How do I edit video footage from an interview?

Question

I was asked to produce a set of video interviews for a friend's wedding consisting of individual single-subject interviews (the interviewer is not on camera or mic) with the bride, groom, close family, and wedding party.

The questions were prepared, the lighting and scenery set up, the subjects miked for sound, the cameras positioned, the interviews conducted, and now I have a bunch of video files sitting on my hard drive.

In short my question is, "How do I edit together interview footage?"

To word it in more detail: My experience and background is weighted towards shooting video rather than editing it. I have access to all the software I might need and I know the basics of how to use it (Premier Pro, Sony Vegas), but I don't really know what I am doing. Is there a crash course in video editing, or possibly interview editing, that I could study to get started? Or quintessential interviews to watch? Or books to read?

Answer 1

There is no one right way to edit anything. I've never watched a video of this kind so I probably can't give the best advice. But if I was in your position there are a few ways I'd consider cutting it together:

1. Edit it a bit like a 'behind the scenes' video. Begin with footage of someone talking and then use appropriate cutaways of the wedding. Cut back to different people whenever it is appropriate and put some music underneath, something that fits the mood. This would be my preferred way but you'd need a fair amount of footage of the actual event and even some archival footage or photos would be very handy. Most movies have a behind the scenes on the DVD so I'd suggest watching one or two of those if this method sounds good to you.
2. The simplest way would be to show each interview one by one. So you'd show the first person's interview in its entirety followed by the next person's, and so on. Crossfade between them and have music underneath. This would probably be a boring video to watch in the end, but it'd do the job.
3. Similar to my previous suggestion, this would require only the interview footage (no event or archival footage). However, you'd intercut the interviewees based on topic. For example, if the bride talks about how she met the groom you'd intercut that along side the groom talking about how they met (assuming he does). This way you would be able to cut out a lot of the fluff that you get when interviewing people.

That's how I'd go about it anyway, mate. Hope that helps you out a little.