One Quiet Studio Chair and a Nervous Guest Called Dilys
A short account of a studio interview for a regional news programme, and how a few changes to light, sound and seating turned a stiff first take into a usable one.
A morning booking from a regional programme
The request came in on a Monday from a producer at a regional news programme who needed a studio interview recorded that week. Her guest was Dilys, a retired district nurse who had agreed to speak about how a local clinic's opening hours had changed over the years. The producer had a clear editorial plan but no suitable room, and her usual camera operator was committed elsewhere.
We agreed the brief by phone and confirmed it in writing the same afternoon. The producer sent the questions she intended to ask, the running time she wanted, and the delivery format her channel uses. I replied with a short plan covering where we would set up, how long we needed for lighting, and when the guest should arrive so that she was not left waiting.
Dilys had never been on camera before. That detail mattered more than anything else in the booking, because it shaped every decision we made about the room.
Setting up before the guest arrived
We arrived early and built the set before anyone else came in. Two chairs went at a slight angle to each other, the guest's chair a little lower than the interviewer's so that she would not feel looked down on. A single soft light sat to one side of the camera, with a dim fill opposite, which kept her face even without making the room feel like an interrogation.
Behind her we placed a plain wall with a little depth to it, a bookcase set off to one side. We checked the background for anything that would distract a viewer: a bright window, a stray cable, a poster with legible words. Each was moved or covered before we turned a camera on.
Framing was settled at head and shoulders with a little room above, matching the look of the programme's earlier interviews. A consistent look across a series is easy to lose when guests change from day to day, so we noted the lens height and distance for the next session.
- Guest chair slightly lower than the interviewer's
- One soft key light, gentle fill on the opposite side
- Plain background checked for glare, cables and readable text
Getting clean sound in an ordinary room
Sound is where most studio interviews quietly fail. The room had a hard floor and bare walls, so we laid a thick rug under the chairs and hung a heavy blanket just outside the frame to take the edge off the echo. A small lapel microphone went on each person, clipped about a hand's width below the chin and routed under clothing so that it would not brush against fabric.
We recorded a minute of room tone with everyone silent, then asked Dilys to say what she had had for breakfast. It is a trivial question, but it gives a natural speaking level, and we set the recording gain from her answer rather than from a count to ten.
A fridge in the next room turned out to hum faintly. We heard it only through headphones, which is why we always monitor on them, and we switched it off at the wall for the duration.
Easing a first-time guest into the chair
The first take was stiff. Dilys sat upright, looked straight into the lens and answered in short, careful sentences, as people do when they are afraid of getting something wrong. Nothing was technically faulty, but it would not have served the story.
We stopped, made tea, and talked about her working life for ten minutes with the camera switched off. The producer then moved her eyeline slightly away from the lens, so Dilys would speak to her rather than to the machine, and we told her she could pause, start an answer again or ask for a question to be repeated. Nobody was keeping score of her mistakes.
The second take ran for nearly twenty minutes. She described night calls, a winter when the roads were closed, and a patient who sent a card every year. The footage had the warmth the producer had hoped for.
What went to the desk, and when
Before leaving we checked the recording on a monitor: focus held, levels sat comfortably below distortion, and no light flickered. We labelled the files with the guest's first name, the date and the camera angle, and copied them to two drives, one staying with us and one going with the producer.
Megan, our lead editor, trimmed the interview to the length the programme needed, balanced the audio between the two microphones and added captions in the house style the channel had supplied. The package was delivered to the producer's desk later the same day in the format her broadcast system accepts.
The producer later passed on that the clinic story ran as planned and that Dilys had been pleased to hear herself sound like herself.
What we took from the session
The lesson was not about equipment. Light, sound and framing can be settled in an hour by anyone who has done it before, but the guest's comfort decides whether the footage is any good. A nervous person gives a nervous interview, and no amount of careful lighting repairs that afterwards.
Since then we have added a short, unrecorded conversation to the start of every studio session, and we ask producers to send the questions ahead so that guests can be told what is coming. We also keep the notes on chair height, lens distance and background for each programme, so that a series looks the same whether it is recorded this week or next month.
None of this is complicated. It simply takes the time that a busy newsroom rarely thinks to ask for.
- Allow ten minutes of ordinary conversation before recording
- Send the questions to the guest in advance
- Keep set-up notes so a series stays consistent
A studio interview looks simple on screen because most of the work happens before the camera rolls: a comfortable chair, even light, a quiet room and a guest who knows what to expect. Dilys's second take was better than her first for those reasons, not because anything clever was done to it. If your programme needs interviews that look consistent from one guest to the next, that preparation is where we begin.
Rhian Hughes
Founder and Head of ProductionRhian spent years in regional television newsrooms before founding glamorixa. She leads production planning and client work.
More from the News Desk
Before You Book Camera Training: A Checklist for News Teams
A plain checklist for editors weighing up hands-on camera workshops for reporters and camera staff: who should attend, what to bring, and what to settle first.
A Practical Guide to Same-Day Edits for Breaking News Packages
How we trim, caption and deliver a news package within hours, and what a desk can do before the footage arrives to keep a same-day edit calm and accurate.
Getting Your Edit Desk Ready for the Dark Evenings Ahead
Early sunsets, weather alerts and busy bulletin slots change how same-day edits behave. Rhian Hughes sets out how to prepare your turnaround routine for the coming months.