4

Into the studio

Multi camera interviews

An interview in a studio presents enormous advantages over one shot on location. So long as there is space and adequate cameras and lighting a studio interview may involve two, three or almost any number of guests. At a certain point though the show ceases to be an interview and turns into a chaired discussion. The simplest definition of the difference is that a discussion is when the number of participants exceeds the number of cameras available.

A really skilled director with a lively professional camera crew can make a creditable job of directing a one plus three interview on just a couple of cameras. A complete dullard ought to be safe with four cameras for four performers. It just ought to be obvious that with one camera for one performer things cannot go wrong. Like most obvious things about television, it is not true.

A location interview is always shot with post production editing in mind. It should be shot in such ways as to present the picture editors with the best possible variety of shots. In the studio the opposite is true. A large number of interviews are conducted live, or recorded as if live. There may be a possibility of video tape editing to remove embarrassing or libellous answers or to insert retakes but this is not the object. The director should aim to work to an allotted time and complete an interview item entire without a thought of editing.

A director of a location interview can try to sidestep making any creative decisions beyond choosing the questions and hope the story will be saved by camerawork, picture editing, and dollops of luck. In the studio interview the director is the totally in charge and there is no passing the buck.

Unlike most single camera productions the studio director rarely has much input into the editorial content of an interview. The decision that A is going to spend six minutes interviewing B about subject C is about as far as it goes. This does not mean that he or she can then put both feet up on the gallery desk until transmission time and wait to see what fate will bring. This may happen on tired series which repeat an identical format week after week: and it shows. The director's hands are pretty much tied if the journalist or producer responsible for the item does not take the director into confidence about the intended style of interview. What editorial matter goes into the interview is a job for producers; how it comes over is the director's department.

A good interview stands out. Like all other kinds of studio direction a good interview depends on meticulous pre-production planning. By the time the guest is ushered onto the set it is too late to do anything much but busk through the performance.

Planning the interview

The producer

The producer may be ignorant of the requirements of a director. Many producers today have only journalistic backgrounds. Few have worked as directors. The title of Producer has been steadily broadened and diminished throughout television in recent times and often now designates not the most senior but the least experienced member of the team. The director may have to pester the producer for information. There are some basic questions to be asked.

1 What type of interview is it? What is the subject and has the producer got any kind of agenda which can influence the style of direction? The name of a guest says nothing. A proposed interview with one well-known MP might just as easily bear upon his voting record in Parliament, his attitude to the European Union, his commercial involvement with arms manufacturers, his great personal wealth, his well-publicized support for a football team, his day job as a disc jockey or his celebrated sex life. Presumably the producer intends to focus on just one or two of these.

2 What mood is to be created? If the focus is on the football and the extramarital junketing should the interview take the form of an interrogation on the state of public morality or a jolly chat about the off-duty activities of public figures?

3 Who is asking the questions? If an interviewer is well known it may be as well to get past the producer and ask him or her about the editorial content. If this is going to be an in-depth interview presumably there is some intended structure.

There are questions which seem to have nothing to do with the producer but can easily make a vast difference to the direction. A decent producer or researcher will always be on the lookout for these things and inform the director. Just don't bet on it happening.

1 Does the guest have any disabilities? (this is no place for political correctness) Are there squints, scars, glass eyes or even the effects of old age which suggest a preference for one profile or the other? Should the director avoid close-ups? Ageing celebrities are not squeamish and often know the business. They may demand to be shown from a certain side and even with a particular lighting or use of soft focus filters.

2 Does the guest normally use wild gesticulations in conversation? The director does not want to be caught in close-ups with heads and hands bobbing in and out of shot or of focus.

3 Does the guest smoke? If smoking is allowed on set, where is the ashtray? If it is forbidden who is going to do the explaining?

4 Does the guest intend to bring any objects or printed material to the interview? Will it be for demonstration purposes or simply for display? If a politician is intending to bring a government paper to the studio it makes all the difference whether he intends to wave it about during a debate (wide shots), is to make it a point of repeated references (cutaways) or is insisting on reading extracts from it (over the shoulder close-ups).

5 Is the guest likely to stand up or give any sort of a performance during the interview? This will affect both sound and lighting. No favours will be done if a comedian leaps to his feet for an animated performance of a gag and vanishes into obscurity and silence because the only lit area is around a table and the only microphones are pointing at the chairs.

The studio set

The director's control over the design may be considerable or it may be nearly non-existent. Long running series may have sets which are inflexible and only updated at long intervals. Single programmes will have specially designed sets and the director should have a big input into design decisions at the planning stage of production. Most sets have some built-in flexibility so that background flats, drapes, and dressing properties can be rearranged on the day. The key feature is the studio lighting. Excellent interviews can be conducted with no set at all apart from chairs, a table and well-done studio lighting. Studio lighting is an art and takes time. The producer or director who starts making last minute major alterations to the set or seating plan is going to make no friend of the lighting supervisor.

The world of the digitally created virtual set has arrived and will soon dominate many types of magazine programme where interviews are prominent components. Whether this electronic marvel has the flexibility required for imaginative studio direction remains to be seen. Assuming that the director's voice is going to be heard the following considerations are important.

1 Is the set muted in colour and tone? The plainest designs can be enhanced by creative lighting but the most lurid or fussy resist any reinterpretation. The dress sense and colour preferences of guests cannot be taken for granted. The more assertive the set the more likely a hideous colour clash with the guests' outfits.

2 Is there an obligation to show programme logos or programme names? If these are an integral part of the set the seating has to be arranged so these graphics appear in the middle of wide shots or carefully framed behind the two-shots. A logo wobbling half in and half out of any shot is just distracting.

3 Are there obvious vertical or horizontal lines in the design? Set designers are often trained architects and look at their constructions on the whole like stage sets (the author's apologies to those who know better). Strong verticals are difficult to avoid with a set constructed of stage flats. Horizontals give a unity to studio sets when shown in wide shots. But there is nothing more distracting than a close-up where a performer has a vertical line appearing out of the top of the head or a horizontal one going in one ear and out the other.

4 Does the design involve bock projection, photo blowups or complex set dressing? These may look spectacular from the studio floor or in a wide shot. They may be essential to the programme content. But if they are dimly perceived and out of focus they can ruin the composition of singles and two-shots. The old truth must be repeated. Interviews are about people. People means close pictures of faces. Anything which unnecessarily distracts from the human face is irrelevant.

Studio furniture

The influence of the director on the overall design of the set may be small. Decisions about arranging the set are another matter. Even the smallest station should possess a variety of furniture for interviews.

1 Almost all studio interviews take place seated. The choice of chairs is then of prime importance. They must look good on camera. It is the job of the designer to provide these. They must be comfortable. Exquisitely designed Bauhaus inspired steel chairs may create an aesthetic whole with the total design concept of the set, at least in the opinion of a designer, but they are damn-all use to the director if after two minutes the guests start wriggling on their bums with discomfort. Chairs must not though be too comfortable. They must keep the occupants performers' backs upright and prevent them swaying or lounging about.

2 Crossed legs or legs stretched out straight in front result in very unattractive camera shots. So are knees bunched up under chins particularly when the guests are wearing short skirts. Chairs should be high enough to prevent this happening.

3 Adjustable height chairs are ideal. They are the quickest way to equalize great height disparities between performers. Unfortunately most are manufactured as swivel chairs. Always lock any such chairs in one position, except for discussion presenters who may wish to swing from one eye-line to another during a debate. It is curiously surreal to watch a close-up of a guest whose eyes and head appear steady in the frame whilst the body and shoulders revolve back and forth on a swivelling chair.

4 If cosy sofas and armchairs are stipulated make sure that the studio cameras can get proper eyelines. Camera mountings have a limit to how low they can operate and someone slumped on a sofa is likely to sit below them. One solution is to have the seating area raised on rostra, otherwise hard cushions can be used prop up the guests.

5 When using rostra be careful that there are enough of them. Too great an area of rostra will impede the cameras in a small studio. Too small an area and the risk is that a long limbed guest will stick their legs out over the front of the stage or propel themselves backwards and over the edge. Rostra in the darkened television studio are a well-recognized safety hazard.

Positioning the participants

The studio interview set-up is the perfect place to demonstrate the need for television grammar. The simple matter of rearranging the position of seats on a set can radically affect the viewers' perception of an interview. The seating should naturally be in harmony with the set design. It is hard to conduct a tough face-to-face interrogation about police corruption if the interviewee is sitting in a comfy armchair or the interviewer has a flight of plaster ducks going up the wall in his background. But just how the two face each other makes the greatest difference. Consider four basic possibilities.

1 The confrontation

The situation is one of interrogation. The protagonists face each other eyeball to eyeball over a table (Figure 4.1). The seating forces the interviewee to face the interviewer directly at all times and any attempt to look away will appear furtive or desperate in the eyes of the viewers. This is the interview situation which demands the minimum of set in vision and is best conducted in a pool of light with low key lighting against a totally black background, only a neutral coloured circular carpet or low table ought to separate the two. Everything is weighted against the guest. The impression of nose-to-nose confrontation can be heightened by pulling the two main cameras as far back as possible and shooting on the end of the zoom. This is most effective in two-shots.

2 The formal interview

The situation is still one of interrogation but the odds are not heavily weighted against the guest (Figure 4.2). The chairs are set at an approximate angle of 90° and if there are desks they should be separated and identical in size. Normal high key lighting is appropriate though an uncluttered back-ground is still desirable, apart perhaps for a programme logo. The feeling should be one of respectfully serious debate between equals.

3 The informal interview

The assumption here is a relationship of greater informality. It is not suitable for earth shaking subject matter. The chairs are placed around an oval table or curved desk so that the participants can turn to address each other informally whilst not ruining the close-up camera eyelines (Figure 4.3). The use of the single table suggests a warmth between the participants. The curved table is suitable if two or more guests are to be introduced.

4 The relaxed chat

This is the appropriate set-up for lightweight programmes. The chairs, which may be armchairs or sofas, are set at an angle of less than 90°, as widely as still enables the cameras to get satisfactory close-ups. Big close-ups are probably inappropriate in this setting; there are frequently several guests and there may be an amount of physical activity. So perfect eyelines may have to be sacrificed. The definition of a satisfactory close-up is simple. So long as the viewer can clearly see both eyes the shot is adequate. Any foreground furniture should be in the form of a low coffee table. If the guest is likely to use this for putting down props, notes or glasses of water this has to be placed upstage within easy reach from the chairs. The less participants lean across shot the better. This is the informal set-up with the greatest risk of guests slowly vanishing into the upholstery with knees dominating the foreground and heads vanishing into rucked-up jacket collars.

Lining up shots

When the director has winkled out of the producer the intentions of the interview and has briefed the designer, lighting and sound supervisors, it is time to consider the cameras. Everything is now up to the director. Whether or not there is a studio floor plan the director should have envisaged what shots are going to be needed and whether these are likely to present any problems for the camera crew. It is much better to be able to tell the cameras which shots will be needed than begin by asking which shots they can offer.

There should be no problem with a simple one-plus-one interview. The only difficult bits are at the beginning and end. At the beginning cameras may need to rehearse a sequence for introducing the participants. At the end there may be a programme formula involving lighting changes and music for signing off. During a live show the director may have to release some of the cameras to the next set-up during the closing part of the interview.

An interview can be shot with only one well-directed camera (if the situation is desperate) but normally there are two, three, four or more cameras. The essential points to keep in mind are:

1 The director has to make clear the physical relationship between the two participants and the studio. An interview exclusively comprising close-ups would be confusing. The viewer needs some reference to the studio and the physical positioning of the performers. This is particularly true when there is more than a single interviewee.

2 The viewer needs to be able to see each of the participants full face in the close-ups.

Before starting rehearsal the director should make some final checks.

Has the furniture been set on the arranged marks? Many a director has been bamboozled about why his shots do not seem to work when the problem was that chairs had been dumped down only more or less in the right place or shifted by the participants. It is the job of the floor manager to keep an eye out for this. But in these economy conscious times not all studios have an FM.

Is it clear who is sitting where and is this clear from any camera script or programme running order? If the interview involves more than one guest and a shot is described as ‘Three-shot Tom/Dick/Harry’ it means Tom is on the left, Dick is in the middle, and Harry is on the right. The technical crew needs to know who is who. A last minute realignment when an interviewer tetchily wants to be on one familiar side or a guest arrives wearing an eyepatch can upset things. It is easier to say:

‘Camera one, close-up of Tom’

than

‘Camera one get me a close-up of that MP, the fat one in the pin stripe suit in the middle.’

Setting up the shots for an interview does not need the interviewee to be present on the studio floor. Even if the guest is in the building it will be quicker and easier to get on with lining up the shots in his absence. The participants are probably busy with the producer and interviewer or else with make-up. Get the floor manager and another colleague to sit in for them. This is the final opportunity for adjusting lighting and sound. The director is only now in a position to run through the camera shots.

Always plan to cross shoot

This should be glaringly obvious. The only way to get satisfactory eyelines is to place the main cameras opposite each other getting the fullest face shots as are compatible with not getting each other in frame. Inexperienced directors find themselves in a situation where all their cameras get bunched together in the middle of the studio searching for workable shots on their own halves of the stage. This impossible to direct situation results from not paying attention to what is being shown on the camera monitor screens in the gallery, and not doing a proper run-through.

Are the two sit-ins taking things seriously? They must offer the same eyelines as are anticipated during the real recording. If they swivel round or turn their heads to chat to friends in the crew the camera line-up will be worthless.

The cameras may appear to be correctly positioned on the studio floor but this does not always guarantee that the shots match each other. In serious one-plus-one interviews this may be particularly important. The way of checking is to line up two-shots on the cameras. The apparent distance between the two participants should seem the same in both over-the-shoulder shots and a frontal wide shot. Rather than lining up each camera in turn the director should line up the shots on the camera which favours the guest, and ask the remaining cameras to adjust their own framing to that.

Match the height of eyelines. A good camera operator will always adjust the pedestal height to the eyeline of the subject. If the worst happens at the last moment and the guest turns out to be seven foot tail while the interviewer is a mere five footer the director must readjust and try to simulate the actual eyelines. The camera covering the close-up of a tall subject will have to lower slightly, that on the shorter will have to go slightly up to match. Otherwise the taller may appear to be glancing modestly at the ground whilst the shorter will gaze slightly upwards in awe or inspiration.

Shot sizes will have to be matched. The latitude sometimes allowed in single camera reports does not extend to the studio. Politicians in particular are aware of how a star interviewer can be given undue prominence by unequal shot sizes.

Direct the cameras to positions where they can offer a well-framed range of shots, wide two-shots to big close-ups, without having to change position in order to avoid shooting each other or off the edge of the set. This may have to involve some compromise. The ideal eyelines possible with a single camera may not be possible when several are involved. But studio camera mountings can do some things a tripod cannot. They can move to a new position, and with a good operator they can move very fast. They need a warning that they might be asked to do so, and preferably a rehearsal.

If there is a third camera available for a one-plus-one do not waste it on a single wide two-shot to show the set at the beginning and end of the interview. In between times it can crab either way to offer interesting alternative two-shots or additional close-ups of the guest. The greater the number of cameras and interviewees the greater the variety of possible shots and the more the studio will need to be actively directed.

An interview has to be impromptu and ‘as directed’ but beginnings and endings can and ought to be rehearsed. There is generally a scripted introduction and frequently a standard programme format for the ending. The crew, the interviewer and the floor manager all need to know the shot sequence. It is not unknown to see a presenter talking to the wrong camera or wretchedly staring around for the one with a red light on. This sticks out like a sore thumb to the least perceptive viewer.

Line up the main shots and check the composition at all times. There is no point in insisting on a particular shot if the camera has to sacrifice looking room or head room in order not to shoot off the set. The director should know what shots are required but it is always worth listening and watching for suggestions from the cameras. In busy programmes with several contributors or unfamiliar sets there might be a little winner of a shot which had not been anticipated.

If the opening shots include a wide one showing the whole set and all participants, the director should line this shot up first. This will enable the other cameras to position themselves out of shot, unless it is the programme style to deliberately show cameras, sound booms and lighting rigs. This has to be clear from the start. The audience is quite used to programmes which cheerfully reveal the technology. What is ridiculous is the sight of an unexplained microphone swinging through shot or the sight of a camera scurrying about trying to hide out of the way.

Cutting interviews

In prestigious programmes there is often a vision mixer (switcher) in addition to a studio director present in the gallery (control). In low budget programmes the director will do his own switching. There is no doubt in the minds of anyone but an accountant that the team of a director plus a vision mixer achieves the best results. It is impossible to give equal attention to the content of an interview whilst talking to cameras, working the mixing panel and, most important, lining up the coming items. Add to this the need to pay full attention to the PA, the floor manager and, during live programmes, changes to running orders and timings by the editor, and it is clear that studio direction can be like trying to land a blazing aeroplane whilst listening to a riot going on in air traffic control. If there is a vision mixer, there is no point in the director calling every shot. By the time the words ‘camera two’ are uttered and the button pressed the moment will have passed. The cuts will all be late.

If the director and vision mixer have confidence in each other it is quite usual for the director to line up the main shots and opening sequence and then let the vision mixer cut an interview on his own initiative. If the vision mixer is inexperienced the director should line up each shot. This does not mean worrying about an exact cutting point. The director has always to think at least one and normally two or three shots ahead.

For example, his talkback might sound like:

‘Two-shot on camera three next. Four go into the close shot. Steady four. Three give me the close-up when I cut away. Two get to your closing wide shot. One and four clear to the weather map, etc.’

The vision mixer will take the cuts, with luck, at the precise accurate point. Although the vision mixer is there to carry out the instructions of the director he or she should not cut to a camera which is out of focus, unsteady or shooting off the set even when a director mistakenly calls for the shot.

Whoever actually presses the buttons on the console the same principles which govern picture editing for single camera work apply to studio cutfing. Vision mixing is no more or less than instantaneous picture editing.

1 Listen to the person who is talking. The director may not be responsible for the editorial content of the interview but the intonation and pace of delivery of a speaker are often clues to a coming cut or change of shot size. It is not impossible to competently direct an interview conducted in an unknown foreign language.

2 Look at the ones who are not talking. The commonest difficulty for young directors is learning how to ignore the television transmission monitor which shows what is presently on air. If it's on air, there's not much you can do about it. The director needs to pay attention to the camera monitors which show the choice of next shots. It is a good exercise to switch off the transmission monitor and direct entirely from the row of camera screens. That way the new director can learn to avoid the second commonest problem which is to become so hypnotized by the picture on air that all the remaining cameras, lacking direction, offer up almost identical shots. When the time arrives for a cut there is nothing new to cut to.

3 Cut on reactions. Someone eager to join in generally shows it by looks and body movements. The lips begin to move before a sound is uttered. The sharpest cutting is the result of observation and anticipation. Waiting for someone to speak and then deciding to cut destroys the pace. As with any other kind of conversation the onlooker does not look from A to B on alternate questions and answers as though an interview were a tennis match. It is often more revealing to look at the reactions of the non-speaking party. Creative cutting cannot be learnt from a book. A large part of it is intuitive. If the director's attention instinctively switches from one contributor to another, there is the precise point to cut.

4 Motivate the cuts. It is wrong to think that frantically cutting back and forth or randomly changing shot sizes will add excitement to a lacklustre interview. Overcutting just draws attention to dull material. It also can destroy the concentration of the viewers on the subject matter. As sensitive cutting anticipates the precise psychological point where the viewer wants to change the point of view, rapid overcutting virtually implies that the director is seeing the world under the influence of controlled chemical substances. The pace of the interview itself ought to control the rhythm of the cutting, not the artistic pretensions of the director.

5 Zoom in vision only when an answer is clearly going to last long enough to cover the entire length of the move. A slow zoom to a closer shot can be effective but needs to be motivated by a heightening of interest or tension. A zoom out is only really effective at the conclusion of an interview or when a guest springs a surprise by producing some object or starts to move agitatedly whilst on camera. It leaves a director with egg all over the face if a slow dramatic zoom to a close-up of a guest is attempted and the guest stops talking before the end of the move. If in doubt the studio director should do as a single camera director does and only change shot size when the subject is out of vision.

6 Priority should be given to the guest when shots are being progressively tightened. This means that the shot of the guest should be tightened first and the one of the interviewer to match it second. Conversely at a change of subject or the end of the interview the shot on the interviewer should be widened first either by a zoom out or a cut from the close-up of the guest to a two-shot.

7 Avoid cutting from matching two-shot to two-shot. It may work in television studio drama, particularly with tight over-the-shoulder shots, but cutting between the loose two-shots appropriate to the normal interview often results in apparent jump cuts. This can be comic if the designer has helpfully put a pot plant or the like in the middle of the set. On each cut the flower pot will leap across the screen.

Two and more guests, two and more cameras

Most of what is described above refers to one-plus-one or one-plus-two interviews shot with two or three cameras. These are the likeliest set-ups the beginner is likely to encounter. The rules governing simple interviews are the same as for complex ones as well as studio discussions. Seating plans and cutting will still be dictated by the subject matter and style of programme. The range of shots available will be determined largely by the number of cameras available, as well as the skill of the director in moving them about during the interview. No two interviews or two studio set-ups will ever be identical. A selection of suggested seating arrangements with possible choices of available shots are shown in Appendix A at the back of the book.