Steve Inskeep’s Interview Series with President Obama
ROLES: Videographer, Director
The video above is the last in a series of on-camera interviews between President Obama and NPR host Steve Inskeep. It represents the culmination of an aesthetic designed to be distinct to NPR.
NPR originally pitched these interviews to the White House as “a Tiny Desk with the President.” Mito Habe-Evans and I designed a production approach to bring that intimacy and authenticity to these interviews. We emphasized natural light (or the appearance of it) and camera-work with the slightest human touch. Both on the ground and in the final edit, this approach feels dramatically different than the traditional broadcast TV lighting. (Before one interview, President Obama remarked, “We’re in the dark again. What's up with the NPR-being-in-the-dark thing?")
When it lands, the cinematography looks like NPR: intimate, human, approachable. It also has limitations. Relying primarily on natural light is much easier if the interviews can be scheduled closer to midday, especially in winter months. Of course, interviews with the President are generally on the White House’s timetable. We were fortunately able to refine our approach from interview to interview, room to room. We ended the series with an interview on one of the darkest December days, which required our most complex footprint to recreate that sense of big, soft natural light.
We bring this same approach to other high profile interviews, like this one between NPR’s Nina Totenberg and the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.