Basic Single Person Interview Setup (2)
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The Job - An Interview with a Singer / Songwriter in a Recording Studio
The interview will be part of an electronic press kit and offered to broadcast TV.
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The Location - Studio Performance Room
Dimensions 29' x 12' with 12' laminated wood ceilings. Windows on one wall with pull-down diffusers. Overhead fluorescent lights.
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The Requested Style - Light, High Key Look
They wanted a soft-lit, comfortable looking setting.
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The Kit - Lowel DV Creator 44 Kit.
4 lights with accessories & stands, 1750 Watts total.
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The Approach... |
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Being a recording studio, power wasnt an issue.
Although when lighting in locations with a lot of electronics,
its best to speak with the house electrician
to be sure that the circuits you plug into can
handle your needs. So if you blow a circuit,
you're not taking out the office computers along
with it.
We chose a shot composition with the drum kit in
the background. This allowed us to set up the
subject in the larger center of the room and keep
a sense of depth in the shot.
This is the shot, without any added lighting.
Besides the overhead fluorescent lights in the ceiling which have a slight green tint to them, the ambient
lighting in this recording studio is mostly coming
from a couple of large windows. It is often easiest
to draw the blinds and get rid of the daylight, but
these windows have only a pull down shear diffusion
shade. It reduces the amount of daylight
coming in, but doesn't eliminate it altogether.
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 (Top) Rifa 44 (250W Softlight), Pro-light (250W focusable), (Bottom) Omni-light (500W focusable), Tota-light (750W broad throw) |
 (Clockwise from top) Omni-light (500W focusable), Pro-light (250W focusable), Tota-light (750W broad throw) with umbrella, Rifa-44 (250W softlight) |
To work with them we will place the Rifa 44
between the window and subject, color balance to
the tungsten light source and allow the walls of the
studio to be a bit cooler. The viewers of the interview
won't know what the real color of the wall
should be but will know about what shade our subject's
skin should be.The light is positioned to
make our subject a bit brighter than the rest of the
image. The light is set a bit lower on the stand than
a traditional Key light, to mix with the light from the
windows.
We put the Tota-light, fitted with the umbrella from
the kit, just to the right of our camera to open up,
or lighten, the shadows on her face. We adjusted
the distance of the light to her so the shadows are
pretty light but were careful to not make the intensity
levels of the two lights the same. This would
remove any contrast ratio, and cause the lighting to
look flat. While we wanted a brighter look, we still
wanted some modeling on her face.
The Pro-light was placed behind the subject and
used to add some shine to her hair since there was
very little ambient light coming from that direction.
It also added some contrast between her and the
black panel we positioned behind her to hide some
studio clutter.
The Omni-light was originally used to highlight
another guitar in the background but eventually
used to add a splash of brightness and bring out
color on the drums in the background.
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The Final Shot... |
In the final shot, you can see the contrast ratio that was created by the mix
of the Rifa-44 Key & soft window light, against the Tota with umbrella Fill
light. The Pro-light gives a warm yet subtle highlight on her blonde hair and
shoulder from behind. The Omni-light on the drums in the background
gives some saturation to the deep red color, as well as some bringing out
highlights on the chrome pieces.
A nice cool highlight runs along the far edge of the face, while the Fill side
is a little warmer, and darker. If we had gelled all of the lights with day blue
gels, and re-white balanced our camera, we could have gotten more consistency
in color temperature, but also a possible less interesting shot.
Subtle differences in color and tonality of the light can bring a further
sparkle of magic to an already attractive face, while still maintaining a visual
connection to the real world. A combination of daylight and tungsten is
exactly what you would expect to find in a location like this, so the effect is
one of enhanced, yet controlled, reality.
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© 2008 Lowel-Light Mfg. All Rights Reserved.
