Main Menu
Main Menu
Marisa For a lot of the interview-driven content we shoot, we focus on one interview subject. And for the most part, the framing stays the same and they talk to an interviewer off camera. But what if you have 4, 5, or more subjects speaking on camera at once?
Our team has recently worked on a lot of, what we like to call, round table content. This involves a small group of people sitting down to have a conversation with each other, rather than one subject talking to an interviewer off camera. The goal is to make this look like a natural conversation that we just happened to be there for with some cameras. But, in reality, there is a lot that goes into making these conversations look and feel seamless.
How do we make sure to capture everyone’s audio, and keep it clean when everyone is talking over each other or at the same time? Everyone at the table needs to be evenly lit, so how do we do that? How do we set up our cameras to get us a wide shot of everyone together, but also make sure each subject has their own camera? I’m glad you asked! Let’s get into it.
The big aspects of these round table discussions are audio, video, and lighting. And yes, duh, those are important for every project we work on. But, it’s an especially tall order when it comes to having multiple subjects talking on camera at once.
When you think about the natural flow of a conversation, people tend to talk over each other. Usually, one person doesn’t completely stop talking before the other starts. From an editor’s perspective, that would make things easy! But that’s not typically how people sit down to have a conversation.
We have to make sure that during these round tables, everyone is mic’ed up so that we can receive clean audio from each individual. We set up each interviewee with a wireless microphone. They get a lavalier microphone hooked on their collar or lapel that is attached to a mic pack. Each of these microphones feeds into an audio board, where we can control the audio levels and the mix of each person’s audio. The board captures isolated audio from each subject, as well as a mix of everyone’s audio together. Whoever is behind the audio board can adjust everyone’s levels in real time to keep up with the flow (and volume) of conversation.
Typically, when lighting an interview subject, we point the light directly at them. But, when there is a group of people who need to be evenly lit, that can’t exactly work the same way. So, we rig up a lantern light to hang over the group of people. To fill in the remaining shadows, we set up some smaller lights off to the side. We usually add some diffusers to soften the light as well. For some extra detail, we’ll use tube lights around the set. These help separate the subjects from the background, and throw in some extra color where needed.
To capture all of this visually, we set up at least three cameras. One as a wide shot, and two others that are dedicated to one or two subjects. This part can vary from shoot to shoot depending on the amount of people. Those dedicated cameras will shift between a one and two shot, depending on who is speaking. Having all of these cameras set up allows us to record everyone on camera while they are talking. It also allows us to capture reaction shots of the other people at the table. That way, when we’re editing all of this together, we have a variety of shots to work with, and it creates a more visually interesting experience.
All of these components take a bit to set up, so we recorded a time lapse at one of these shoots that we did for the Joe Andruzzi Foundation. We set up for this round table conversation in a room at a restaurant.
And when you put all of this together on a timeline to edit, it looks a little chaotic, and a little something like this:
There are a lot of moving pieces, but it allows us to capture a free flowing conversation in the most natural way possible, and create a finished product that reflects that.
Interested in recording content like this at your organization? We’d love to help!
