TL;DR
- A stiff executive with 45 minutes is a collecting job, not a performing job: the aim is a pile of sentences an editor can cut, not one perfect take.
- Send the questions ahead and have them write their own answers. Words they chose sound like them; add a teleprompter and a nervous speaker has something to hold on to instead of going blank.
- There are three ways to film it — to camera, interview-style, or while doing something — and each fails in its own way. Straight to camera only suits someone who already looks at ease on camera.
- A second camera angle exists so the edit can join pieces without a visible jump. It isn't there to make the picture prettier.
- Editing can cover a few stiff seconds. It can't turn a whole stiff interview into a relaxed one. Sometimes the right advice is voiceover and footage instead.
The managing director has agreed to be in the company video. There is one slot in his diary — 45 minutes, Tuesday — and everyone in the room knows what happens when the camera starts: the shoulders go up, the voice goes flat, and the person who is sharp and funny in meetings starts speaking like a press release.
You can't give them more time, and you can't give them media training in a week. What you can do is change what the 45 minutes is for.
What is a 45-minute slot with a stiff executive actually for?
Not for getting it right. For getting sentences you can cut together.
A finished video that features the MD rarely uses him for forty-five minutes. It uses a handful of lines — why the company exists, what changed, what he wants customers to know — placed across a longer film. So the job on the day is closer to collecting than to performing. You don't need a flawless delivery of the whole story. You need several clean answers, each of which stands on its own.
That reframing helps the person in the chair as much as the crew. "Say it perfectly" is the instruction that makes people freeze. "Just answer this one, and if it comes out badly we'll ask again" is something they can do.
How much of the 45 minutes ends up in the film has no steady ratio: it depends on how the person performs. When the delivery isn't natural, the edit leans on more cutaway footage (b-roll) to cover it.
What should you send the executive before the day?
A list of questions, and a request that they prepare their own answers.
The questions tell them what ground will be covered, so nothing on the day is a surprise. Their prepared answers do two jobs: they give a nervous person something to hold, and they go on the teleprompter, so on the day they are reading words they wrote, not words someone else wrote for them. Lines written by a stranger sound like lines written by a stranger; lines the executive wrote sound like the executive.
Two things make a question list work better:
- Keep it short and concrete. "Why did you start this business?" works. "Talk about your vision" gives a nervous person nothing to hold.
- Ask them to answer in whole sentences that restate the question. "We started because..." rather than "Because of the market." Each answer then survives on its own in the edit, which is the same logic as interviews written as several videos instead of one.
The same principle is why question lists matter when the person on camera isn't your own executive: see how a customer testimonial gets prepared.
Which way of filming suits a person who goes stiff?
There are three common set-ups. None is better in general; each is best at one thing and fails in its own way.
| Way of filming | Works when | How it tends to fail |
|---|---|---|
| Straight to camera (the person looks at the lens and speaks) | The person already comes across well on camera | The most exposed position. Stiffness is most visible here, and every stumble is on the record |
| Interview-style (someone beside the camera asks; the person looks at them, not the lens) | The person is more natural talking to a human than to a lens | Answers can come out too conversational and loose; the questions are removed in the edit, so each answer has to stand alone |
| While doing something (walking the floor, looking at a machine, reviewing a product) | The person is more comfortable doing than talking | Sound is harder to capture; the lines can be fragmentary; movement needs more planning on the day |
For someone who freezes, the lens is usually the problem, so interview-style with the eye-line off the lens is the safer place to start. Straight to camera suits only people who are already good at it. And some people are worse with a human interviewer than with a camera, and some only relax once their hands have something to do.
The teleprompter matters more than the set-up. We bring one to interviews as a matter of course: a 21-inch screen, the usual size for interviews. It can sit off camera, where the person's eyes land beside the lens, or in front of the lens. We usually run it off camera, because it looks more natural. With a prompter the worst case is a slightly read-aloud feel; the person rarely goes completely blank.
How should the 45 minutes be spent?
Think of it as four stretches, not one long take.
- Settling in. The first minutes are the stiffest and the least likely to be used. They exist so the person stops noticing the equipment. Start with easy questions — name, role, how long they've been there.
- The real questions. Put the questions that matter after they have found their voice, not first.
- Repeating. Asking for the same answer again is normal, and worth saying out loud at the start so it doesn't feel like criticism. A second attempt is often looser than the first, because the person has already said it once and is no longer working it out as they go.
- Closing. End with a question they can answer easily, and leave a little room for anything they want to add.
What this adds up to in finished footage depends on the person, and we'd rather say that than hand you a ratio that sounds precise and isn't.
The 45 minutes is also not the whole booking. We usually need about an hour to set up before the executive sits down, so the person is only in the chair for the 45. And 45 minutes is the tolerance, not the target: some interviews are done in 15 minutes, depending on how comfortable the person is reading from the prompter and whether they start rewriting their script on the spot.
Why use two camera angles?
Not to make the picture more interesting. To let the edit join things.
If you cut two moments from the same single angle, the person seems to jump position on screen, and the viewer sees the join. A second angle — a slightly different framing of the same conversation — lets the editor cut between moments of the interview, keeping the best sentence from one answer and the best from another, without a visible jump.
That matters more with a stiff speaker than with a fluent one. A fluent speaker gives long usable stretches. A stiff one gives short good moments between stiff ones, and the edit's job is to string those moments together.
For interviews, two cameras is our default. The exception is a very small job where the budget is the point, a short reel for instance.
What can the edit rescue, and what can't it?
It can rescue short stretches. A few awkward seconds can be covered with footage of the factory floor, the product, the office, with the person's voice continuing underneath. A strong sentence can be kept and the weak one around it dropped. A bad start can be cut so the clip begins on the good part.
It can't rescue a whole interview that was uncomfortable from beginning to end. If every answer is stiff, cutting between them yields a sequence of stiff answers, only shorter.
The fallback when the footage isn't going to carry it is voiceover over footage. The person's voice — often easier to give than a performance to camera — runs under pictures of the work. It is a different video from the one with the executive's face in it, but it is often a better video than one with a face that looks like it wants to leave.
Before giving up on the face, the first thing to try is the language. A lot of stiffness comes from speaking in a language that isn't the person's first. If the executive is more at home in another language, switch to it; with a prompter in front of them, the result is rarely very stiff.
When should you talk them out of appearing at all?
When the cost of the stiffness is higher than the benefit of the face.
A founder or managing director on camera does one thing nobody else can do: say why the company exists and have it land as fact rather than marketing. If that is what the video is for, it is worth the effort of getting a good 45 minutes. But if the video's job is to explain a process, show a product, or carry information, the executive's face is optional, and an executive who dreads the camera is a high price for something optional.
Who Should Be on Camera is the longer version of that decision: it covers whether the boss, your staff, an actor or an AI presenter fits each part of the video. This page is for what to do after you've decided the boss is in.
What this page can't settle
It can't promise a relaxed result. A well-run 45 minutes improves the odds; it doesn't change who is in the chair. Some people never get comfortable, and the honest outcome is a shorter appearance, or none.
It also can't tell you how your particular shoot will be scheduled. For that, what happens on a shoot day walks through how the day is built around the setups, and our corporate video production page is where to start the conversation about this one.
Thinking about a project like this?
Tell us what it needs to do — we'll take it from there.
Frequently asked questions
- Why do senior people freeze on camera?
- Usually because a camera turns an ordinary conversation into a performance they feel they will be judged on. People who speak well in a meeting often hear themselves differently once a lens and a crew are waiting. It isn't a sign they're unsuited to the video; it is a reason to change how the questions are asked, not to demand a better delivery.
- Should the executive memorise a script or read from a prompter?
- Neither has to be perfect. We send a list of questions ahead and ask the executive to prepare their own answers, then run a teleprompter on the day. The worst that usually happens is that it looks a little read; the person doesn't go blank. Words they wrote themselves sound far more like them than lines written for them.
- Can editing fix a stiff interview?
- Partly. An editor can cover a few awkward seconds with other footage and keep the best sentences. What editing can't do is make a person who was uncomfortable throughout look comfortable. If the whole take is stiff, voiceover over footage is often a better video than the interview.
Keep reading
- How Do You Get a Customer to Appear in Your Testimonial Video — and What If They Say No?Filming the testimonial is the easy part. Getting another company to agree to it is where most of them stall. Who to ask, what to send, what each kind of "no" usually means, and what you can still film.
- Video Shoot Postponed? Who Pays When It Rains, or the Boss Can't Make ItMoving a shoot day is never just moving a calendar entry. The four lines in a production quote that decide who carries the cost, how the three kinds of postponement split, and how Malaysia's monsoon pattern should shape when you book an outdoor day.
- Renting a Filming Studio in KL: Empty Stage or Dressed Set?"Filming studio" covers two different rentals: an empty stage you build a shoot inside, and a small studio that already has sets in it. They're booked on different questions. Here are both checklists, how studio days and overtime are usually charged, and the green and red flags.