Interview direction

A poorly filmed expert looks like an average expert.

I once filmed the CEO of a technology company while he answered in English, which was not his first language. During the opening minutes, he was no longer thinking about his market. He was thinking about his accent and imaginary sweat marks on his shirt. His expertise had not changed in the slightest. His attention had.

Your experts already know their subject. My job is not to teach them what to say, but to create the conditions for what they know to make it onto the screen.

Four principles ↓

Select

The right person for the right subject

Much of an interview is decided before anything is switched on.

The sales director knows the objections clients raise before signing. The engineer knows the constraints they had to solve. The product leader knows why a particular trade-off was made. The CEO can explain why the business invested in one direction rather than another. Credibility comes from someone who has lived what they are talking about.

Giving a subject to someone who only knows it from a distance produces generalities, learned language and audible caution. No amount of interview direction can fully rescue the wrong casting decision, because the problem was created two weeks earlier in the meeting where someone decided who would face the camera.

Twenty-seven years in the technology industry help me understand complex subjects quickly and identify who within the organisation has the most legitimate voice on each question.

What this changes The shoot is not spent discovering who should have been interviewed.

Reveal

The right conversation

The right expert can give a poor interview when asked the wrong questions.

“Could you introduce your solution?” invites a corporate answer, which is exactly what it gets. I look for something else: a decision, a difficulty, an objection heard in a sales meeting, a figure, a technical detail, the precise moment when something changed.

The aim is not to recite the company’s messages, but to find the places where those messages become true. That means knowing how to follow an answer rather than working through a questionnaire.

When an engineer says “it took a lot of work”, the useful question is rarely the next one on my list: why, what made it difficult, what did you do before, and above all, how do you know it works? The final question produces proof rather than opinion, which is what a salesperson needs when a client hesitates.

The sentence that gives the film its value is almost always hidden behind an ordinary first answer.

What this changes Your experts do not recite your brochure. They provide the evidence that makes it credible.

Protect

Protecting attention

A poorly designed shoot can make a highly competent person sound hesitant.

I therefore spend time removing whatever draws their attention away from the subject.

The return monitor

Seeing their own face makes people observe themselves instead of thinking. Attention leaves the subject and turns inward.

Hierarchy in the room

A manager’s presence can make language more cautious, answers more corporate and silences longer.

The memorised script

Memorising adds another task, not forgetting, which displaces the task that matters: explaining.

The countdown

“Three, two, one” creates an instant in which someone must suddenly perform. My camera is often running before the speaker thinks they have begun.

None of these rules is dogma. They all serve one principle: anything that needlessly pulls an expert’s attention back towards themselves should disappear.

What this changes Their mental energy remains available for thinking, explaining and telling the story.

Guide

Confidence before performance

Add useful reference points, not more things to monitor.

Showing someone who is already under pressure everything they are doing wrong does not improve their performance. It simply gives them more things to think about. My work as a Dale Carnegie trainer taught me to reverse that order.

I begin by naming precisely what works: “That example makes the problem immediately clear.” A concrete reference point gives someone something to build on. I then add rather than correct: “On the next one, keep that energy and take a little more time over the conclusion.” When the adjustment works, I say so immediately, so the person knows what to repeat.

Sometimes the best intervention is to say nothing. I let the opening answers exist, return to a question later and wait for the moment when the person stops translating their thoughts for the camera. They use their own language again, interrupt themselves to clarify a technical detail and their hands return to the conversation. They are no longer giving an interview. They are talking about their work.

What this changes Your experts recognise themselves in the film, and your teams want to use it.

The camera comes last

A credible interview does not come from asking someone to act naturally.

It comes from a sequence: the right person, the right conversation, the right environment and the right guidance.

Understanding a technical subject and knowing how to draw someone out are two distinct skills. Everything that happens before the camera determines what it records, what your prospects understand and what your teams can use afterwards.

Do you have experts whose voices need to be heard?

Let’s discuss your project ↗