Brian, if you promise not to laugh at my drawing skills I can fax you a diagram, e-mail me you fax number.
Basically on a two-camera set up with the people facing each other, pretend that after you finish setting up a single camera interview there’s a large mirror behind the subject. Set the second camera and lights as if you were looking into a mirror. If your lighting and composition skills are correct in a single camera set up, you should only need to make some minor adjustments to keep everything out of camera view. Simple enough, right? (I can just hear all the comments). The biggest problem will be flare into the lenses, French flag the cameras to eliminate that (can we still say French?) and barn door or flag lights as needed.
Three camera interviews are a bit more complicated, actually a lot more. Most of my work is for your neighbor in Bristol, multi cameras set-up is a standard with them. For 3 cameras interviews where the subjects face each other I don’t even bother with individual light stands, I put 4 HD combo stands at the far corners and build an overhead grid with 2†aluminum tubing, then hang all the lights. Average set-up time for 3 cameras is 3 hours with a crew of 4 or 5; then ten minutes for the interview and 2 hours to pack everything back up.
For front cameras set ups (talk show style) go to my web site. The front page has a picture of a similar set up and you can see the lights.
Lately with each set-up, particularly the more complicated ones (indoor or outdoor). I’ve been putting together a small library of set-ups taped time lapse from beginning to end with a PD150 mounted high in a corner. Now when I work with new crews I can show them in few minutes what I want them to do. It really works (as you said, it's a visual art form).
Once my third one start college maybe I’ll put everything into a DVD and start converting it into cash for some tuition assistance.