Our good friend Billy Campbell, a working documentary filmmaker and creator of the Scorpion Light, is working on a series of lighting tutorials based on feedback from readers of this site. Recently, he's also put together another excellent educational resource for filmmakers, an interview and tutorial series with his father Douglas Campbell, a 40-year veteran of the film industry who has seen and done it all.
In the first installment, the pair talk about the process of conducting and lighting an interview, which is the bread and butter of filmmakers working in documentary, corporate, and some genres of television.
The key takeaway from this conversation is something that we've all heard before — content is king, and style is secondary. This concept is particularly crucial in an interview setting because you're likely to deal with a wide range of subjects, some of whom are seasoned pros and some of whom have never been in front of a camera in their lives and are very uncomfortable with it.