C300: Interview Demo Reel (100 Samples, 100 Seconds)

Eric Coughlin

Eric Coughlin

Veteran
My updated Interview Demo Reel. Mostly shot as a one-man-band.

Comments and constructive criticism welcome.




And here is my previous Interview Demo Reel, for reference.

 
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Hi Eric:

First of all, nice work, you shoot good interviews.

Notes:
1. Too much stuff on Catholicism. At least some of your potential clients are atheists or practice other religions and some do not like the Catholic Church. Nothing wrong with showing some of that work but it feels like there is a lot of it in your reel, which for some, may be a turn off. Not for me, I think it's fine but these days, you have to think about this stuff as a business decision.
2. Lose the spokesperson stuff. It's not interview. If I click on an interview reel, seeing spokeperson shots feels disjointed
3. Sameness - this is different than style but I would like to see at least a few interview shots that are handheld, rougher, moving, perhaps a bit more stylized (got any Fisheye, Go Pro, super wide angle or stuff shot from a long distance with a 300mm lens up above the subject?) perhaps a bit less lit, composed, smooth slower moves and "polite". I make documentaries and some of my best stuff was shot in a car, on the deck of a boat, on a beach or in a restaurant, guerilla style. Seeing a few that show what you can do in more difficult or physically challenging situations would be nice. My aim since last year was to get more "real" shots into my documentaries, fewer "sit-down, well lit, multi-camera, polite interviews" if that makes sense? This may not matter for your potential clients, I don't know, but for me, it's more of a storytelling style. We did a lot of walk and talks, technically interviews, with Sergio Mendes, walking down the street of a Favela in Rio, I shot a few interviews with my main documentary subject sitting on some half completed plywood stairs at his new distillery, I shot an amazing interview in a car while my subject was driving at 5:00 AM while it was dark with just a tiny on-camera light, stuff like that. To me, everything here, other than a few of the outdoor school ones, feels very "safe", there isn't much that is edgier or has more visual variety? It all feels very "nice three point lighting, multi camera w Rhino Motion with a 50mm to 85mm FOV" if you know what I mean?

Thanks for sharing, as I said, good work, you are a talented DP, I am just nit picking and offering suggestions. I didn't shoot this but I really like how this little promo for one of my favorite singers was put together, all of the interviews look pretty on the fly/available light and there is an authenticity to the image that would provide a nice contrast to your beautifully lit, more carefully composed stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZRwD-KqGaw
 
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I get what Dan is saying and like him, I do not have a personal problem with the Catholic and religious based interviews, but it does feel like I'm being "preached to", in a way, or there is an agenda with your reel in pushing Catholicism out on the "viewer"(potential client viewing your reel). I've been to your website before and it seems that shooting for the Catholic church is a major part of your client base and therefore work, so it only makes sense that that is going to be a big part of your reel, since that is the majority of your work(at least it seems). But the same could be said about sports related content/interviews on mine. Personally, I think some of the interviews do not cut well between the different angles/focal lengths. And I understand sometimes the client or producer wants multiple angles when they're not necessary(and can compromise the main angle) just because they want it to "seem" like there is a lot of production value from having multiple cameras, but it doesn't always work. Now, I am a big fan of wide shots to show off an environment, but a lot of your wides are just too wide and don't do anything for me. To me, the Benedictine Monk was just weird. The low angle wide moving shot cutting to an even wider wide shot was jarring. And the Nun in the kitchen(?) was too wide and I felt there was no reason to have three shots shots on her and nothing was gained except "hey we have three cameras". I think a much less wide shot and a tight shot would have worked much better. I thought your more solid multi-cam interviews(as far as shots cutting) were the two camera interviews: the two-cam(wide/tight) of the guy in the classroom/meeting room at :37 and the lady in the office(1:05). The three cam that worked the best was the "network style" interview with the "reporter" and the hockey player. To me, all of the three cam "Catholic" interviews just felt like they were too wide on the wide shot and jumped around jarringly on the cuts between the cameras, especially when you start out with the eye-line/gaze way off screen, like with the Priest in the church. The first two angles, his eye-line is looking way off to the side and finally on the last cut to the third shot his eye-line/gaze lines up where you would want/expect it to, to engage the viewer. Those all could have been two camera wide/tight or medium/tight and they would have cut and flowed much better. I liked your 'old' reel better, because it had a lot more single and double camera interviews, as opposed to the three camera ones that (mostly)didn't work for me.
 
Great work man. I agree with the above, so I won't beat a dead horse. Dan stated earlier that you should strive in the future to "challenge" yourself with more difficult or "moody" shots. I totally agree. I also do alot of interviews, and I forced myself to start watching more documentaries that are on the fly and noticed there was alot more creativity in those organic set ups. Your work is very good, keep it up man.
 
Agreed about losing the host footage since it's an interview reel.

Your style is very consistent, so I think if you send this to a potential client they should have a very clear picture of what they can expect (and that's a good thing)

The flash frames go by too quickly for me. I'd suggest just picking out a few more of your favorites and put them in the quick cuts montage right before the flash frames and just cut out the flash frames section.

Good job!
 
I think he does a lot of work for Catholic Church clients (i.e maybe more than other clients), hence the abundance of that material on the reel.
 
For the Catholic projects since I typically produce them (unlike most of the rest of my work which is freelance camerawork), it means I'll bring out the kitchen sink as far as equipment goes and try to create the best looking interviews I can, as opposed to freelance client jobs, where I'm just bringing the equipment I'm hired with and also sometimes have to follow the producer's desires as far as look and setup. So, since I tend to think the Catholic projects look better, more of them ended up in the reel, not so much because most of my work is Catholic media. There's probably around six or seven Catholic interviews in the reel, out of 100 interviews; it just feels more prominent because they're more early on during the longer audio segments. But I certainly see your point and will see if I can slim them down some. It probably doesn't help that the audio portion of the reel also starts and ends with Catholic interviews.

Not sure I have much of the nitty gritty interviews in my portfolio at the moment. I can see how those can work for documentaries, but you think it works for corporate type work? I only do a couple or few actual documentaries a year, often dictated by the producer, so not sure how well that'd incorporate into my work. The Catholic work I have full freedom with, so being documentary style perhaps I'll try to get more unique with those setups, which I've thought of doing before. It just always seems like a risk to try something completely different! I do certainly want to try something less formal. I think a lot of it has to do more with how you position the interview. Sitting up straight in a chair tends to be more formal than say, sitting on the floor in a relaxed position. In the link you linked to, she's sitting at a table with items on the table, which makes it feel less formal. Can't say I think those interviews look all that good, though, what with her lav mic's cable sloppily hanging out, and the guy having no depth behind him. I feel like there'd be an art to getting interviews that look informal, but still look good in general.

As far as not having lighting, multiple cameras, etc., from a business marketing standpoint, it makes more sense to market an interview style that requires a lot of equipment since I charge based on how much gear I'm booked with. Sometimes a client will say, "I like your multi-camera setup in your reel. Can I get a quote for a two camera setup?" I have my share of interviews such as at conferences which are more on the fly with no additional lighting, which some of those are in the reel, but as those often don't look as good I didn't concentrate on those as much. And sometimes I'll have a light for run n' gun interviews, which tend to make them look better, and thus more likely to end up in the reel.

I do have some handheld interviews, but not a whole lot. There's two or three in there, during the quicker segments. As I'm often a one-man-band, handholding makes it more difficult to also manage audio and lighting, and particularly difficult to manage multiple cameras (not that I've ever handheld an interview alone with multi-cam).


The two-wide Monk shot I do have a tight of as well, which I didn't use in the edit. I rather like how the wides look. If anything, I'd actually like to try some wider shots, showing full body instead of cutting off at the shins. I feel like wider makes it less generic, shows more of an interesting location, and just comes across as higher end. The three camera setup of course is often edited different in the final pieces. For example, you can use just one or two shots for each time you cut from the b-roll to the interviewee, as opposed to all three at once. Then when you cut back to them at a later period in the edit, you can show a whole new angle without having to blend it with the other two shots at the same time. For the sake of the demo reel I sped up the cutting between angles to show them in a short 1 min 40 sec video. When shooting three cameras, I don't always use all the angles in the final edit; at the end of the day, it can't hurt to have filmed more angles since they're optional to use. The monk interviews I've been filming more recently and at times I was tempted to bring out a fourth camera, though I've kept it to three so far. One interview angle I've seen but haven't tried yet is a profile shot, completely from the side, as opposed to at an angle.
 
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Make sure you "wow" people with those first 10 or 15 seconds, then don't lose them after that.
Try not to be repetitious. Show some variety to "wake 'em up".
 
Some really nice work in there Eric.

By the sounds of it you're after hiring out your equipment and pushing yourself as a DP. I would either have separate reels i.e. one that shows your best lighting, one that shows multi cam, one that shows documentary/fast paced, or have one reel with your best lighting and multi cam set ups. I don't know how much work those interviews from a busy convention center are doing for you. I wouldn't want them mixed in with my stronger visual set ups, you run the risk of being associated with that type of work. This may be fine but that doesn't seem like your goal? A producer will see your higher end lighting set ups and know you can always shoot something less polished.

I'm a fan of a grid of videos - multiple faces working together! The bottom of my site shows what I mean.
 
I sometimes have convention or run n' gun style clients watch my reel and ask, "But can you shoot run n' gun interviews?" Of course the answer is yes, but the point is it's good to have more than just highly stylized interviews in the reel, hence why I put some lower quality/less stylized/less lit looking convention shots in the reel. I think clients also like having to not watch a lot of videos to get a sense of a cameraman's capabilities, as only needing to watch one video is generally more time efficient for the busy producer/client.

I like shooting events. I just like shooting video. So, as long as the client is paying, it often doesn't make much difference to me what I'm shooting as I'll enjoy it either way. Can't really say I aspire to just do higher end DP work as I'll just shoot whatever comes my way. I like diversity. The convention shoots do tend to be a bit lower paying, but there is still good money from them and I do perhaps 10 or so per year. Perhaps if I keep moving up I'll price myself out of their range, but I doubt it as I still see F55's with 17-120's, Red, etc., at events, so the budgets for events are still there.

Your interviews do looks really good, Rob. Glad you're not in my market! :)

What is your typical camera and key light setup?

I'd like to start incorporating a book light, or just a softer key in general, but don't feel my Astras are up to the task. Skypanel is perhaps a bit much for a one-man-band, but the Litepanels Gemini I've got my eye on.
 
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Don't let the higher-end cameras at an event fool you. The video world is full of guys that have expensive gear and charge DSLR prices. Not saying that's always the case, but it happens.

I've been thinking of designing a quick set-up, "one-piece" fold-out book-light set-up. Westcott or someone makes a book-light kit, but it still looks pretty unwieldy, especially for just one person.
 
Run&Gun said:
Don't let the higher-end cameras at an event fool you. The video world is full of guys that have expensive gear and charge DSLR prices. Not saying that's always the case, but it happens.

I've been thinking of designing a quick set-up, "one-piece" fold-out book-light set-up. Westcott or someone makes a book-light kit, but it still looks pretty unwieldy, especially for just one person.
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I’m always a little suspect when I see people covering events with $50k-$100k large sensor digital cinema camera. Kind of the wrong tool for the job IMHO. Makes me wonder if the shooter knows what they’re doing. They could know what they’re doing, but I agree, but many users with expensive gear don’t know what they’re doing.
 
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Run&Gun said:
Don't let the higher-end cameras at an event fool you. The video world is full of guys that have expensive gear and charge DSLR prices. Not saying that's always the case, but it happens.
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I feel like it's a bit camera dependent. I know plenty of Red guys who go out with their $20-$30k Red camera setup for peanuts. These are also often the guys sporting their Rokinon lens kit. But say a Sony F55 or Arri Amira, I don't see many owners of those going out for peanuts. Red is more of an indie oriented camera, where budgets are low, but the work may be more consistent with a 10-20 day feature shoot. So when some low budget corporate job comes along and offers the same low rate, say $500-$800 for a one day shoot with the Red, the Red guy, used to making $500 per day on the feature films, may happily go for it. Meanwhile, the F55 corporate shooter guy used to making around $2200 per day and not doing much in terms of 20 day shoots, laughs at $500 per day. The F55, not fitting much into the low budget indie film world, and getting a lot of work in the higher paying broadcast worlds, thus would lead me to believe the F55's I occasionally see at events with 17-120's on them are not at those events on the cheap.

Interestingly I had a producer who hired me tell me that owning the expensive Canon cinema zooms was an indication to him that I'd be more likely to know what I was doing, as he said some people just buy a camera brand without having other experience and quality gear to go with it.

Sometimes I do worry though that my Arri camera is better than my reel. The higher end camera you own, the higher the expectation that your work meets higher end quality.

This was one of the bigger events I filmed recently. We did this video to promote the event for the event company that hired us. Wasn't a huge budget and I was hired with my C100 package, but there was a second crew there, perhaps working directly for Pitbull (not sure), which consisted of a Steadicam guy (Mike McGowan, probably the top Steadicam op in Florida, with his $40k rig), Red camera, Anegeniux zoom, 1st AC pulling focus wirelessly, and a second cam op with a C300 Mark II. Then you also had the third crew for TV with a second high end Steadicam op with his $40k rig, a Jimmy Jib, those $100-$200k telephoto lenses that sports use, etc.



Here's a video I filmed of our gear room for our crew at a conference I was a camera op for a couple years ago. Kind of a fun video to watch as you keep seeing more and more gear. The video company I worked with for that has since gotten an Amira and 17-120 as well, which they commonly use at events with their Red, 3 C300 Mark IIs, and C200. There were 24,000 people at that event, we were the primary crew, but I did run into another crew with an Amira.


I ran into another high end Steadicam guy who does high end DP work as well (second unit DP on The Martian), filming an event at Disney with his Red, Angeniux zoom, and higher end gimbal setup.

I've made good money from some event gigs. As I'd said, on average they're lower (but still decent) paying, and are more likely to book a C100 package than say a C300 or Amira package, but the bigger events often have good budgets.



Run&Gun said:
I've been thinking of designing a quick set-up, "one-piece" fold-out book-light set-up. Westcott or someone makes a book-light kit, but it still looks pretty unwieldy, especially for just one person.
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I feel like you need a more powerful key light to pull off the book light, assuming you don't want to shoot at ISO 2500 at f/2.8. Even a Skypanel for a book light may not get you to f/5.6 (not that I have an issue with f/4, but sometimes I prefer f/5.6). One nice thing about the Gemini is how easy they are to stack, so if you get two of them you can have an ergonomic 650w LED light. As far as I know Wescott's most powerful light is 200w, which to me would seem rather limiting as a key for a book light.

I've thought about buying those extra large collapsible reflectors to use for a book light setup.

This was an attempt of mine at a book light setup. I packed light for that shoot, so am using a chair and a wagon to hold up my reflector and diffusion since I had limited light stands. Actually wasn't supposed to be filming any interviews on that shoot and had a last minute impromptu interview asked for by the client.

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bill totolo said:
You definitely don't need Sky Panels. A 1K open face into bead board or unbleached mus will look even better.
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Well, I haven't really done enough book lights (like zero, or once if you count the above photo) to know for sure how much output you'd need, so I'm sure you know better than me. I imagine a 1K open face is brighter than an Astra, particularly the older 4X's I have. I suppose I could use two Astras. After getting used to working with LEDs it's hard to go back to using tungsten lights.


bill totolo said:
You definitely don't need Sky Panels.
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Skypanels are so in right now. Gotta stay cool. A friend of mine in Atlanta just finished working lighting on Avengers; said they used about 200 Skypanels for it.
 
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puredrifting said:
I’m always a little suspect when I see people covering events with $50k-$100k large sensor digital cinema camera. Kind of the wrong tool for the job IMHO. Makes me wonder if the shooter knows what they’re doing. They could know what they’re doing, but I agree, but many users with expensive gear don’t know what they’re doing.
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What makes you think it's the wrong tool for the job? Too large, heavy, and lacking in autofocus for event work? Plenty of people use Sony cameras for events without good auto-focus. And the broadcast style setup of an Amira or F55 is rather similar to smaller sensor broadcast cameras which used to be the staple of event work.

Not saying I disagree with you, but budget aside, am interested in your reasoning behind not wanting a high end camera on an event shoot.

I personally often prefer the C100s (over both the Amira and C300s) for events due to their small size and weight. But I suppose if I had a good crew to support me and/or was trying for the best quality, instead of ease of use, I'd go with the higher end camera.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
What makes you think it's the wrong tool for the job? Too large, heavy, and lacking in autofocus for event work? Plenty of people use Sony cameras for events without good auto-focus. And the broadcast style setup of an Amira or F55 is rather similar to smaller sensor broadcast cameras which used to be the staple of event work.

Not saying I disagree with you, but budget aside, am interested in your reasoning behind not wanting a high end camera on an event shoot.

I personally often prefer the C100s (over both the Amira and C300s) for events due to their small size and weight. But I suppose if I had a good crew to support me and/or was trying for the best quality, instead of ease of use, I'd go with the higher end camera.
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Size and weight along with imager size. To me, in many events, it's pointless trying to make everything have shallow DOF when that takes more time to focus, small imagers have much deeper DOF which means less messing with focus and it's all about variety and coverage typically. You quickly need establishing, wide, medium and CU of everything (I typically edit my own event coverage, unless there is a larger budget to have an editor) so I approach event coverage as an editor as much as a shooter. I shot at E3 (worlds largest video gaming convention) in LA last year for Nintendo, used my fully rigged C100 and overall, I was wishing I had a fixed lens servo zoom camera like a DVX-200, or an ENG/B4 lens camera, either would have worked better. My friend was editing this event live on site as I was shooting so we were posting finished little segments for Nintendo an hour after I shot them, it was crazy, high pressure. It's similar to what you said about above about having your Amira pre-rigged and ready to go. Canon cameras and the like take too many bits and pieces and have too many things hanging off of them, a shoulder mount servo zoom, smaller imager camera is a better tool, at least for this type of event. I was literally almost crowd surfing at points, I was charged with getting "in the crowd" coverage where I was often having to hold the C100 rig up above my head, pointing down at hundreds of video game nerds around me, playing the new games Nintendo premiered. The whole time, I was thinking, "Man, I should have borrowed a shoulder mount XD-CAM or something like that" from a friend. The C100 worked but it was really a duck out of water.

I know the events you are talking about above are different, I can only base my observations off of my own experience. I hate shooting events personally, but when it's slow, it's a paying gig. To me, the deep DOF of smaller imagers is more important than AF at events because I am often just getting wide shots while walking through and wading through crowds, there is no single subject to focus on, I just need everything to be in focus, selective focus isn't that important until I am shooting Mediums and CUs and then, manual focus is usually fine. C100 MKI, of course, had no face detection and zone AF was so so but the one touch worked in the convention above. The size and weight on the Canons are good but by the time I use Zacuto VCT Pro, rods, handles, grip relocator, external recorder and or EVF, etc. my little 2.2lb C100 is up to 13-15lbs. Add on a couple of wireless mic receivers and easily 15-18lbs. A servo zoom smaller camera will weigh about the same but will have superior ergonomics for this type of shooting and it won't take me an hour to rig up and break down and have a bunch of snag points all over the camera and external cables like the C100 or my C200 do.

I have rarely had support crew beyond a sound mixer occasionally, at event shoots.
 
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Most of my event work involves shooting promos style videos. Basically, interviews and b-roll. Shallower (say f/2.8-f/5.6, so not super shallow) interviews on a large sensor camera tend to look better. For b-roll, it depends. Shallow can help some shots, others are better with deep depth of field. I think when comparing a large sensor camera to a small sensor camera people talk too much about the depth of field differences and ignore that a large sensor cameras has better image quality - dynamic range, colors, sharpness, low light, etc. I have not seen any DVX200 footage that impressed me and as such I would not consider it acceptable image quality for most of the work I do. In other words, for most shoots, too great of a cost to pay for getting a deeper depth of field and all-in-one lens.

Since large sensor cameras are also better in low light, it means you can raise the ISO, stop them down, and still get a pretty deep depth of field when desired.

You still don't get an all-in-one servo lens, but I've yet to have a job that needed that, as typically interviews and b-roll allow time to change lenses, at least for how I shoot.

I can see how some shoots such as sports could rely more heavily on an all-in-one lens setup.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
1) I feel like it's a bit camera dependent. I know plenty of Red guys who go out with their $20-$30k Red camera setup for peanuts. These are also often the guys sporting their Rokinon lens kit. But say a Sony F55 or Arri Amira, I don't see many owners of those going out for peanuts. Red is more of an indie oriented camera, where budgets are low, but the work may be more consistent with a 10-20 day feature shoot. So when some low budget corporate job comes along and offers the same low rate, say $500-$800 for a one day shoot with the Red, the Red guy, used to making $500 per day on the feature films, may happily go for it. Meanwhile, the F55 corporate shooter guy used to making around $2200 per day and not doing much in terms of 20 day shoots, laughs at $500 per day. The F55, not fitting much into the low budget indie film world, and getting a lot of work in the higher paying broadcast worlds, thus would lead me to believe the F55's I occasionally see at events with 17-120's on them are not at those events on the cheap.

Interestingly I had a producer who hired me tell me that owning the expensive Canon cinema zooms was an indication to him that I'd be more likely to know what I was doing, as he said 2)some people just buy a camera brand without having other experience and quality gear to go with it.
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1)As much as we butt heads sometimes, I largely agree with most of that.

2)Yep. Thats why we have so many threads about "I need a $200 tripod for my RED", "I need a $150 monitor" and "I blew my whole budget on my RED Epic and don't have any money left for support gear or glass".

I feel sort of lucky to have started in this business when I did. There were a lot less choices and less "crap gear" to muddy the waters. There weren't "small" cameras and all of the super light-weigh support gear and "Chinese knock-offs". If you were serious, you were buying a Betacam and you were putting a Canon or Fuji ENG lens to put on it and you were using Anton Bauer batteries and you were buying a real tripod designed to handle a heavy payload from Vinten, Sachtler or O'connor. I'm not trying to be the "you kids get off my lawn" guy, but just saying there were only a few paths to take when buying gear, so you were more likely to end up with quality support gear to help you do the job properly.
 
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