So, I wanted to start performing interviews to make our company’s goals more apparent as well as adding a personal touch.

A great way to get professional video on a budget:

• Find a quiet closed off room with no air ducts or constant buzzing sounds
• Use a DSLR for video
• Make your own lights (use the same color of bulb and 3 point lighting techniques)
• Purchase green felt for behind the subject, Premiere and after effects makes it super easy to change their setting
• Take crisp photos of interesting place in the office (and outside the office) you could have conducted the interview for backgrounds and intro/fillers.
• Set up multiple (2-3) angles even if you use a phone camera as an extra, it makes for a much more interesting video when you can switch views throughout the video.
• Practice interviewing someone before the real interview(s) This is one of the most important steps because you want to answer a question that interests your viewers, not subject them to a long drawn out ‘look how smart the CEO is’ video.
• Apply translucent powder to the interviewees face, even guys. This will remove glares and shines from the nose forehead and cheeks.
• Use a video host like Wistia so you don’t have to worry about your video loading properly on different mediums. (Yes I use Wistia, not trying to advertise them but look at their learning section!)

I have had plenty of issues starting what I thought would be easy. Here are a few things I wish I would have known before starting this project:

• Phones like the Nokia Lumia or the Iphone or even the Galaxy S4 can be used for different angles, but it is a major PITA to get all of the video aligned when stopping every 5 minutes because of the 2GB Fat32 limitations. (Multi-Camera editing) So you might want to ask if anyone has a video camera you could use, even if it is consumer level.
• Make a loud clapping sound at the end of every take you found amazingly interesting so it is easy to find when editing. (look for the audio wave form that goes all the way to the top)
• Don’t be afraid to re-ask the same question to get more insight. (If you felt there was a weird eye twitch or it just did not feel right, then you are probably right, get more video!)
• Assure every camera is properly recording sound, without sound you have to match all of the videos by hand, the new Adobe Premiere CC has the ability to align videos by their sound tracks, saving hours if not days of time.