Assignment 13.2

My top 5 of the 10 tips for shooting effective interviews. 

These top 5 come from my personal experience when me and a few classmates interviewed many people for a tribute video for a man who had passed away for a videography class.

1. Avoid placing the interviewee directly against a wall.
I learned this the hard way when my group and me were interviewing a man in a small office with a white wall.
The best way to avoid this from happening is to keep your subject a several feet away from the wall when shooting the interview.

2. Avoid placing the interviewee in front of a window.
Another lesson I learned the hard way when we tried to interview someone in front of a window.
Avoid windows because they can let in more light that can make it hard to see the subject.

3. Avoid swivel chairs.
This is really important. You would not believe how times we had to reshoot because the subject kept moving when being interviewed. There is something about swivel chairs that make people want to swivel left or right. The best way to fix this is of course making the subject sit in a regular chair.

4. Eliminate distracting background mergers and clutter.
Try to chose a location that has less going on in the background such as multiple people in the background. The less going on the better.

5. Monitor audio and video recording.
This one is the big one to follow. If you don't monitor your recoding properly you may end up with unusable video and audio and then have to reshoot which can be difficult if the interviewee is a busy person like for example a college professor or a dean. So always check to see if you got the audio and video properly and if not you will be able to reshoot right there on the spot and not waste time and effort.