Some aspects of filming a documentary interview are the same as a pre-planned corporate talking heads, however there are some key differences.
The primary differences are choice and time, but these will impact all aspects of how the interview is shot..
Choice refers to the location. Do you have a choice or is it a location you have no control over? Is it a noisy room that will yield bad audio? Is the lighting horrific?
Is the background boring? Or worse, distracting.
Time relates directly to these issues of choice because if you do not have a choice, do you have time to make the best of it? Usually not when filming documentary style.
So here are things to keep in mind when you’re up against it.
Preparing Your Kit For Documentary Interviews
Make sure you have a range of solutions available for problems you might encounter. If you have a camera, does it direct sound into your camera so you don’t have to worry about external audio recorders? Our documentary camera of choice is the Sony FS7 which yields great results visually and has 2 XLR inputs on camera with dials to change the sounds levels quickly.
Lenses
Lenses are another important consideration when filming a documentary talking head, whilst I love using prime lenses for lots of projects I think in documentaries zoom lenses come into their own as with something like a 24-70 you can be filming wides then quickly go telephoto for a close in talking head shot without worrying about changing lenses.
Sound
Sound kit wise I would recommend something that doesn’t need batteries and which takes phantom power from the camera battery. This means you change batteries less and only need 1 type with you.
Lighting
Lighting is often overlooked, of course when shooting documentaries you cannot always take big lighting kits, however you should take a small reflector and at least 1 light source, nowadays this is likely to be an LED panel, and there is no excuse not to have one as you can get them as small as a credit card, or even ones which roll up and bend for easy packing.
What To Do On Location
Preparation is great, but anyone who has filmed anything before knows that no matter how much you prepare you will encounter tough situations which require some thought to solve. When you are in a location for a talking head think about these key things.
Existing lighting
Is it outside so has the sun? Do you need to find shade as the shot is too contrasty on the subjects face? If inside are there any lights that you can make use of? A spot by a window that you can use as a nice key light is a good choice, or even if the sunlight is too harsh directly you can position them near a wall which will bounce and diffuse the harsh sunlight.
Background
Does the background reinforce the message being spoken on camera, or does it contradict it? If you are able to choose a good background that supports the message that’s great, if you can’t go for something neutral, you don’t want the background to confuse your viewer.
Sound
Sound is incredibly important in a documentary because often most the storytelling is through what people say and their opinions. If you can hear this then it suffers. So if there is a choice always choose a location which will not hinder the sound, sometimes some background noise is good for example if they are talking about a school football team and you hear the team playing football in the background, but you always want the main sound to be of your interview subject.
Framing
Another thing to think about is also the framing of the subject. Whilst most documentaries are not usually worrying about cinematography composition rules a good knowledge of angles and frame composition is needed. Using the example of an interview subject with football pitch and team playing in background, we can make composition choices.
On a full frame sensor 24/35mm might be too wide for most interviews but it would allow you to show lots of the action going in the background (even if out of focus) and give you a scale of the area. The other option if the playing people are distracting and the subject is talking about something fairly personal or serious you might want a 85mm to narrow the field of view down to single them out as well as throw the background out of focus even more.
So those are some key things to think about when filming a documentary interview, of course things don’t always go to plan and with experience you will learn how to problem solve in tough situations.