CL-455P vs CL-655P for lighting two person interview

[Tom Wilkinson]

I am current using a Panasonic AG-HMC150 and lighting one person interviews with two CL-MF0150 Cool Lights CDM 150 Fresnel with Cool Lights CL-SRB0650 Fresnel Softbox Kits but that is not enough light for two person interviews. I went with the Fresnel hoping I will need them for dramatic lighting for narratives, but so far I am only doing interviews.

I read about using two light for two people using the left light as the key for the person on the left and fill for person on the right and vise versa with the other light. I was think of going with Florescence to give me more light. I was thinking the 6 tube fixture would be more versatile for other scenes besides interviews.

Is it worth the extra $150 and 3.4 lbs. per light to get 1/3 more light using the CL-655P?

If you use either of these lights with the HMC150 let me know how you like them.

Thanks.

 

[starcentral]

Looks like no one replied to your post, what did you end up deciding on? If it was me, I would go for 6 tubes if its offered since it will for one give you a larger soft light source if needed, and for less power you can always remove 1 or 2 tubes, or gel it with ND.

If you can fake the interview and shoot one person first with your lighting setup, then shoot the other with a lighting setup you will get a little bit better production value than trying to use two lights to pull off the whole interview. Just my opinion, of course what you suggested is not impossible.

Having said that think about this, if the left light is keying the left person and filling the right person, and the right light is keying the right person at the same time - are you really keying and filling your subjects? Both subjects will get equal amounts of light that will be bright and more or less on only one side (the camera facing side) of their faces.

What you could try is putting both lights over each subjects shoulders as sort of a hair light, then use reflector or bounce board to fill in the camera side of the face. This will be more dramatic since they will have some hair light brighter than the "key/fill".

 

[Michael Carter]

I watched a history show the other night with dozens of two-heads interviews and was marveling at how badly it was lit - seems to be a one-head setup with two people crammed in. Way too many deep shadows, etc. And even the single-head shots were poor.

I'd think for two, some sort of china or lantern in-between them and above camera level would work well. The last 2-person deal I did, they were in a library in big overstuffed chairs and thus not as close together as I'd have liked - but I ran a 12' pole between two stands and hung a cluster of 3 chinas with big flo bulbs in them - one china was unbleached and warmed the light up a hair. I used some fill from the side, and 300 watt tungstens as hair/sidelight. It really worked quite well.

There was something sort of "unifying" by having the light in the center - each of them "faced" the light essentially, with falloff away from the frame - so it focused your attention on the center. We did some establishing shots dead-on with both guys in frame, an intro, some reactions, a close, and then switched to 2-cameras, over-the-shoulder. Kept notes about key statements that we might want full-front reactions, etc. And added some of those before we struck.

If you do the one-camera "fake it", you REALLY have to take careful notes - you'll lose the whole give & take, nobody can overlap, etc. Wouldn't want to direct or edit that if it was more than a couple questions!

You can't go wrong with the big flo units, and with most you don't need to pull bulbs - they usually have bank switches allowing 2, 4 or 6 tubes on.