How to Light Q&A's in a movie theater?

[dpdnb]

What is the best way to light 2 or 3 people (a moderator and 2 interviewees) that sit up infront of a movie theater audience after a film screening. The theater doesn't have stage lighting. And we can't push in their key lights too close as not to block the audience's view or see the lights in our wide shot. I was thinking Fresnels from a distance? Softboxes are to bulky and need to be too close to work. Anybody know of a common set up?

 

Thanks

[Guest gautham]

hai friend i can tel u in india v always use led parcanne to give the effect of theatarical scen and its a spot light it will give u hard shadow so to avoid that use some diffusen.... like 216,129....

 

and one more thing u can also get some HMI par light for the ambein source.....

[Chad Griepentrog]

Source 4 Lekos are always a solid choice for longer throws. Maybe a 50 degree lens. You can get good punch out of them and shape the light very well. They also don't look to obnoxious if seen on camera. Are there rigging points available? The further you play them back, the higher you'll want them to be.

[David Landau]

I have worked as a gaffer on the TV reality show Project Runway for the past five summers. The practice to lighting in live locations is to be subtle and to use the light to fill in the faces, so that the subjects don't have "raccoon eyes". I lit people at the UN with five cameras shooting - one doing steadi-cam wide shots. So the lights had to be backed up pretty far.

 

For your theater shoot you have several possibilities. It all depends on what you are filming. Are the two people looking at each other or out toward the audience? How wide are your shots? These are major question that will effect the lighting set-up.

 

One way to light it is to simply embrace the theatrical look of the theater. You can use the previously mentioned source-4 profile spots, but use at least 36 degree if not 26 degree lenses. Place them like theater lighting - 45 degrees off to each side and along the walls. Raise them up a few feet above eye level. The farther away you are the tighter the degree lens you would want to keep intensity, get the throw and not spread too wide that it just looks like a messy wash. You can use a light frost to soften the light and run the barrels out to defocus the hard edges of the beam. I would then recommend adding side lights, using fresnels or PAR lights. Scrim these down, but allow them to kick off the subjects and separate them from the background. You could even use light color gels on these to convey the theatrical location. Don't use green or yellow - stay with the more calmer colors such as lavender, sky blue or bastard amber. You could easily use 1/2 CTB and 1/4 CTO.

 

Another way is to use softlights, such as 4 bank by 4ft Kinoflos set off to each side of the stage - becoming cross key lights. Each light backlights the person closest to the light and key lights the person farther away. Now, further back in the house, use fresnels with diffusion, such as opal or 251, on the inside of the barndoors. You could also use PAR 64 lights with diffusion, but the fresnels will project farther. Last, don't be afraid to add a kinoflo on the floor, covered with diffusion such as 250. You could use two, one for each subject. Put the kino on low output (2 lamp output for a 4 bank unit). Keep it very diffused so that it fills in under the eyes and chin without throwing monster movie shadows up on the faces.

 

In out my book "Lighting for Cinematography" new from Bloomsbury Press, I have an entire chapter on non-fiction lighting which may help you. The book is available from Amazon and my website www.lightingforcinematography.com

 

Good luck and I hope this helps or inspires you a bit.

Edited July 10, 2014 by David Landau