Shooting Videography Projects & Interviews with Celebrity Talent

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Anytime you have a camera in front of a celebrity, the pressure increases.

There is the lucklihood that time is even more of a factor, or a tenuous personal favour is the reason why they have given their time & energy towards being filmed.

For whichever reason it may be, the videographer / cinematographer in charge has even more of a need to be diligent and effective in shooting the celebrity talent.

Here a few event photography & event videography tips to make your celebrity shoot go smoothly.

  1. Get the Context of your celebrity talent's appearence How the celebrity is linked to the event is very important. Are they a patron of the invite, amongst other stars? Or are they a paid brand ambassador who has a vested financial interest in co-operating with you?

Understanding this nature, you'll be able to work out how tenuous of a link the celebrity has to the interview. The stronger the link it is, generally, the more latitude you will have with time for quality & creativity.

When I was tasked with filming Shane Warne's movie review at the movie premiere of Angry Dad's Documentary "Fuck Off Mitchell : The Angry Dad Story", it was clear it was a short window to film him. There was no pre-planned moment. We had one shot and one shot only, and needed to time it as he exited the audience. This meant that we needed to shoot with little light, and have the focus razor sharp, ready to go as Shane had another engagement to dash off to.

Understanding this ahead of time, allowed me to relax & prioritise Shane over the other patrons.

  1. How will the footage be published? When Tayla Harris won the Australian Female Middleweight Title against Margarite Butcher, I was tasked with capturing a moment behind closed doors with the belt she won on her lap.

This was a moment that was highly contingent on her winning the belt. As my client Team Ellis Promotions were her boxing promoters, it was easy enough to ask how it would be published. The use case was for social media to showcase her winning result.

Knowing this gave the team a small window of opportunity, where a few chairs, a quiet background & filming lights were set up, in order to capture a high quality, low key shot of Tayla Harris with her belt showcased. The end result fit the brief.