5 Tips to Produce Interview-Style Videos Like a Pro

Today, we’re featuring a guest blog from Kathy Berardi of Red Clip Video, a strategic multi-media services partner to Carabiner. In today’s post, Kathy offers 5 quick tips on producing professional grade interview style videos with any caliber spokesperson:

Year over year, use of video among B2B U.S. companies is steadily climbing. The 2015 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends survey found that 76 percent of B2B companies in North America are using video, compared to 63 percent the year before. Clearly, savvy marketers are incorporating video into the marketing mix and reaping the benefits. But it’s not always easy to get it right.

Unless you’re a professionally trained actor, most people who find themselves in front of a video camera tend to feel overwhelmed. Even though I have worked behind the camera, I also have experience in front of it, so I’ve faced the same anxiety over how I would appear, whether my responses would be compelling, and most importantly, how I would represent my brand.

So how do I put my clients at ease? Follow these 5 quick and easy tips when planning for a Q&A-style company video and unleash your inner super producer.

1) Sketch, but don’t script. Have in mind what the key messages will be, but don’t force the spokesperson to memorize a script. Consider what essential points are “must haves” for the spokesperson to cover, but allow them to address the topics in their own personal way as though in conversation with an individual who’s in the audience. Run through and record a few practice interviews on a smartphone, but don’t rehearse to the point where the content starts to get flat or stiff. The spokesperson needs to deliver the content “fresh” for it to come through that way to the audience.

2) Arrange for two people to take the interview: a host/interviewer to stand slightly to the side of the camera, and the camera operator to conduct the actual video recording. Direct the on-camera spokesperson to look slightly off-camera at the interviewer as though they are having a one-on-one conversation

3) If you’re the interviewer, memorize the questions you’re supposed to ask so you can keep the conversation going as though it’s not scripted. As soon as you break eye contact to look down at a new question to “feed” the on-camera spokesperson, it reminds them that they are on camera and can re-start the whole jitters process. 

4) As the interviewer, while you can’t emit any noise that would be captured during the on-camera spokesperson’s response, try and emotionally engage them with non-verbal communication to drive the conversation. Simple tactics like nodding, smiling at key points and expressing a sense of understanding in your eyes at the conclusion of each response can help the on-camera spokesperson feel as though they are connecting with you, and therefore, with the viewer.

5) If you’re the on-camera spokesperson, remember that you’re going to be recognized first and foremost for the content you deliver as a leader or specialist in your field. The majority of company Q&A videos, whether shot citizen journalist style with a smartphone or professionally in a studio, are intended to inform the audience. No one is ever going to be as pre-occupied about how you actually appear in the video as you are. So try not to take yourself too seriously, and remember that if you were “made up” to the caliber of your favorite Hollywood celebrity, it’d be distracting from the video’s corporate goals.

How do you help prepare the content your thought leader should deliver in a company video to personally engage your audience?

For ideas on how to get your story started, contact our team at info@redclipvideo.com.