenes and to show more of life rather than having someone just sit there and tell you about life showing is way more interesting than telling and i would encourage you if you're making your films don't just settle for someone talking and then cutting to random b-roll if you're gonna have b-roll make it connect to what they're talking and if you don't have to show them talking show some engaging b-roll or better yet show a scene so there you go i hope that helped shooting interviews is one of my favorite parts of documentary you don't have to be scared about it if you're nervous on how to do that we have tons of information on this youtube channel better yet check out our documentary because we have tons of videos on how to do better interviews how to set them up what questions to ask and more importantly knowing what story you're telling when you're going into the interview because you are a storyteller you're not just a content capturer so leave some comments below if there's any other videos you guys want me to do make sure to jump on the artofdocumentary.com onto that wait list 30 off on september 12th doors are only open for two weeks don't miss this chance to take the next step in your career we'll have payment plans and we'll have bundle deals if you want to buy multiple courses don't just take my word for it get in the comments and i'm sure there's some aod students watching this who'll let you know how much they love the community check it out the art of documentary.com and i'll see you on the next one you

Channel: Mark Bone

Views: 350,315

Keywords: fx3 review, fx6 review, fx6 footage, mark bone, mark bone documentary, documentary interview, how to shoot a documentary interview, story telling, sony, matti haapoja, peter mckinnon, danny gevirtz, behind the scenes, bts, documentary bts, how to film an interview, documentary explained, filmmaking for beginners, education, masterclass

Id: 4E5DkR87SwI

Length: 9min 55sec (595 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 06 2022