7 Great On Camera Interview Questions to Ask

Whether you are filming a testimonial, a day in the life of video with the rest of your corporate team, or an employee spotlight, capturing an interview offers a great way to produce marketing content that will help others get to know your business or brand. Asking the right questions to spark viewer interest and highlight the subject in the best possible way is key to any effective video interview. We’re outlined 7 great on-camera interview questions to ask that will help you create an effective video interview for your audience.

Prepare your interview questions

As you prepare your interview questions make sure you take the time to write them out prior to the production. Don’t expect to remember the questions and the order in which you intended to ask them. Prepare by writing them all down ahead of time taking great care to revise them into the perfect string of words prior to shoot day.

Good Practices

Now is also a great time to think about making sure the questions are open ended. You don’t want to ask a lot of yes/no questions because this will note result in a well formed interview. Reword questions that are likely to result in a yes/no answer so that they encourage additional details from your subject.

When you prep the interviewee, make sure that he or she knows to answer the question by repeating the question back to you as part of their answer. This allows you to use the answer in full context when you edit and produce the video.

On Camera Interview Questions

Now, let’s take a closer look at the 7 great on-camera interview questions to ask during your on-camera interview production.

1. Who Are You and What Do you Do?

This could also include a segue into “what are you working on right now?” The idea here is to help the interviewee to warm up to you by asking simple questions that he or she will likely appreciate answering. You can include additional questions to get to know your interviewee better here. These may include things like “Do you have siblings?” and “What was life like growing up?

2. What are You Working on Right Now? What’s it Like to Work on That?

As you segue from the who are you and what do you do, you enter the set of questions that begins to detail the expertise of the interviewee–what are you working on right now. This question will also help you to dive into more specific questions related to the industry that your interview subject is involved in. If your interview is a testimonial from a prior customer, consider rewording this question to say something like, “What was the last major problem that you recently had to overcome for your business?”

3. Is that a Common Role? Can you Explain it to Me?

Here you are gaining additional details on the industry specifics of the interviewee’s role. These questions help you to paint the picture of industry knowledge and expertise that can also be used to further prompt questions on topics that arise naturally out of the answers provided to you by the interviewee.

4. What Challenges you Most With the Work You Do?

As you dig into more personal questions the interviewee will likely have to begin thinking deeply about his or her feelings in order to provide a well-thought answer. A question like this for an on-camera interview can expand on the industry specifics of the role they take part in while offering insight for the audience as to whether there may be an industry-wide problem or if the problem at hand is more personal.

5. Very Interesting. Why do you Say That?

If the topic of industry problems, personal problems or any other challenging topics that could potentially be controversial or otherwise interesting comes up, it’s a good idea to followup with a question that essentially asks the subject to think deeper about his or her feelings on the topic. If the interviewee has a strong stance on a controversial subject that you disagree with, asking followup questions to help you understand WHY they think this way could help you to understand their motives and come to terms with what they feel. Asking where an idea comes from may enlighten you to a blind spot or lack of understanding that you may have had on the subject. If you are not satisfied with the answer that you get here, you can always edit the content out before your finalize the video. Just remember that you should never argue with your subject even if you disagree.

6. What Makes this Issue or Position so Important to You?

Whether it’s controversial issues, a position or stance on a subject or a particular solution that your interview subject is passionate about, now is the time to dive further into the “WHY?” What is it that makes this so important? Why do they care so deeply about this particular topic?  The greater the passion of your interview subject, the stronger your video footage will be so don’t be afraid to get the subject to express his or her true feelings here. This makes for very compelling content that will keep viewers interested!

7. What do you Hope to See for this Business or Particular Situation in a Year?

This forward thinking on camera interview question allows your subject to offer insight into their hopes, fears, dreams or ideas. This is a great question to ask customers as you seek to find answers to problems that your business could potentially solve for them. What do they hope to see from your business a year from now? Likewise, asking this question can provide some insight into the satisfaction or concerns that your customer or interviewee may have. This question offers an excellent opportunity to show how issues affect the individuals involved in overseeing, handling, or otherwise being a part of them.

Check out Team Beverly Boy behind the scenes filming interviews

These 7 great on camera interview questions to ask will help you to logically flow from one major concept to the next for your interview. Try them out, adjust them to meet your needs, and take your on-camera interview skills to the next level.