Jeff Fitzgerald

Hey all. A bit of background first. I'm a full time in house videographer for a cosmetic surgery practice. Most of what I'm tasked with shooting is interviews with the doctors/staff about different procedures and occasionally patient testimonials. Space is pretty tight so I have to use one of the spare consultation rooms as my quasi-permanent studio. The room measures 9 ft wide by about 13 ft long but there is a large desk and 3D imaging machine along two walls that effectively bring the usable space down to about 7 ft by 11 ft. I've tried a couple different configurations of lights and camera angles but this is the best result I've gotten so far. I'm looking for any feedback to help me improve this further, given the limitations of the space and my available resources. My main concern is that the background is too boring. The walls are an ugly off-white color and I can't seem to find anything suitable to hang on the walls. Below I have included my current setup and thought process: The company's main color is a light purple so I brought in a purple orchid from the lobby to fill the left half of the frame. Due to space constraints and the micro 4/3 sensors, I can't get the orchid out of focus very much, even shooting wide open at f/2.8. My next idea was to shoot a fresnel through a gobo to create a window/blinds pattern on the wall. It didn't turn out quite like I wanted as I couldn't get the gobo pattern any less out of focus with the grip gear I currently have. I bought a used Source Four Leko Jr and a proper steel windows/blinds gobo to replace the LED Fresnel when it comes in the mail later this week. I also tried to add a bit of color contrast to add visual interest. I Salt and peppered the key and scratch and balanced my cameras to that. Lit the background and flower with daylight, and shot a heavily CTO'd LED through a gobo to create a pattern on the wall. I'm wondering if it makes more sense to just keep the LED daylight balanced as well since the orange color got washed out from the Kinos. Is there better way to achieve color contrast here? I tried turning off the overhead Kino and just lighting the wall with the CTO'd LED. It was more saturated, but the wall looked overall underexposed given the high key feel of the shoot. Is this color contrast advisable in the first place or is it just distracting? Maybe I should omit the CTO and just blast the LED at full power to clip the gobo pattern to create enough of an exposure difference compared to the rest of the Kino-lit wall? I have attached reference photos of the set up along with a frame from my A cam. Also at my disposal are: Arri 1k fresnel with 1000w & 750w bulb Mole 1k fresnel with 1000w bulb 2 cheapo bi color 1x1' led panels 2 cheapo daylight 6x6" led panels. LightDome Mini for 120D I'm also looking for ways to keep my set up as clean and tidy as possible since the room does have to be used from time to time for the scale and 3D imaging machine along the back wall. My idea was to buy a couple pieces of speedrail and wall spreader kits to span the room. I figure I can mount one near the back of the room above the desk to hang the two background lights, and then a second piece of speed rail for the key and boom pole. Any and all feedback is much appreciated!

I’m about to start a full time salaried position for a cosmetic surgery office and I’m looking for some feedback on my imagined lighting setup. Most of the videos I’ll be shooting will be testimonial videos of actual patients, most of whom are middle aged women, no professional talent and no real make up. It seems to me my best bet is to blast them with as much super soft light as I can to fill in the creases on their skin, and maybe add something like a Tiffen Glimmerglass filter to add additional softening and glow. My lighting kit is rather limited right now. I currently only own: 2 x 1k fresnels (one with barn doors), 4x6’ scrim jim with white/silver reflector & ¼ stop diffusion panels cheap-o $37 battery powered camera mounted LED panel, a basic medium CFL softbox without diffusion panel I believe the office also owns two off brand 1x1 LED panels and a couple CFL fixtures as well. It seems to me that color accuracy should be a major consideration, as many of the videos will be used to show off post-op procedures to sell their services. For this reason I’m hoping I can get the look I want with minimal use of low quality LED lights and instead use traditional tungsten lights and a bunch of reflectors until I can afford something nicer like an Apurture 120 or 300. I haven’t seen this exact set up before but I was thinking about making a booklight with the Scrim Jim and some insulation and rigging that horizontally as the top half of a clamshell, with another large piece of foam core underneath as a fill. Then I want to take the other 1K and bounce it into the ceiling to light the background, and rig a piece of silver stipple board behind the subject for that 1k ceiling bounce to catch and hopefully throw back some light into the hair for a nice highlight. Any insight is greatly appreciated. Thank you.