What are talking head interviews?

What are talking head interviews?

There are many different ways to shoot interviews, one of the ways is to use a method called talking heads. The talking head interview is an effective way of formally communicating to an audience and can be easily varied for the purpose of the video.

This style can be changed to make your final videos more compelling viewing for whoever it is watching, a small and effective adjustment is to have two cameras cutting between two different perspectives, this will keep your audience engaged and therefore less likely to get bored.

Your location is important, depending on what you’re filming, you should try and make the background as relevant as possible, this allows the watchers to piece together what the person being interviewed is actually talking about. It is important you take lighting and sound into consideration when a venue is chosen, ideally if you’re able to recce it first to gauge whether you may encounter any problems and if so you’re able to find solutions before the date of filming.

Vox pops are another way of shooting interviews; ‘Vox pop’ is a Latin phrase coming from Vox populi, which means “Voice of the People”. This is a slightly more informal way of interviewing and usually isn’t scripted, it offers fresh viewpoints and feedback. When we're on conferences we tend to use vox pops to our advantage by getting people straight out of sessions to discuss different aspects of what happened, what went well and what could've been done differently, it's an effective way of getting constructive criticism for your speakers. 

Much like talking heads, you always have the option to do a standard interview setup where both the interviewee and questioner are in the same shot together. This is particularly good for when the speaker isn't too confident on camera, a good interviewer will be able to subtly guide them back on their thought-path.