Troubleshooting problems in an interview
Last month we were approached by a new client to film some testimonials as they are rebranding their website and wanted to build trust with new customers having served many happy customers before.
Interviews are one of the first things you film in University and we’ve been doing them for nearly 15 years, but as simple as they are, they can still pose problems and you don’t want to get into the edit and struggle to piece them together.
Our client asked for a 90 second testimonial video, ideally in one take and it had to hit about 5 points. I have to say, my interviewee was bloody brilliant. He probably did around 6 takes and gave me lots of good material to use.
However, he had a dog.
A very handsome Dalmation who was full of energy and fussed me lots when i arrived which was fine by me, i love dogs, have a boy of my own.
As we started our interview the dog was locked upstairs, and he howled. He was not happy. Every few seconds he would let us know he was still here. I played back the first take and the howls were on it. We tried for 20 minutes and it wasn’t working. The family were lovely and so apologetic and I’m really laid back so I wasn’t offended, but I knew i needed to deliver for my client, especially on our first job together.
The interview was man and wife, mainly the gent speaking but they both wanted to be in it as it made sense with the nature of the video.
So i decided, let’s shoot the first few lines of the interview with husband and wife in frame between dog barks. We got it..
Then…..
The wife went upstairs to sit with the dog and I filmed the husbands interview in a close up. We then brought the wife back downstairs and filmed her in a close up, nodding and dropping in a line here and there.
I got one take of them both sat together to round up the interview with a last few lines, hoping the dog wouldn’t bark.
We got it.
So when I edited it all together, we started with the couple in frame talking, then the husband took over in a close up with shots of his wife cut in to cover up his different takes so we could use his best anecdotes and then we finish the video with them both sat together again. Watching the video you wouldn’t know she wasn’t there for most of it and it flows as a 90 second, coherent video.
Interviews are supposed to be simple right ?
Happy interviewees, happy client, happy me.