Hi Reader,

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If you haven't grabbed the Cinematic Interview Cheatsheet yet (many of you already got this when you signed up), you can get it here 👉 The Cinematic Interview Cheatsheet​

It's a good tool to reference for today's email.

We talk a lot here about how to set up an interview with one person, whether we shoot that with one camera or two. That's a perfect model for the Cinematic Interview Clock. One subject in the middle, lights and cameras plotted around them like numbers on a clock face.

But what happens when we need to film two people? The subject and the correspondent asking the questions. That's two cameras, one on each person. The lights are set up as one Cinematic Interview Clock for each person.

Now let's throw in a middle camera. A wide shot that sees the whole set.

But shouldn't.

This is where things get challenging.

I do these shoots a lot. Dateline, ESPN, CBS, and plenty of others where the format calls for a host and a subject in conversation. Usually three cameras. Sometimes as many as five. Last fall I had one that pulled all of this together in a way worth breaking down. More on that in a minute.

First, the framework.

Suddenly your single clock is two clocks, and they have to share a room. You've got two subjects looking at each other across the space. Two eyelines to honor. Two faces that need to be lit from the opposite sides of their respective cameras.

Here's how I think about it. Each subject still gets their own "clock" setup - a key light placed off to the far side, a fill on the near side, and a rim or hair to separate them from the background.

But the two clocks overlap at the center, which is where the conversation actually lives. The two outside cameras live on the perimeter of each clock. The middle camera bridges both.
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That middle camera also sees where the key lights normally go, which is the biggest challenge of the whole thing.

Here are a few techniques I lean on to solve this:

Swing your keys into the set on booms. You position the light stands just outside the frame of the wide camera, then boom the key lights into the set so they hit the subjects from the right angles without the stands being in the shot. The lights are doing the work; the hardware stays hidden. A word of warning: be very careful with this and practice good gripology. Bag your stands. Double-check your knuckles. Make sure nothing can drift, sag, or collapse over a multi-million-dollar guest. This is not the time to cut corners.

Use a single overhead source as a shared key. A large China ball or overhead softbox hung above the conversation can serve as the key for both subjects at once. Swung in from above, the stand is out of frame and you get a soft, even quality of light on both faces. It's not the most dimensional look, but for a sit-down conversation where the warmth of the exchange matters more than dramatic contrast, it's beautiful.

Use larger, more powerful sources on stands further back, out of frame. This is the approach I used on the shoot I mention below, and you can see it all in the diagram. Park punchier lights well outside the wide camera's view and let them reach the subjects from a distance. You get a clean wide shot without sacrificing dimension. The catch: a key meant for the far subject often grazes the near subject's fill side, creating a hot cheek light where you don't want one. Aggressive flagging usually handles it. But sometimes you can flip the problem and use that spill on purpose, positioning the far key so it lands as a backlight or kicker on the near subject. One light, two jobs.

I just used this method for a shoot I did recently for TNT Sports. Champ Bailey sat down with Deion Sanders. Three cameras, two legends, one room, and two clocks that had to merge. Throw in a cowboy hat and it gets really fun!​
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I broke the whole thing down on our blog, including a lighting diagram and behind-the-scenes photos:

​Champ Bailey Interviews Deion Sanders for TNT Sports​

If you've got a two-person interview coming up, try this on it. Draw the two clocks first, then look at where they overlap. The setup will tell you where the cameras go and where the lights need to live before you ever unpack a case.

That's a wrap for this week's Freelancers Friday. I'll see you back here next week with more real-world lighting breakdowns, freelance business tips, and behind-the-scenes fun.

In the meantime, I hope you have a great weekend. And happy lighting!

​Cheers,

Tom Miller
​Freelancers Film School
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P.S. If you've recently joined Freelancers Friday, and would like to check out some of our past newsletters, you can explore them here - Freelancers Friday Collection​
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P.P.S. in the coming weeks I'm opening up a free workshop on the framework that's transformed how I light and shoot interviews. The Cinematic Interview Academy waitlist gets first access. If you're not on it yet, you can hop on here. More details coming soon.