Week 6 — Studio Interview Lab

This week is the Interview Lab for the Group Project. We will work in a controlled studio environment to record interview-based performances that emphasize cinematic presence, voice, and listening.

The goal is not to capture information, opinions, or polished answers. The goal is to capture presence: how a person inhabits time, space, silence, and speech on camera.

Project Context: Group Project (15%)

In this group project, the class collaborates on a shared studio production focused on cinematic presence and voice. Students will record a series of interview-based performances using a consistent studio setup emphasizing framing, lighting, camera position, and clean sound.

All footage will be shared with the class. Each student will later create their own 1–2 minute montage, shaping meaning through editing, sound, color, rhythm, and structure.

In Class: What We Will Cover

Camera

• Manual exposure and white balance
• Lens choice and focal length for faces
• Camera height, distance, and perspective
• Maintaining focus and image stability
• How small framing shifts change presence

Microphone & Sound

• Microphone placement for voice clarity
• Monitoring levels and avoiding distortion
• Recording clean room tone
• Minimizing handling noise and clothing rustle

Lighting

• Key, fill, and back light for faces
• Controlling contrast and shadow
• Separating subject from a dark background
• Keeping lighting consistent across multiple subjects

Interviewing

• Open-ended prompts rather than scripted questions
• Allowing silence and hesitation to remain
• Listening rather than steering answers
• Letting the subject speak in their own rhythm
• Thinking ahead to editing: pauses, beginnings, endings

Errol Morris and Cinematic Interviews

This lab takes inspiration from the interview style of documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. Morris treats interviews not as informational exchanges, but as cinematic events.

Key characteristics of his approach:

• Direct address to the camera, creating an intense sense of presence
• Extended duration—letting people speak, pause, and think
• Attention to voice, cadence, and hesitation
• Minimal interruption; meaning emerges through editing, not questioning
• Silence and stillness are treated as expressive elements

In Morris’s work, interviews are not explanations. They are raw material for montage, juxtaposition, and thought.

Studio Exercise

One Subject, Many Decisions

Working in small rotating teams, you will:

• Set white balance and exposure manually
• Choose a lens intentionally
• Light the subject for clarity and mood
• Adjust framing and posture without changing location
• Record short interview responses with attention to silence

Observe how each decision alters presence and tone.

Viewing

We will use Fast, Cheap & Out of Control as a reference for cinematic interviews, listening, and editorial construction of voice.