Interview lighting

[Ckulakov]

Dear Filmmakers,

 

I am a student and will be doing a interview. I am using a home DV camera. The look I am going for is the background in cool night blue colors with a low wattage practicals in the bg as thouth it is a evening. I will be looking for a more warm look for the subject. I am thinking to use a 250 watt photoflood barndoored and hitting the subject so it doesnt spill into the bg and using a bastard amber gel. I will place it about 5 ft away from the subject.

 

I will use a 150 watt lamp behind a 4' by4' diffusion screen with a 1/2 CTB about 4 ft away for the fill.

 

The bg will tbe about 20 feet from the subject.

 

Please help me decide if I should have the bg leaning to the warm or cool side if I have practicals.

 

Tell me if I am using the correct wattage, gels, and diffusion for my fill light and key.

 

I really need help because lately I have been having problems with my fill light.

Is the fill the ambient light in the scene or should it just fill in the subjects shadows and should it hit the background or not?

 

Thank You very much in Advance

 

P.S. sorry for the long post.

[drew_town]

Well there's not just one way to light a scene. It sounds like you've put some thought into your setup. The only thing I would do differently is to take the CTB gel off the fill; I think it would clash with the Amber from the key; unless of course that's what you're going for. You want the fill light to soften shadows on the side of the face opposite the key so you don't make it too contrasty. It shouldn't be as bright as the key or it will look flat. I would keep the fill off the background. You might put a really light CTO gel on the fill or don't use one at all. Stay away from ambient unless you have to use it or it's the look you want. You probably want to consider a backlight/hairlight/kicker (but then again your practicals in the background might act as a backlight). It can be a low intensity open-faced light. It will separate the subject from the background.

 

Unless you want your overall image to look warm, use CTB's or cool practicals on the background. It'll add some variety. The background is used to make it interesting.

 

As far as the intensity of the lights, it depends on the placement of the lights and the gels you use. If it's too bright, back it up and put some diffusion on it. The opposite if it's too dim. This setup should yield some good results. Good luck.

[Gordon Highland]

If you want the background sources to appear blue without corrective gels on tungsten practicals, you'll need to color balance the camera on something orange, but then it will be nearly impossible to get the subject warm enough. i'd recommend balancing on white, and cut up some blue gels for your background lights. you could use fluorescents in the background instead; they won't be blue, but at least on the cool side.

 

having your subject fill also be blue is a judgment call, but i'd tend to stick with the same hue as your key light. if it's only four feet away, you might be able to get away with a bounce card for fill instead of another light source. you could also put the diffusion in front of your key light instead, and put up a flag to keep it off the background. keep the key light on the side that the interviewee is looking towards (assuming it's off-axis), which is the less-visible side of the face. with such a high-contrast scene, you might also consider an edge light on the subject, which should probably also be blue.

 

Experiment with a monitor. Good luck!

[Ckulakov]

Here are some grabs from the test. Please give me suggestions and corrections on how to make it beter. The quality and size is horrible since I am editing on windows movie maker because tthats the best I can get know.

 

 

This is one that I prefer for its exposure.

 

 

Here is the other one a little more exposed.

[Ckulakov]

sorry I had to start over

 

Here is the other one more exposed because the director liked it more.

 

[drew_town]

The first thing I notice is that the background is a bit distracting. I'd tighten up and work on the composition. As far as the lighting goes, the fill light's not coming through enough. The shadows on his face are dramatic not soft. There is a slight backlight coming from the blue light on the left. That's look pretty good. The colors you have look pretty good, but they seem isolated. Work on forming the lights into one composition. I would consider having your subject wear a lighter colored shirt, perhaps a solid white. If this is your first interview setup it's not bad. My first setup was about the flattest looking thing you could image. The interviewee was practically camouflaged into the background.

[Ckulakov]

Dear Drew,

 

Here is a the newer version that I did.

 

I tried to make the background more unified by bringing one large soft source. I increased the fill and added more backlight since you liked it.

[Ckulakov]

Dear Drew,

 

Here is a the newer version that I did.

 

I tried to make the background more unified by bringing one large soft source and took away the one of the practicles and left one that was the same intensity and color temp as the large source. I increased the fill and added more backlight since you liked it.

 

Remember I am using a home digital 8 camera. And editing on windows movie maker.

 

Tell me if I am framing corretly.

 

 

Thank You

[drew_town]

Yeah, looks good. I think it's well balanced and a lot more pleasing to the eye than the first setup. That's pretty good for a dig8 setup.

[Gordon Highland]

Yeah, that's better overall, definitely regarding the background. I disagree about the key/fill on the man, though. I personally thought the ratio was fine before, because I usually like to see a little more modeling on the face as opposed to a flat/even look, which the most recent girl has. I'm referring to the first shot of the man. The second one is deceiving, because he's looking into camera instead of at the interviewer and it's enough to change the look.

 

With video interviews (just like with portraits), whenever possible i like to shoot at a wide-open f-stop (scrim down the lights as needed) and with the camera as far back as i can get it and then zoomed in for framing. This will give you a smaller depth of field with more focus on the subject.

[Jeremy]

I agree... definitely try to create a shallow depth of field, back the camera up as far as you can and zoom in to make the background more out of focus.

 

Aside from that it looks fine, except for the lamp... why is it a bluish color? If you are going to have a practical in the background, I would make its color temp comparable to what we would normally see. i.e. a lamp is orange to the human eye, I'd make it orange for your interview.

 

Good luck!