How to make an interview set with stuff around the office

The Seattle Storm called me in to the office earlier this week, to shoot a video message from Ashley Robinson.  When I get there, it turns out they also want to shoot an in-studio type interview, so I've got about 1/2 hour to build a set, using stuff I could find around the office... and I think it turned out pretty well if I do say so myself.



I used a room divider as the backdrop, with two desk lamps behind it to give it some depth.  I had my flip mino hd (with tripod) in my backpack so I used that as a second camera (circled in the pic below)... I've found that the flip works OK as a second camera for these kind of interviews, as long as you can figure out how to get it in close enough to get a tight shot with it.  I guess it might actually make more sense to use the flip for the wide shot, since it doesn't zoom, but I don't have enough faith in the flip for that just yet.  I'd rather know for certain that the wide shot is going to look good, since the tight shot isn't really necessary.

I had two more desk lamps to light both the subjects and that was it.  The colors from the flip never quite match up perfectly to my Panasonic DVX footage, no matter how much color correction I do, but it looks pretty good, and the benefit of having the second camera angle makes it well worth it for editing purposes.  It's worth noting that this interview was produced exclusively for the web, I've never tried, and probably wouldn't try using the flip for something meant for TV.