Interview with HMC151 - lighting with 4 x Lowel Omni lights

J

JimNastics

Active member
Hope you chaps don't mind me posting this in here, I don't seem to ever get much response in the Lighting forum.

I'm going to be filming many interviews with my HMC151 over the next month, around 20 in fact. I am a complete novice when it comes to lighting intervuews. My lighting setup is extremely 1 dimensional... 4 x Lowel Omni lights, with stands and barndoors, and gel frames (no gels yet though). The lights take 300w or 500w bulbs, I need to buy all the bulbs so I'm still free to choose which.

How would you chaps go about filming standard interviews with 3 (or 4) Lowel Omnis, at 300w or 500w? I don't have any sort of diffusion, gels, umbrellas etc., but I'm happy to buy anything that will help. I don't need to create any special atmosphere, it just needs to look nice and good. This is for an educational project, so the talent are teachers, pupils, parents, authority staff etc.
 
If your budget can afford it I would reccomend buying a Chimera video softbox and speed-ring to fit an Omni light, this will be your main light for the person you are interviewing.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/257336-REG/Chimera_8114_Video_Pro_Plus_1.html

Next I would buy a snoot for one of your Omni lights, that you can use as either a hair-light or to light up your background. ( there is also a narrow version of this adapter, but you need barn-doors or a frame to mount it )
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/32245-REG/Lowel_O1_53_Snoot_for_Omni_Light.html

A couple of sets of barn-doors would also be extremely useful if you don't have any already.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/31768-REG/Lowel_O1_20_Complete_4_Leaf_Barndoor.html

You might also consider buying a dichroic filter for at least one of your Omni lights, so that you can use it for fill in daylight situations.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/31860-REG/Lowel_O1_51_Dichroic_Filter_for_Omni_Light.html

A couple of medium size white bounce/shoot-through umbrellas work great as fill for your subject or the background.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/423625-REG/Impact_UBBW45_45_Convertible_Umbrella.html

A couple of collapsable white/silver reflectors can be very handy to bounce light from an Omni or daylight from a window, or to block stray light from your subject.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/214993-REG/Lastolite_LL_LR3831_38_Reflector_Silver_White.html

Also, get a couple of reflector holders to hold them in place.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/124746-REG/Avenger_D700B_Collapsible_Reflector_Holder.html

I always try to bring at least one combo boom-stands with me, as you never know when you might need a boom on location. This stand works as a regular stand and can quickly be converted to a boom when needed.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/546705-REG/Manfrotto_by_Bogen_Imaging_420B_420B_Combi_Boom_Stand_.html

...And lastly a few cheap dimmers, so you can quickly ratio the light output from your fill, background, or hair-light. Yes the dimmer will cause a color-shift, but generally the shift is acceptable. ( you will need to buy a grounded-plug to non-grounded plug adapter to use this dimmer )
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/283607-REG/Impact_D600_600_Watt_AC_Dimmer.html

Remember that the most important factor when lighting an interview, is control. To be able to quickly set-up a flattering lighting set-up and be able to carefully control the light in almost any environment.
 
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Thanks chaps for all your suggestions, it's very helpful.

I took delivery of 4 x 500w and 2 x 300w bulbs the other day, unfortunately I only realised today that they have sent me 120v 300w bulbs (found out when one blew in the Omni within a milisecond). They are sending me the 240v bulbs, but it means that tomorrow I will only have 4 x 500w Omnis. Is 500w too much for a back / hairlight, considering the key light is 500w (bounced back off a brella)? I don't have any ND gels or any type of diffusion, so I don't know what do... can I do it the budget way and clamp some baking paper on my barndoors?! *holds head in hands in shame*
 
That should be fine for a back light - I would consider a dimmer if it is too much. You probably could use them often on at least 2 of the lights (back and fill). ~The key 500w with an umbrella worries me. I used tota 1000's with umbrella and still wanted more light.
 
MadHMC150 said:
The key 500w with an umbrella worries me. I used tota 1000's with umbrella and still wanted more light.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I don't have a choice... I haven't got my softbox yet, so I either go open 500w on the talent (too intense?) or go umbrella.
 
Your Omni (500w) with an umbrella should be fine in a pinch. You'll just need to have
it closer to the interviewee, say around 2 feet. For sit down interview, you could place
it beside the interviewer, about 5-6 feet up.

Your second OMNI with an umbrella, would be placed on the opposite side of the
interviewer, perhaps 4 feet back. That should work well for a fill light.

Alternately, you could use parchment paper as diffusion if the OMNI + Umbrella
is not enough light for the key. You can purchase parchment paper in any supermarket.
I've never done it myself, but here's a link on DVX user.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=141628&page=2

Oh yeah. You could do the same thing for the hair light - OMNI + Barn Doors + Parchment.

Good luck!

Peter
 
space permitting, you can also just move the 500w hair light further away.
alternatively, just stick in a normal incandescent or halogen bulb with lower wattage.

for tightly framed interviews i frequently use a 60w 'full-spectrum' tungsten bulb for the hair light.
 
Thanks guys. If I have space (which I won't know until I get there) the best thing to do seems to just keep moving the hairlight back until it looks good. If I have no space, I will try diffusing it with some parchment paper on the barndoors.

For the keylight, is a bare 500w straight at the talent just too much? The Omni documentation suggests it's fine, but I'd prefer to take guidance from you pros in the field. The alternatives, as suggested in this thread, are umbrella from a couple of feet, of parchment paper diffusion.

For the fill light, until I get the 300w bulbs, I'm just going to use a reflector to bounce back the key spill.
 
I can't help much since I use fluorescents pretty much exclusively, but one thing I always do is to test my setup at home.

Have you thought about this? I mean it seems obvious to me.

Whenever I'm going to do something new or different with my lighting or am facing a situation that I've never shot before I always test out my lighting setup at home, doing my best to replicate the situation so that I can work out all the details and kinks beforehand.
 
The bare 500w will be too much for the talent. Unless you're shooting film noir :)

You can use a reflector for the fill, but it will have to be pretty close (12-18").
As long as your shot is tight though, you shouldn't have any problem.

Don't forget about the background - this is often forgotten, but very important
in getting that professional look. Check out this link for some examples:

http://vimeo.com/6717529

If you're not that comfortable with that, you may want to consider getting a
textured backdrop, or black backdrop for that "limbo" effect. They're both
really cheap to rent from any photographic store. The black backdrop is
the easiest, since you don't have to light it at all.

Peter
 
Diffusion gel over the 500w key light.

Bounce a 500w off some foamcore for fill

300w hair light (from behind and off to the side. Placed high and down angled at the subject with the barndoors set to flag off light from hitting the lens.)

300w onto the background.

There. Simple 4 point lighting. Though 500w with enough diffusion might be a bit dim. But go with what yuh have. Do some tests and nail down your basic setup.

Diffusion gels can be your friend, but they do cut down on light if you pile too many on. But then, so does a soft box or an umbrella.
 
Watch what you use for an umbrella or bounce card. They have limits about what wattage bulb you can use otherwise you'll burn them up.

It's really embarrassing when your gels start to smoke. I shoot pressers now and then, and the kit I'm supplied with has blue gels, but has two Tota lights, 1k , and no frames, so it's pretty much impossible to gel them, and when I try, I have to be creative .. doesn't always work.

I set off a smoke alarm in a costume museum once, curator nearly had a fit.
 
Yeah, I should have mentioned don't place the gel to close to the light. Usually I clip it to the barn doors with wooden cloth pins and fold them fwd enough to keep the gel from melting.
 
Ok well the first interviews on Friday went ok... not having the 300w bulbs didn't help as the diffused 500w were too "soft", it doesn't bring the talent out like a hard hair/back light does, regardless of wattage. I've got my 300w bulbs now so I'm hoping these will do a much better job. The Omni + umbrella worked quite nicely for the key (from about 4 feet away!!) and the reflector (gold side) gave a really nice bronzing for fill (from about 2 feet...).

One problem I did have was that the room was pretty small (about 10' x 12' I reckon), made even worse by the fact there were 5 people in there. Add in time pressure and I didn't get a chance to setup any kind of background lighting, so I opted to leave the room light on. Combine this with the poor hairlight situation and, on video, the background is much too light in comparison to the talent, which is a shame.

So tomorrow, my priorities are 300w hairlight, room lights off and 300w background lighting. If the room is big enough, I might try 500w diffused key light, rather than 500w + umbrella.
 
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