I had the distinct pleasure of viewing one of my favorite player interviews through a newly polished editorial lens this week. The man you see above is Larry Sanders, former center of the Milwaukee Bucks. Despite earning millions of dollars playing basketball, he made the controversial decision to step away from the limelight for the sake of his mental health and personal well-being. This was already blue chip human interest story when he personally broke it on The Players’ Tribune in February. Revisiting the interview for work purposes, but with a little more education, I had a deeper appreciation for how exactly that was stylistically conveyed.

The interview is predominantly shot from two distinct angles. The first is a head-on medium shot that shows the emotion in Sanders’ eyes as he opens up about his personal struggles. The second is a close up shot from the left that the editor switches in and out of to avoid jump cuts between questions, which allows for a more natural flow despite the questions themselves being edited out. Both use shallow depth of field to really draw us in. Periodically, we are given a tilted view of the second angle, with tight shots of Sanders wringing his hands or squeezing his elbows. This helps to express his unease and further humanizes him in the eyes of the audience.

The first time I saw this video, I was solely interested in the content, not the production. It didn’t even register to me that it was probably not a single, five-minute speech. In my mind’s eye, I saw Sanders thinking up everything he wanted to say before letting it all spill out at once when the cameras were rolling. It is now apparent to me that this was not the case. The video editor artfully crafted the illusion of fluidity to make this piece work well at the media consumption level, as well as an emotional one. I hope to incorporate their techniques as applicable in my own work.