a little lighting and set design goes a long way

jambredz

jambredz

Veteran
I'm shooting a doc mostly talking head (my section of it) and we encounter all sorts of sucky ass interview environments...but this was visually one of the worst. I wish i had taken a before picture. I walked into a huge conference room that had bare white walls with some pictures near the ceiling and the lower section of the wall had a green section. This room was all sorts of plain and ugly. Horrible (video/film wise) overhead floro lighting. I immedately turned off the overhead lights. First task was to add some colour to this shot so i had to include the green section of the wall. Also used vanishing line (framing 101). 2nd was to put something on the wall. I asked if i could remove the pictures near the ceiling and was told I couldn't. This was an Olympic office so there had to be something around. We looked and looked and found a Jamaican flag and an Olympic flag, found some tape and taped them together and slapped it on the wall. In an attempt to save $ im only provided with 2 lights. I had a Diva 400 and a 300 arri fresnel. Threw the 300 on the background,crimped the barndoors creating a slash of light and let the light fall off. Used the diva as the key with diffusion that it comes with. Raised the key above to get it out of the talents glasses. I like mixing colour temps so the cam is set to daylight WB making the tungsten around the back really warm. Just wished I had something for bounce/fill. This place looked so unappealing when we walked in...and with a little lighting and creative set design we turned out a pretty usable interview. I really liked the result.


Lesson...learn photography....a RED, ALEXA or FILM camera wouldn't have yielded better results than my 7d if I didn't know these key things.
I snapped this shot right at the end of the interview (the video frame doesn't have that much headroom)
DOing this doc really makes me look on interview lighting in a whole new light. Shooting 3 to 4 interviews a day with 2 lights makes u pretty creative in trying to get a different look from each interview.

shot with cinestyle with saturation bumped up a little. canon 50mm 1.4
 

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Looks great, thinking about buying the Canon 50mm f/1.4. How do you like it compared to your other 50mm supertakumar?

Thanks
 
vision_filmz said:
Looks great, thinking about buying the Canon 50mm f/1.4. How do you like it compared to your other 50mm supertakumar?

Thanks
Click to expand...

the Canon 1.4 is certainly sharper wide open than the Supertakumar. It also has a more "clean" HD look to me. The supertak is soft wid open and but its a sofrness i like...it has a kind of glow that makes light seem to have a blossom effect. I use it to my advantage to give a certain look sometimes. However I usually stop it down to 2.8 or f4 under normal circumstances for sharpness and focus. (2.8 is quite sharp). it also has a more organic look to my eyes. The supertak is my personal lens so i know it well. The canon was rented.


This is the supertak wide open. Frame grab from a short I did .Obviously the jpeg quality is crapped on but u can get an idea.
 

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Set design is so often overlooked when on a tight budget and it can make the biggest difference for the least amount of money. Great job.
 
Thanks, I really like that shot. My 50mm f/1.8 lens recently took an arrow to it's knee and I'm going to either upgrade to the 50mm f/1.4 or a Nikon, Supertak. etc.
 
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