Interview and Testimonial Video in Boston

Most of the people I film aren't used to being on camera. I've filmed a voice student at Boston University, a football coach with five decades of stories for NBC Sports Boston, and the President and CEO of Dana-Farber on a stage by a lake in Lenox. My job is the same every time: light the room so they forget the camera is there, get every word clean, and leave the edit with real choices.

For Above Summit I filmed two days at Fuller Village, and that footage became a narrative film, four testimonial cuts and four social cuts. Honestly, that's the shape most teams need: one shoot, then a main piece for the website and short versions for the feed, all from the same lit interviews.

I'm happy to shoot it and cut it, or shoot it and hand your team the footage. For The Woodward School for Girls I only filmed the lit sit-down interviews, and their team built the rest of the film. If you just need a camera and sound on a day your own producer is running, that's camera operator and DP crew hire.

Light. I use a 600W key through an octobox, with a separate wash on the background. Soft light on the face makes people look like themselves on a good day, and the room behind them still looks like their place instead of a studio.

Two angles. On the 2-Camera package the Sony FX9 holds the A side and the Sony a7 IV holds the B side. That second angle lets the editor take out the ums, the false starts and the long way around without a jump cut. A long answer becomes a short one that still sounds like the person said it that way.

Two microphones. I record a boom overhead and a lav on each speaker. If a lav rubs on a jacket, the boom is clean, and in a loud room the lav is the closest thing to the voice. Either way, a sound problem on one is covered by the other.

Timecode. Tentacle Sync goes on the cameras and the sound, so every angle lines up in the edit without anyone clapping a slate.

Your team sees the shot. Wireless video sends the live picture to a director's monitor and up to three phones. Your comms lead can watch every answer without crowding the camera or the person in the chair.

Outside or on the move. The outdoor lighting kit works best with a PA, and it keeps a walk-and-talk looking planned. The gimbal package adds the a7 IV on the Zhiyun Crane 3S as a moving second angle. Everything I bring is on the gear page.

A lot of editing an interview is just listening. On Why I Ride I had three survivors' long interviews and an archive of their personal photos, and my job was to find the thread running through three very different stories so the program closed on a lift. On the PMC Unpaved fireside chat the stage mics came in low, so I rebuilt the dialogue and leveled it to streaming loudness before the client ever saw a cut.

Every edit includes color grading, a sound polish and one free round of revisions. Lower thirds, captions, a vertical or square version and short social cuts from the same interviews can all come out of that one edit. On a short piece you'll have a first cut in about two weeks, and if your team would rather finish it, you get the raw footage organized and backed up. You can see everything I offer on the services page.

I quote every interview to what it actually needs: one camera or two, how many people sit down, the hours, any crew, and the edit, which is priced by what you get at the end. There's no travel charge in Greater Boston or on the North Shore.

Send me the date, who's on camera and where the piece will live through the contact form, and I'll get you an exact quote within a business day. If you're curious how I build it, here's how I put a quote together.