An on camera interview goes wrong three days before the shoot, not in front of the lens. Send a colleague the exact questions, then sit them on a chair in the middle of a meeting room, and you get an interrogation. Here is the process we use to prepare untrained speakers, plus the questions that actually work.
Key takeaways
- Send topics, not exact questions. Anyone who memorises an answer will recite it on camera, and viewers spot it within seconds.
- A 2023 YouGov survey found that 49 % of Britons admit some fear of speaking in front of people and 15 % call it an outright phobia. Your colleague is not being dramatic.
- Let the camera roll for the first five minutes on throwaway questions. Usable answers tend to start around minute six.
- Ask the speaker to fold the question into the answer. Without that you cannot cut a video that works without an interviewer's voice.
- The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer reports that 78 % of employees trust their employer, the highest trust of any entity in the study. An employee on camera can carry a message that would sound like an advert coming from the CEO.
- Budget at least ten minutes of shooting for every finished minute. Anything tighter pushes a person into a performance they cannot deliver.
Why does an untrained person freeze on camera?
Because you remove three things they rely on in normal conversation: feedback from a listener, the option to correct themselves, and the certainty that nobody will replay it. A camera gives none of them back.
This is not a personal weakness. A 2023 YouGov survey found that 49 % of Britons admit to some fear of public speaking and 15 % describe it as a phobia, with 57 % of women and 39 % of men reporting some level of fear. So when your product manager goes pale at the words "we are filming a short video with you", that is an ordinary reaction, not a reason to find somebody else.
And that same person is the strongest spokesperson you have. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer reports that 78 % of employees trust their employer, more than any other entity measured. A genuine colleague on camera can carry a message that would sound like ad copy coming from a chief executive in a suit. That is why preparation is worth paying for, rather than hiring an actor.
How do you prepare someone for an on camera interview?
Send a short email three days ahead with the topics and with what the shoot day looks like. Nothing more and nothing less.
The email should contain:
- Three to five topics, not questions. "How we handled the complaint in Bratislava" beats "please describe your approach to customer service". A topic triggers a memory, a question triggers a rehearsed answer.
- Where and how long. Exact place, arrival time and a realistic duration. If you expect an hour, write an hour, not "a quick one".
- What to wear. Plain colours without fine patterns, no third party logos, ideally two options to choose from. A patterned shirt can strobe on camera and no amount of post production will fix it.
- A clear line saying mistakes get edited out. This relaxes people more than anything else. Most assume filming is a single take.
- Who will be in the room. The size of the crew. Three strangers with equipment stress an untrained speaker more than the camera itself.
What does not belong in that email: the exact wording of the questions and a request to prepare answers. A written answer gets recited, the eyes drift up and to the right, and the viewer notices immediately. This is where we most often disagree with clients, so let us be blunt about it: sending exact questions makes the interview more comfortable for the speaker and worse for the audience.
There is an exception. For sensitive subjects, hard numbers, legal wording, or a person with a bad past experience with media, send the questions. Certainty matters more than spontaneity there. Keep the rest of the technical detail in pre production and off the speaker's plate.
Which on camera interview questions actually work?
The ones that ask about a specific situation rather than an opinion. Opinion questions produce platitudes, situational questions produce a story.
Here is the skeleton we use for corporate interviews, ready to copy:
- A warm up question off topic: "What were you working on this morning before you came here?" The camera is already rolling and we never use the answer.
- "Introduce yourself the way you would over lunch with a new colleague." You get the human version instead of a job title.
- "Think of a specific time when it did not go to plan. What happened?" This question usually produces the best moment in the whole video.
- "What would you say to someone hearing about this for the first time?" It forces simplification and strips out jargon.
- "What are you most proud of from the past year?" The emotion does not show in the words, it shows in how the voice changes.
- "Is there anything I did not ask that belongs in this video?" The closing question almost always adds one line that survives into the final cut.
One technical habit holds the whole edit together: ask the speaker to repeat the question inside the answer. Not "five years", but "I have worked at NORDLYS for five years". Without it you cannot cut the interviewer out of the video. Repeat the request during the shoot, because people forget it after the second question.
The video above covers five technical tips for shooting an interview, from camera placement to handling the background. Treat it as the companion to this article: we deal with the person, the video deals with the gear around them.
What should happen in the first ten minutes of the shoot?
Nothing usable. The first ten minutes exist so the speaker can settle, not to produce content.
- Start recording before they sit down. Never announce "we are rolling" out loud, it triggers exactly the stress you are trying to remove.
- Sit so the speaker looks at you, not into the lens. For corporate interviews an off axis gaze feels more natural and helps most people relax.
- Clear the room of spectators. Colleagues watching from the corner damage a performance more reliably than anything else.
- Leave three cue cards out of frame. Not full text, three words. They work as a safety net and usually go unread.
- Stay silent for two seconds after a good answer. Silence pulls an extra sentence out of people, and it is often better than the first one.
- Plan ten minutes of raw material per finished minute. For a three minute video that means roughly an hour and a half of shooting including breaks.
The rest is craft: two microphones for safety, an audio check after the first answer, and lighting that does not make anyone squint. We covered how a crew handles that in our piece on lighting for video. If you are commissioning the interview from an external production company, the topics and the goal of the video belong in the brief, see how to write a video brief.
When is an on camera interview the wrong format?
When the speaker was pushed into it. Neither preparation nor editing can rescue that.
You recognise a reluctant speaker by short, precise answers without a single example. We once spent two hours with an expert and eighteen seconds made the final cut. It was not his fault. His manager had sent him and nobody asked whether he wanted to do it. Since then we ask the speaker directly, not the person paying the invoice.
An interview is also the wrong tool when you need to deliver exact figures, processes or legal wording. Animation with a voiceover is faster and cheaper there, because the script gets approved before recording and nobody has to repeat a definition twenty times. And if the video is heading for social platforms, expect a large share of viewers to watch without sound, which makes captions mandatory rather than optional.
Frequently asked questions about on camera interviews
Should I send my colleague the questions in advance?
Send topics, not the exact wording. A memorised answer sounds memorised. The exceptions are sensitive subjects, precise figures and legal language, where certainty matters more than spontaneity.
How long does it take to film an interview for a three minute video?
Around an hour and a half including setup and breaks. Plan for ten minutes of raw footage per finished minute, and closer to fifteen with untrained speakers.
What should I do when the speaker makes a mistake?
Let them finish the thought, then ask them to say the same sentence again from the start. Never stop the camera mid answer, because a pause in recording raises the stress far more than the mistake did.
Is it worth hiring a professional interviewer?
For internal videos and employee interviews, no. The credibility comes precisely from a colleague asking the questions. Consider a professional for events, panel discussions, and interviews conducted in a foreign language.
If you have a shoot coming up with someone who has never faced a camera, get in touch through our contact page. We treat speaker preparation as part of the job rather than an add on, and we will tell you when we think an interview is the wrong format. You can read more about how we shoot in our video production section.
