Interview with two lights.

Brandon Rice

Brandon Rice

Distributed Producer
I am lighting a scene tonight, interview style. One guy, CU and Medium, talking directly to camera. I am taking two lights. An arri 1k softbox for lighting my subject/background (he will be very close to the background) and an arri 350 for the backlight. Should I bring anything else?
 
Do you have any china balls? If so, i'd take one. If not MAKE SURE you have some sort of reflector for fill. The softbox may wrap around enough that you may not need basic fill, but you'll still probably want some fill under the eyes. For interviews it is especially important that the eyes are clear. Make sure you've got your gels!
 
You might want to consider using a c-stand to get your Arri 300 up and behind your subject. Some Opal or other diffusion over this light to soften and spread an even backlight, for separation. If you don't have the luxury of a makeup person, this is usually overlooked, ...makeup. Take some cheap "Cover girl" powder,(some people call it corn-silk) which you would use to knock down shine on your subjects nose, cheeks and especially the forehead. Also it leaves clients the impression that a "professional " is working with them. (Or gay)... lol
 
Something I always keep in my kit are some make-up pads and transparent base. You never know when you might want to take care of a little shine. It's often the difference between an amateur looking interview and a professional interview, avoiding annoying shine on the face. It takes a little practice to do right, so this might not be good advice for tonight, but for future interviews. For me having some transparent base and make-up pads is as important as C-47s, professional grade gaffer tape, diffusion, gels, etc. especially since most of the time I don't have a make-up artist.

For interview shoots with a budget, the make-up person, in my opinion, is as important as the sound recordist, lighting technician, and cameraperson. Never underestimate their skills at putting people at ease in addition to the director's role.
 
mr.terpstar said:
Here's a frame from an interview I did recently with just two lights. One 600W Britek w/ Umbrella in front, one 200W in back and to the side. Looks nice to me.

Image: Jessica
Click to expand...

Yeah it does look good. I would have moved the rim light behind the subject a little more and boosted the fill on the right to lessen that shadow on her jaw.
 
That's a good point actually. I had the "Black Stretch" turned up to 3 to lessen the effect of the shadows both on her face and in the background. But an extra fill light wouldn't have hurt. It was just quicker this way. I do like the rim light where it is though. I don't often have it on someone's face, but it seems to work.
 
grab from interview
franklin.jpg
 
I think he needs some rim light on the left side to seperate his clothes and hair from the background. He also seem very red but this probably hasn't been CC'd yet
 
mr.terpstar said:
Here's a frame from an interview I did recently with just two lights. One 600W Britek w/ Umbrella in front, one 200W in back and to the side. Looks nice to me.

Image: Jessica
Click to expand...

Looks good terpstar. I like the 200 on the side, really adds dimension. The only thing I noticed that was sort of distracting was the light hanging from the cieiling in the background seems lilke it's kind of stuck to the side of her head, I might have positioned her a little more to the right to avoid this.
 
Dlang, Thanks for your comments. I did notice the light, but was hoping it wouldn't be too distracting. She moves around a bit too so it's not too bad.

Brice, your guy is looking a little flat. I think someone might have mentioned putting the rim light (hairlight, kicker, etc.) further round on his back and maybe a bit stronger. Did you use diffusion? I find for those lights diffusion isn't necessary most of the time. At least not for a small light.

I'm finding that these kinds of setups are all about depth -even on a person's face. You want to have the light stronger on one side so that there's a falloff on the other. This can be dramatic or not, but some shadow on their face give you a 3 dimensional idea of what his face is like on a 2D screen. This is just stuff I'm picking up as I go, but maybe I've heard it somewhere before.

Finally, if you did have a third light, I would probably have used it on the background to get a sliver of light across the flag. Or some other kind of cookie to make it more interesting. Anyway, best of luck to future shoots!
 
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