How to Successfully Do a Long-Distance Interview

Doing long-distance interviews could be a lengthy and tedious process but here are some few tips and suggestions to ensure you have the best result possible under the circumstances.

Audio and Visuals

Audio

            It’s a bit of a challenge when you don’t have control or access to the audio and visual levels for your interview since the guest and the interviewer are not in the same physical space. Here are some suggestions to ensure your guest is fully prepared:

• Internal webcams often do not have the best quality visual or audio so it’s important to figure out what type of equipment your guest is using.
• If they are using an internal webcam, have your guest speak loudly and clearly. You can get away with lesser-quality video if you have a great foundation for audio. A trick is to ask your guest to use their phone (if they don’t have an external microphone at their disposal) and have it close to them but away from the shot. By this point, you’ll already begin recording the interview (it’s always important to roll several minutes before the start of the interview). Ask your guest to clap so that the video file and audio file will have a spike that could be used to sync up audio and visual.
• Ask your guest to email you the audio file and it’ll be used as back-up just in case the audio quality that the internal webcam isn’t the best.

-        If it’s possible, ensure your guest is at an area that is free from any possible audio distractions. If they have a laptop, ask them to move to a part of their home where it’s quieter. This won’t be that big of an issue since blips like that can be edited out. However, it will be more challenging to edit footage where there are continuous blips that go over the guest’s response to your questions.

Visuals

The screenshot here shows a great composition of your visual component of the interview. Composition is key. This is how the shot would look like if there was an interview happening in person following the rule of thirds, which consist of two imaginary lines going vertically and two lines going horizontally, both sets of lines running symmetrically.

Generally, the background of the shot is important because it helps set the subject and topic of the interview. However, since it’s a bit of a challenge to have your guest compose this shot by sitting to the left or right of the camera (which is faced in front of them and they’ll look at the computer screen too), it’s better to have them sit straight and in front of the camera in a plain background (like a wall).

It is essential that you turn off any and every notification you have installed/turned on through your computer for the time being. If it does happen, it can most likely be edited out, but do not count on it.

Video Recording Programs

When it’s time to record your computer screen, the recording program will take a lot of processing power out of your computer so it’s important to close (not minimize) all programs that are not being used strictly for the interview.

Here are some computer screen recording programs that I have found:

• 1      http://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/index.html
• 2      http://camstudio.org/
• 3      http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/win-screen-recording-softwares/ (these are a list of programs with their pros/cons)