Interview Lighting- at a Wrestling Training School

PeeDee

PeeDee

Member
Hey everyone, need some professional opinions on this but basically I'm working on a documentary right now that details the lives of amateur circuit pro wrestlers, following them from their training to their first major match.

So far I've gotten hours of training and behind the scenes footage, all shot in a very cinema verite style (hand held, whip zooms and focus pulling). All shot on DVX-100-B.

Now, I'm going to be conducting interviews within the next few weeks with some of them and I want it to be done in a formalized fashion.

In terms of lighting this I'd like to keep it minimal (in terms of crew and lighting).

The lighting of the place itself is lit under a florescent grid for the majority of the school with a tungsten open faced lighting grid set up above the ring. It gives a nice color temperature contrast with proper settings.

Those interviewed would be shot on various parts of the school, some sitting in front or on the ring (a secondary camera might be used if I can get the rental).

In terms of facial lighting, what would be the best solution. I want to keep frontal lighting soft with perhaps a harsh key or back light to separate them from the background giving some depth.

What kind of fixtures, in the event I cannot get kinos, could pull this off economically? Would bounce work with an open faced light striking on maybe some foam core?

I'm sorry of this is a bit technical, I over think these things and I want to make my footage look crisp and also able to color grade without artifacting problems in post.


I'd love read some opinions :)

Cheers!
 
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Take your subjects high up into the stands(seats) and shoot the wrestling mat in the background over their shoulder.
I am sharing this advice , keeping in mind a very inexpensive set-up.
A Rifa light or an arri fired into a softbox would be ideal, with a 150 or a scrimed down 300 acting as your edge/backlight. You can use a little of the spill from your key light or backlight to bounce into another piece of foam core to act as a fill. A 300 or even a 650 bounced into foamcore would serve you well as your key.
 
As filmat11 stated, a nice softbox is going to work well if you have the space to use one. The downside of a softbox is that you can't really control the spill and if you are in a small space you will not be able to illuminate your subjects without also illuminating the space that they are in. If your backgrounds are not all that interesting (blank white walls) this approach isn't going to yield great results.

Assuming that you have access to rentals (or can afford to purchase expensive instruments) a really nice kit for this would be a 3 or 4 head Dedolight kit. I use the 150W instruments (with self contained ballasts) all the time. The kit is small, very quick to setup and highly focusable allowing you to really choose what part of your setup you place light on. The advantage that these offer is incredible control and range. The Dedo's offer several times greater range of focus compared to Fresnel's and have some of the most even edge to edge performance of any source out there. Combined with just a small amount of grip equipment you can go from setup to setup extremely quickly.

Though expensive, I have never found anything as quick, compact and versatile as the Dedo's. If you need to operate in varied areas with minimal setup time and yet still have a lot of control, there isn't a better kit in my opinion.
 
I have to say, I saw the Dedo's for the first time on a short Kevin was DP'ing, and they were just terrific! I cannot wait to be able to use some of those!
 
I'll look into the Dedo kit. Equipment isn't necessarily a problem, I have access to the School of Visual Art's facilites and have top priority since I am a thesis stuent. In terms of grip equipment I'd like to keep it as non cluttered as possible, so would say a flag kit and silk kit with say three c-stands cover the set up or should I opt for a larger rental package.

Oh just to specify dimensions, the school/ring make up about two hundred square feet, with white walls but they also have heavy black curtains that are used for their shows, so I can vary location in terms of "talking head" shots.
 
Hey, would perhaps a soft lighting kit, something for perhaps portrait photography do the trick with a wattage of 1500?
 
Heres how I would set it up on a budget.

1/ Place your subject a reasonable distance from the ring so its in frame but not within the field of focus.

2/ Turn the fluros of.

3/ Turn the ring tungstens on. Make sure they are focused into the ring . What you are tring to achieve is a dark room, brightly lit ring, the spill from these will create some texture to the rest of the room. If its in the shot.

4/ From high and in back of the talent use a kicker aimed to give some fall off over the shoulders. But not so any hits the face.

5/ From the left or right, side isnt so important, aim a 1k open face across the talent, but only to allow some spill to hit his face not dead on.

6/ On the opposite side of your 1k, set up a bounce card that the 1k will be focused on. Position the bounce card to suit the look you want, a little more front on, little more to the side. Little higher etc. The white bounce card will give you more even light like a softbox. For the bounce card buy some white foamcore - works perfectly.

Setup requires two lights, bounce card, three stands, grip clip to hold bounce card. Now thats lighting on a budget. And can look great.

If you can adjust the ring tungstens and they have barn doors, you could try to be more creative, by using the doors to narrow the beams, point one at each ring forner post and the rest dead centre of the ring.

Should add that this is speculation without seeing the location.
 
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