Multi-camera Interview Set-ups in a Studio

A second camera on an interview is the cheapest edit insurance there is. It lets the editor shorten an answer without a visible jump, hide a sneeze, and give a long answer somewhere to go. A third camera buys a two-hander or a wide. Beyond that, every extra body costs more in matching and sound than it gives back in coverage.

This guide is about running two or three cameras on an interview in a small hire studio: what to match, where the line is, how to light and record both angles at once, and which of Scope's rooms suits which set-up.

One, two or three cameras

• One camera. A single talking head, where the edit will cover cuts with B-roll or graphics. Fine if the cutaways genuinely exist; if they do not, every trim is a jump cut.
• Two cameras. The standard interview rig. The A camera sits beside the interviewer in a mid-shot; the B camera is tighter or wider from a clearly different angle, at least 30 degrees round, so a cut between them reads as a decision rather than a glitch.
• Three cameras. Either a two-hander — a single on each person plus a wide that holds both — or a one-person interview with a wide, a mid and a close. The wide is the safety for when both singles have a problem at once.

Decide the number from the edit backwards: two is plenty for ninety seconds of soundbites; a forty-minute conversation watched in full wants three.

Matching cameras and lenses

Two cameras of different makes can be matched, but it costs time in the grade and never quite disappears, because sensors render skin differently. Two bodies of the same model with the same picture profile is the cheap way to make a cut invisible; if you must mix, put the odd camera on the wide, where the face is smallest.

Lenses matter as much as bodies: keep them from the same family so contrast and colour agree, and the apertures within a stop of each other so depth of field matches across the cut. Then lock the rest down identically — frame rate, shutter, sensitivity, a manual white balance in Kelvin, the same recording format — using the flicker-free settings in camera settings for studio shooting. Photograph the menu screens, and nobody touches a dial after the first take.

The line, for two-handers

Draw an imaginary line between the two people talking. Every camera lives on one side of it. Cross it and, on the cut, the person who was looking left is suddenly looking right. On a single-subject interview the line runs between the contributor and the interviewer, which is why the B camera goes further round on the interviewer's side rather than across to the other.

For a two-hander, the usual rig is a centred wide with a single on each person angled across the conversation, so each looks into frame towards the other. Check it on the monitors before the subjects sit down — A looks frame-right, B frame-left — and keep looking room and headroom the same in both singles.

Lighting two angles at once

Lighting for one camera makes the face read from one place; lighting for three makes it read from all of them without a lamp in anyone's frame. A soft, large key usually survives a second camera 30 to 45 degrees round, because its wrap is forgiving; a hard, small key does not. Start soft.

The practical problems are stands and backgrounds. A back light placed for the A camera is often in the B camera's shot, so go higher and further behind, and flag it. The background has to look considered from both positions, which is where a cove helps: Studio B's cyclorama has no edge for a second angle to find, and its colour wash reads the same from the mid as from the close. On a two-hander keyed from opposite sides, each key doubles as the other person's back light — the oldest trick in the rig. In every room but the DJ room, lights are charged separately from the room rate — please enquire about our lights and we will quote for what the set-up needs. The patterns are in studio portrait lighting explained.

Sound for multicam: lav, boom and timecode

Two cameras do not mean two sets of sound. It is recorded once, properly, and the cameras are aligned to it: a lav and a boom on each speaker, so a rustle on one is covered by the other, all into a single recorder.

• Timecode. Jam every camera and the recorder from the same source at the start of the day, and again after lunch, because clocks drift. The edit then syncs itself.
• No timecode. Clap on camera at the top of every take — a slate or a pair of hands in front of all lenses at once — and the editor syncs on the spike. Slower, and it works.
• Scratch audio. Feed each camera a reference track so a sync check is possible without the audio files.
• Room tone. Thirty seconds of silence from the empty room before the kit comes down.

The longer treatment is in sound for video in a studio.

Which room suits which set-up

Scope has three rooms that take an interview, and they divide along one axis: how much floor the cameras need against how much the sound matters.

• Studio B for sound. A room within a room, sound treated, blackout capable, with a colour-washable cove and an adjustable backdrop system. The room for any interview where the dialogue is the deliverable. £120 for two hours, £220 for a half day, £420 for a full day.
• Studio A for floor. 1,200 sq ft with a white drive-in infinity cove and full blackout, so three cameras, a dolly move or a dressed set all have room. It is not sound treated, so plan the dialogue around that: close mics and a willingness to record wild lines afterwards. £160 for two hours, £320 for a half day, £620 for a full day.
• The podcast room for a seated conversation. Acoustically treated and camera-ready, with professional microphones and audio interfaces already in the room, at a flat £40 an hour. The right room for a two-hander where everyone sits and the cameras are static.

Set-up and pack-down sit inside the booked time in every room, and three cameras take longer to rig than one. The whole card is on the rates page and the interview filming studio page has the comparison.

Match the cameras, record the sound once, and never cross the line. Everything else about multicam is just more stands to hide.

Monitoring and playback

With one camera the operator sees the shot. With three, somebody has to see all of them at once, or the drifting focus, the boom shadow on the B camera and the subject who has slid out of their single are discovered in the edit. Feed every camera to a monitor and give one person the job of watching; a director watching three frames is not directing the interview.

Play back the first take in full before the day runs on. Studio B has a dedicated edit and playback area for exactly this: check the cut between the angles, the eyelines on a two-hander and the sync against the recorder, and fix it now. For a day of many subjects, filming a corporate video in a studio covers the running order and planning a studio shoot day the call sheet.