10 Angles You Need To Consider For Shooting Interviews

Our good friends over on DIYPhotography recently posted an interesting video looking at 10 different angles/ways to help you spice up your video interviews.

Here are the 10 different angle suggestions shown in the video:

Through an object – to help with subject separation you can do several things including opening the aperture, putting your subject further away from the background, and placing an object in the frame closer to the camera than the subject (this should make sense for the interview otherwise it can be distracting).
Straight into the lens – this might be quite obvious but shooting your subject looking directly into the lens can give certain parts of your interview a very specific look (again this isn’t right for any type of interview/video but for some, it can be very powerful). Your subject needs to look right at the camera (this should be practiced and you should remove distractions like monitors or other people on the set that might inadvertently draw the attention of the person you interview away from the camera).
Long side – this is one of the most common angles where you shoot your subject from the side with his or her face looking into the wider area of your shot which gives the impression that they are looking to another person.
From behind – if you want to increase tension or to give a unique and different perspective you can shoot either directly behind or more commonly over the shoulder of the person you interview.
Wide look – if you want to give the viewer a break from all those close-ups you can have a quick wide-angle shot of the room especially if it looks nice or interesting enough (sometimes it can even include stuff that is relevant to the interview itself – for example, a factory when you are interviewing an engineer).
Behind the scenes – Getting a little bit of a behind the scenes into the actual footage (as opposed to an actual BTS video) can be lots of fun and add some production value, showing what you put into the interview. It is more common in journalistic pieces than in commercial oriented recordings but it certainly has its place.
From below – shooting from below makes your subject appear larger and more significant. This can be useful if you want him/her to project more power and authority.
From above – if you want to show the vulnerability of your subject shooting them from above can be a good angle.
Close-ups – this is also a very common look if you want an extra “interesting” angle, try capturing the hands moving while the person you interview talks. Showing how he or she plays with their hands or rings can also show agitation.
1/3’rd profile – Shooting your subject from the side with enough free space in front of him/her can give you enough room to add in things such as graphs or other types of information to be displayed (you should explain this to the person you interview so that they will not put their hands up during this time.

We have looked at many aspects of shooting an interview in the past including Parker Walbeck’s 101: How to Shoot an Interview, Caleb Pike’s b est light gear for filming interviews, Curtis Judd how to s et up lighting and audio for interviews, and Jay P. Morgan’s how to shoot a documentary-style interview.

You can watch more HDSLR and video techniques on our dedicated HDSLR channel here on LensVid. You can check out more of Walbeck videos – here on LensVid as well.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.