Looking for feedback on office interview set up for doctors

[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!

[JD Hartman]

Sometimes, the best thing to give you a Venetian blind breakup is a set of Venetian blinds. I like the wide wooden ones.

[Robin R Probyn]

seems like alot of lights and light for a very small area.. your killing your blind effect by bashing alot of light into the same back wall..there is a massive amount of ambient light bouncing around with those light colored walls so close.. I think you could do more with less.. and have much smaller LED units with Softbox,s...and get some negative fill in there.. round pop out ones are pretty easy to work with.. just my penny,,s worth..

 

At the end of the day it will always be a struggle in that tiny area.. rule one of interviews is to get your subject as far away from any walls as possible .. especially those behind them.. looks like you only 2 meters at the most.. TBH if they want something better they will have to give you a proper sized room to work in.. that area is just way too small..what you have achieved is pretty good.. thats a tough space for anyone to get good results ..

[JB Earl]

small rooms painted white are the worst.... use one large key light, get a honeycomb on it. If you have to, get your camera outside the doorway to give you room to separate the subject from the background

[Trent Watts]

I shoot corporate interviews in bland offices all the time, and have lit about 1,600 interviews in my career to date. There's lots of tricks you can use in situations like this.

 

The first and simplest trick is to to use a longer focal length, and make it a tighter shoot, shoulders up. Then it's really more about lighting the face and hair, and contrasting the face with your background color. This will throw the background out of focus easier too.

 

Secondly, be aware of lighting your talent with the same lights as your background. You have no fall-off to your background because your lights are coming at the subject full frontal with no flags or grids. In addition, your walls being slightly off-blue gives you a chance to accentuate a color-temp difference between your foreground and background. you could go 4400K on your talent and keep your background at 5600K.

 

Thirdly, the flower looks very forced here. Create your composition first and think what in your environment you can move into the composition before you set even 1 light up. Beginning filmmakers often feel pressure to start setting lights up right away. However, the most important step is the first step of really taking in the room, figuring out what you can move, what you can't move, and knowing all the variables and possible angles of the location. Only once you have gone through this checklist should you begin setting up your shot.

 

Fourth, you have lights blasting from all sides with no apparent thought to shaping shadows. Get a couple cheap 5-in-1 reflectors and sell off 2 of these 4x4's. You can use these 5-in-1's for bounce, diffusion, AND negative fill. You are using too many lights here and I think it's adding unneeded technical complexity to your setup, when you should be focusing more on refining the basics. I shoot most of my interviews with just 2 or 3 lights from my kit of about 7 lights, and a couple 5-in-1 collapsible reflectors. All of my lights are different and each ones have their pros and cons. You have four 4x4 kinos here which is serious overkill for this situation. They must be extremely limiting and cumbersome to work with too. I would probably light this whole setup with 1 diva-lite for my key, 1 astra for a hair/edge light, and possibly a small fresnel or 2nd astra to give the background some sort of gradient.

 

Anyway, I hope this all helps a bit. Good luck!