How close should the camera be?

[Brian Luce]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

Professional interviewers normally give huge amounts of eye contact and often positive feed back (nodding),

100% agree. The guy who trained me always harped on this, keep stroking them. Even if they screw up and you want them to repeat it say "Oh that's was really good, but if you could just say it one more time but this time mention XYZ..." or whatever.

Also, to this end, make sure your lighting doesn't blind the interviewer or interviewer, again, you want that rapport. A white hot tungsten backlight burning out the interviewer's corneas won't help anyone.

Lastly, I like talking to the interviewee before the shoot, let the know what will happen, establish the rapport then, not when the camera is rolling. But don't talk too long, I've literally burnt out an interview by spending too much time on the pre interview.

[Robert M Wright]

You know, aside from Brian just mentioning burning out corneas perhaps not being the best of ideas, lighting hasn't been brought up here (by the OP, or anyone else). That's a major big deal - just way more important than whether the camera is 6 feet away or 10 feet away.

[Brian Drysdale]

The lighting style will be a creative decision depending on the nature of the production. Whatever is decided, it shouldn't distract from the story or the information the interviewee is telling. Basically don't do glamour photo stuff with glowing hair lights if the interviewee is telling a gritty hard hitting tale of war amd death in Iraq or wherever and you know they could emotionally breakdown half way through.

It can be an extremely simple or a complex lighting set up, but it must match the overall style of the production and the story.

[Adam Gold]

Originally Posted by Robin Davies-Rollinson

I'd set the camera further back (at least ten feet if your location allows it) which will help to throw the background out of focus if you want to concentrate more on your interviewee..

That's exactly backwards. The further you are from the subject, the deeper your DoF and therefore the sharper your BG will be. If you want the BG out of focus then you need to get closer, not farther... with all the risks detailed in other posts from getting too close.

Remember any shallower Dof achieved by zooming in is compensated for by the increased distance to the subject. Generally, for a given image size of the subject in the frame, the DoF is always the same at the same f-stop.

[Kevin Lewis]

Bring a monitor with you, have them look off camera and use the rule of thirds. If you dont have a monitor use a small flat screen tv to hook your camera up to. This will take the guess work out of it. You wil be able to see exactly what your getting. Just keep in mind that the aspect ration on a tv is slightly different then a regular monitor. So if your using the tv, it may look like an undesirable object is slightly out of frame but when you play back in your computer it may still be there. And dont forget to white balance.