A CEO interview video works when the person sounds like themselves and says one thing worth hearing. It fails when they read, when they list, or when they try to say everything. The difference is made before the camera turns on. Here is how to prepare a founder or CEO interview so it sounds like you, the questions that produce real answers, the set-up that relaxes, and how one interview serves a quarter of content.
Decide the one thing, and who it is for
Before anything: what should the viewer think or do after two minutes, and who is the viewer (a client, a candidate, an investor, the team)? One thing. If the answer is three things, it is three videos. Write the one thing in a sentence and keep it on the table during the shoot; everything that does not serve it gets cut.
Prepare without a script
A script read on camera is detected in one second and forgives nothing. Prepare instead: the three or four points you want to reach, each with a real example (a client, a decision, a mistake, a number you are allowed to give). Say them out loud once, to someone, the day before. Then forget the order: the interviewer will bring you back.
The questions that produce real answers
Not "what are your values" but "tell me about a decision that cost you something." Not "what makes you different" but "what do you refuse to do, and when did it last cost you a client." Not "why should someone work here" but "who was the last person who left, and why." Concrete questions produce concrete answers, and concrete answers are what people watch.
The set-up that relaxes
Your place, not a studio: your office, your floor, your site, with its sound. Someone you talk to, not a lens: the interviewer sits next to the camera, and you look at them. No teleprompter. Time: an hour of conversation for two minutes of film. Silence kept: the pause before an honest answer is often the best moment.
What gets cut, and what stays
Cut: the company history, the list of services, the values, the "we." Keep: the "I," the decisions, the doubts, the examples, the moment you laugh at your own mistake. A director's job is to keep the person and lose the pitch.
One interview, a quarter of content
From one hour: the two-minute film, five to eight one-minute vertical clips for LinkedIn (one point each), quotes for the site, a version for candidates and one for clients if the material allows. Shot once, well, it feeds every channel for three months. Studio FLF built a whole format on the founder interview, Time to Create, and applies the same method to every corporate film.
Measure it
Meetings where the prospect says "I saw your interview," inquiries from the page it sits on, applications that mention it, investor conversations that start warmer. Ship it with its page and its counter, and read what it produced.
If you have one thing to say and you want it to sound like you, tell us what it is.