How to Light a corporate interview – Working with Fountain 1.30.24

In the beginning of 2024, FONDU, a new potential client, reached out to HUSTL Media with a request to take care of corporate interview video production for a tech client of theirs – Fountain.

FONDU found us via a direct online search for Las Vegas Interview Video production services. Their client was going to host an annual get together in Las Vegas, bringing their entire staff to Vegas and wanted to take care of the opportunity and knock out some corporate interviews to take care of their marketing needs down the line, and also to build a sort of a library of reference videos.

Basically the idea was to grab a few key players in the company and ask them a couple of marketing and sales questions – in the light of – Why should companies chose Fountain? or – What makes Fountain’s approach unique in the industry? that sort of thing.

We decided to do a quick meet and greet with FONDU over zoom to better understand the deliverables, the work out the logistics and to work out an appropriate budget to take care of things.

Zoom call is a great opportunity for us to also walk the client through some of the challenges that may arise during the production. For example if the client wants to shoot say 10 interviews throughout the day and wants to keep the look consistent then it’s better to not have windows in the interview space at all and to keep all the lighting consistent. For our purposes the client had booked a conference space inside Park MGM , just off the Las Vegas strip.

Here at HUSTL Media we get a lot of requests to film corporate or executive interviews, so we have a pretty good grasp on what to watch out for and how they should look, and we always communicate that to our clients.

Once everything is set, we do final camera prep and get all the gear ready. Another great advantage for the client of going with HUSTL Media is that we keep all the necessary production and film equipment in house, saving client the time and the hassle for needing to source anything else out.

This is how we roll onto the set. You see a production car filled with camera and lighting equipment.

Once we get into the actual space, the first order of business is to find out how much time we have to set everything up. From camera blocking to setting up lighting and putting in finishing touches everything has to be taken into consideration.

This is for corporate video interviews so the look much be modern, professional, not too moody, pleasing and incorporating company colors to a certain extent.

Preference is always given to shooting lengthwise into the room for maximum depth of field. That creates usually a more pleasing image with more traditional lead lines.

We start off with placing 2 chairs in the room. Then depending on which side the cameras go, the big key light, in this case it’s the Aputure 600D Pro goes onto the opposite side. Notice the 5ft softbox on the key light, usually the larger the soft box or the diffusion, the better the interview talent will look.

On the other side and opposite of the key light in the background goes the hair light. The purpose of the hair light is to separate the subject from the background making him or her pop.

Since corporate interviews in Las Vegas or Henderson traditionally do not need to be moody, i.e. dark, we definitely need to add a back light source. In this case we place Aputure 120D w/ a small softbox and some grid on that to control the light spill.

Notice also a 3rd light on the left side of the frame shooting into the ceiling. The purpose of that light is to lift up the shadows and bringing the overall light tone of the image up.

So as you can see every light during the interview or actually any sort of a video production has a purpose.

In the reverse angle you can see that there are light tubes placed on the floor as well. Those are to light some parts of the image and upgrade the overall aesthetic of the image.
Final Shot A-Cam

Final Shot B-Cam

So overall there are more considerations that go into filming interviews be it for corporate or entertainment purposes. If you need to shoot interviews in Las Vegas or Henderson Nevada or surrounding areas at least now you know what to expect. Reach out to us at 702 980 9620 and we will get you taken care of. Hit up HUSTL Media today.