Shooting Remotely - Interview from Overseas

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Paul F

Veteran
I'd like to know if anyone has done interviews in a country other than their own by hiring a local crew to do the shooting with the interviewer being remote? I'm wondering how well this would work. I'm thinking that if I were to prescribe a lighting, camera, and audio setup desired, I could do the interview remotely. There could be a video linkup between me and the location so the interviewer could see me as I ask the questions.

Yes, there is the issue of perhaps the person being interviewed feeling a bit insulted or otherwise put off by such a method. I'm wondering how feasible it is and what things would make this work or not work.
 
Paul F said:
There could be a video linkup
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It might work but a big issue is the quality of the internet at each location. Skype/FaceTime etc are not great at the best of times.

As to the person being insulted; I don't see why. TV networks do interviews like this so you should be fine.
 
I do it all the time for broadcasters in Europe and Asia, India. We skype and I set up an IFB for the interviewee and sometimes a second skype for control room directions if the other end is a studio based show and the interview will be packaged. I don't usually use the video portion of skype as it is somewhat distracting and most people are media savvy enough to look where you ask them. Sometimes I will ask someone to sit opposite in an interviewers postion for eyeline.. depends. But it is done all the time. My last one was with Priyanka Chopra from the show Quantico for India Time TV in Delhi.
If I can help please flip me a message,happy to share my experiences with you.
 
Brian, The broadcast version of this makes sense to me. It is usually a news item. I suspect the interviews mostly are rather brief. I'm wondering if this can be extended to a documentary piece where the interview may go on for an hour or two. In the scenario I have in mind, the interview is much more personal; I'm trying to get someone to be personable, candid, and not 'on TV'. There is a need to try to forget the camera and tell a story. I'm trying to have it both ways. I feel compelled to travel to get that one-on-one warmth and I may have to do that. I'd like to hear more from you and others if my scenario can work.
 
Paul there is no denying that you can't beat being there... As for brief well no, actually in my case rarely are they brief and me on location shooting for 5 hour call is about as brief as I have done with "content" running 30-60 minutes depending. But so much of how they go depends on everthing, coming together. I think you may find some people comfortable and some not . Best of luck!
 
Ya, I've done phoners/tape-syncs as crew, field producer, and not-on-set producer/interviewer. Including for some long interviews. More and more interviewees are comfortable with this. Academics, politicians, biz execs, etc because they do it for TV News. Normal people because of Skype, FaceTime, etc. It's not optimal, but my anecdotal experience suggests it's perceived as less offensive than in the past.

These days in my small world, it's often a PA or field producer sitting in the interviewer's chair to help the interviewee establish and maintain an eyeline with interviewer on speakerphone. Sometimes a laptop with the face of the remote interviewer shown via Skype or whatever. Or sometimes a teleprompter/Interrotron sort of think like Errol Morris and others use.

Key thing for me is to establish rapport with the interviewee... Like doing a pre-interview chat a couple days beforehand, then a call directly to the person just before to go over the particulars, say hi again. Then when you're doing the interview, it's the 3rd actual talk (vs just emails) for the two of you.
 
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