Dressing and Preparing for a Video Interview

 I can’t begin to tell you how many times we’re asked
in a year by prospective interview subjects, “How should I dress?”  And I also can’t tell you how many times we wish someone had asked us that question. Over many years and thousands of interviews, our team has collected many valuable and important tips that are useful to anyone who is preparing for a television, video, or film interview.

1. Wear comfortable clothes. If you never wear a tie at work and then you put one on for an interview it can make you uncomfortable. Bring a selection of clothes, three blouses/shirts and a couple of jackets and trousers; we’ll help you select what will look best on camera and in front of your background.

2. If you do want to wear a jacket of some kind, solid colors are best. Nothing extremely bright, no checks, extreme stripes or dramatic herringbone patterns - they tend to moiré on screen (appear to vibrate).

3. If you wear ties at work, wear a tie for your interview. Solid colors are best. Strong stripes can cause problems.

4. Shirts - pure white is not great. we prefer creamy off whites (yellow, green or blue tint) or solid colors such as blue, yellow (not too bright).

5. Glasses can shimmer and give off light kicks, but we can light around them. If you need glasses to see and that’s the way people know you, wear them.

6. We usually apply a little translucent powder to everyone to reduce the shine reflected from our lights. It’s not visible on
camera. Women may want to check their hair and makeup before taping.

7. Bring water to the interview; you will probably want it.

8. Don’t overprep or memorize unless you are a vigorous and frequent speech giver. Otherwise, let us help you get the information across with our questions. Tape is inexpensive and we are more than willing to work with you to get answers that work.

9. Short answers are optimal — no more than a few sentences long. Stick to talking points if you have them, and let us help you get them across.  This is not a mike Wallace pressure interview for “60 Minutes”, so don’t get wigged out: We are on your side, and we will do our best to make you look great on camera.

10. Please, no notes in your hand. You will
instinctively look to them for help and we want you to focus on what’s in your head, not what’s on the paper.

11. You will be answering questions asked to you by an interviewer seated right next to the camera. Don’t look into the camera, and don’t try to give your answer or statement to any other people in the room when we are rolling. Just focus on the questioner as if they were the only person in the room. (You may see people being interviewed on news programs from a remote questioner, in which case they speak directly to the camera. We are not doing this, so just interact with the interviewer as if you’re conversing with them only.)

12. Choose a room that has as little outside light as possible, since light streaming in from the outdoors tends to place a blue cast on the scene.  No matter how beautiful the view is out your window, it is almost impossible to make an indoor interview subject look their best in front of a sunlit window scene.

13. No swivel chairs for the interview subjects. Interviewees tend to exercise the swivel when they’re uncomfortable…and that shows on camera.

13. Try to enjoy the process. it’s really not so bad, and you may be surprised by how little of the interview gets used in the end. Even though that is the case, we are learning a great deal of information from different perspectives that we can incorporate into the final script.

Most of all, the key is to relax and enjoy the process.  The reason we’re interviewing you is because you’re extremely knowledgeable, passionate, and articulate about a subject.  Let that knowledge and passion come out naturally, and your personality will shine on camera!