Hints and tips O7Q/FS700 interviews with bright backgrounds

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Pgale

Well-known member
I'm flying out to Barbados next week for a few days corporate shoot. I may end up shooting an interview in the shade with a bright (if it's not raining!) beach/sea background. there will be no additional lighting - all natural (maybe a reflector).

I plan on shooting 4K2HD in SLog2.

Since I've only used the O7Q for indoor interview shoots, is there anything I should look out for or hints+tips that will make grading and edit easier (particularly with exposure)?

Cheers,

Paul.
 
Bright sun and shadow are always tough. One thing I find that really helps (which isn't quite so obvious when you're in a rush) when shooting in shadows is to make sure the sun isn't behind the subject as that really blows out the sky. If possible, have the subjects back in the opposite direction of the sun so the sky is bluer.
 
Thanks for those tips :)

Re grading - how would you approach that to get detail in sky/clouds and good face exposure - bearing in mind they will most likely be darker Barbadian skin tones.
 
Obviously, for medium to close ups in interviews you're kind of in a bind with exposure because you can't use any type of graduated NDs which you can on wides with talent. You can use a polarizer, to pull the blue sky but the trade off is that it affects the specular highlights on skin tones.

I would probably just expose and make the Talent look as good as possible since that's the most important and try to find the best sun direction for the background.

On mediums or wider shots, you can probably do a garbage matte around the talent and then bring down the levels of the background a bit in post.

This is a situation where S-Log 2 is a HUGE advantage.
 
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i once had the same scenario... i was glad i found a white wall, and the sun was just right (lucky) so that i was able to use the sun as keylight (cameras right side) and the wall as fill (cameras left side)... worked a treat! But as i said this was superlucky and haha

You wrote that the interviewee will be in the shade, no option to move them into the sun? or maybe under trees/palms which would diffuse the sun a bit...

You may end up overexposing the bg a bit to get the skintones in the ballpark, but as gene said, slog will help a lot here...
 
Your best move is thinking about your challenges ahead of time. The setup you have described is no small challenge to deal with in a way that looks good in the end. As the others have said, S-LOG is your friend, but only if you know its limits. The tough part is to know exactly where to expose the skin so that at least that part of the image has a chance to be in place. The best way to figure that out is to shoot test before you go. As always, there a a number of ways to go about it, but you need to focus on what you can interpret on the fly while you are actually shooting. If you are guessing on the beaches of Barbados - its a nasty risk.

As Stefan said, getting out of complete shade and finding some dappled light could help. I had an ultra-light island hopping kit that included (among other things) para-cord, white sheets, silver Lame, and spring clamps. When we were lucky, I could make a bounce with the sheet and/or Lame tied between trees, posts, cars, etc. It would always look a bit hilarious but could be enough to fill in the face enough to keep the BKG details.

Go shoot some over exposure tests with some notes and see where you get what you are hoping for. With that info in your head, you will be able to quickly choose a location and block a shot with less worry. I have done a lot of small crew island shooting with no lights or control. You get to choose location, framing, and exposure. Choose very wisely.
 
I dont understand why you wouldnt use lighting to get a decent result.

Its a corporate gig ! Do they expect it to look amateur.
 
stefanhuberfilms said:
i once had the same scenario... i was glad i found a white wall, and the sun was just right (lucky) so that i was able to use the sun as keylight (cameras right side) and the wall as fill (cameras left side)... worked a treat! But as i said this was superlucky and haha

You wrote that the interviewee will be in the shade, no option to move them into the sun? or maybe under trees/palms which would diffuse the sun a bit...

You may end up overexposing the bg a bit to get the skintones in the ballpark, but as gene said, slog will help a lot here...
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There may well be the opportunity to get them in the sun. This time of year there's meant to be a fair bit of cloud too, so might be lucky for best shooting conditions.

Thanks all all for suggestions so far :)
 
Shooter said:
I dont understand why you wouldnt use lighting to get a decent result.

Its a corporate gig ! Do they expect it to look amateur.
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Just the logistics and travelling light. May not be power where we'd want to shoot. It's fairly low budget. I will be taking some lightng though, so may be a chance. I'm going out early so some time to scout and test.
 
I'm guessing they don't want to fly in the lighting gear... cheapos.
I filmed at a campground once and impromptu interview. It was this girl and I just put her in the shade. They had a background they wanted which at the time put the sun behind her. I added a flexfil right below her (she was sitting) but it didn't do too much. Filmed it 4K2ProresHD. Shot it in SLOG2. Luckily now the LUT for SLOG2 to Rec709 is better now so that can help. But I didn't have it at the time, so I just put the ND at 1/16 and rolled the iris around til it looked as good as I could get.

My hands were tied so I was frustrated. It ended up not coming out too bad actually after color grading. It also helped that she was pretty lol.

I'd try and bounce some light on them somehow. Try and get some... "brighter shade" where there is more light coming in. A light meter would help in this instance. And best of luck!
 
hambulance said:
Try to use some diffuse screening and try some reflectors and perhaps some flagging. Have fun :)
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Yes. Modifiers are indispensable in situations like this. Get some ultra bounce or some really good bounce material and some silks of different strengths (I fine a 1/4 silk is enough in most situations where you don't want to cut too much light) and make it work and shape the light. If you have the luxury of rigging up some neg fill too that can help immensely in shaping too when in ambient light.
 
I think the easiest thing to do is just to bring a 1 foot x 1 foot LED panel. It's small, battery powered and under the shade it will probably help bring the talent up a little bit to balance out the sky.
 
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