PerroneFord
Deals in Lead
This weekend, I got roped into a TERRIBLE filming/lighting/micing scenario and I'd be interested in hearing how you would approach it.
The Room:
We were using a large room, but were limited to a corner of it. So I have a front wall, and a side wall to my left. The space to the left is tight, so I cannot easily film from that side. There are two tables with products that are positioned 90 degrees from each other along the side and front wall.
There is a large screen along the front wall that will show a live presentation. The audience is back about 25ft facing the screen. This leave room for the speaker to stand slightly offset from the screen. I speak to the speaker and have him define his space where he will be moving. Once we establish the space, I try to figure out how to light and mic the space. I have about 45 minute to get my gear into the room, set up lights, mic, and camera.
The Gear:
Large screen placed on the front wall.
Rifa 88 Softbox (36" x 36")
Lowel DP (1k openface with barndoors)
Sennheiser ME66/K6
Microphone boom stand (no lavs)
Sony HD Camera on tripod.
The Setup:
In looking at what I had, I could not front light the talent as that would have totally washed out the screen since he chose to stand slightly offset to it. I chose to put the softbox at about 7 o' clock to the talent. So well camera left. I put the open face light at about the 4 o'clock position behind the camera position to add some light fill. I was showing f2.8 on the meter. I made a bad decision to use the boom stand high and to the left of the softbox aimed at the talent. Trying to keep them on axis as much as possible as they moved back and forth. In retrospect, I should have gone for a low position in front of the talent. It would have allowed for better on-axis response but I didn't think of it at the time.
I set the camera up to the left of the talent. This gave me the best angle not to get the screen in the shot. Unfortunately, the talent walked into and out of the light/mic zone throughout the entire presentation. The talent was not a pro, but I would certainly entertain thoughts on how to prevent this kind of thing in the future.
The problems:
1. The spill from the softbox washed out the near side of the screen. I couldn't really flag it without taking light off the talent.
2. The open face light cast a shadow on the side wall of the shot behind the talent. This could have been avoided with a low mic position.
3. Because of the screen position, the talent kept turning their back to the mic position to address something on the screen. With no practice run, I did not see this coming, but should have anticipated it. I had the camera mic on as well, so I hope to blend that in some to cover some of the issues.
So my question to everyone here is how would you have done it differently? Knowing that you were working with a live, unrehearsed presentation, working in front of a live audience, working with a live projection screen, and needing light on the talent. A lav would have let me save the audio at least, but I just didn't have it available. How might you set things up differently if you were doing it?
The best thing I can say, is that when the talent was in the zone I had laid out, the sound was very good, and the lighting was quite nice. The background was garbage but I had no control over it.
Thanks for your thoughts.
The Room:
We were using a large room, but were limited to a corner of it. So I have a front wall, and a side wall to my left. The space to the left is tight, so I cannot easily film from that side. There are two tables with products that are positioned 90 degrees from each other along the side and front wall.
There is a large screen along the front wall that will show a live presentation. The audience is back about 25ft facing the screen. This leave room for the speaker to stand slightly offset from the screen. I speak to the speaker and have him define his space where he will be moving. Once we establish the space, I try to figure out how to light and mic the space. I have about 45 minute to get my gear into the room, set up lights, mic, and camera.
The Gear:
Large screen placed on the front wall.
Rifa 88 Softbox (36" x 36")
Lowel DP (1k openface with barndoors)
Sennheiser ME66/K6
Microphone boom stand (no lavs)
Sony HD Camera on tripod.
The Setup:
In looking at what I had, I could not front light the talent as that would have totally washed out the screen since he chose to stand slightly offset to it. I chose to put the softbox at about 7 o' clock to the talent. So well camera left. I put the open face light at about the 4 o'clock position behind the camera position to add some light fill. I was showing f2.8 on the meter. I made a bad decision to use the boom stand high and to the left of the softbox aimed at the talent. Trying to keep them on axis as much as possible as they moved back and forth. In retrospect, I should have gone for a low position in front of the talent. It would have allowed for better on-axis response but I didn't think of it at the time.
I set the camera up to the left of the talent. This gave me the best angle not to get the screen in the shot. Unfortunately, the talent walked into and out of the light/mic zone throughout the entire presentation. The talent was not a pro, but I would certainly entertain thoughts on how to prevent this kind of thing in the future.
The problems:
1. The spill from the softbox washed out the near side of the screen. I couldn't really flag it without taking light off the talent.
2. The open face light cast a shadow on the side wall of the shot behind the talent. This could have been avoided with a low mic position.
3. Because of the screen position, the talent kept turning their back to the mic position to address something on the screen. With no practice run, I did not see this coming, but should have anticipated it. I had the camera mic on as well, so I hope to blend that in some to cover some of the issues.
So my question to everyone here is how would you have done it differently? Knowing that you were working with a live, unrehearsed presentation, working in front of a live audience, working with a live projection screen, and needing light on the talent. A lav would have let me save the audio at least, but I just didn't have it available. How might you set things up differently if you were doing it?
The best thing I can say, is that when the talent was in the zone I had laid out, the sound was very good, and the lighting was quite nice. The background was garbage but I had no control over it.
Thanks for your thoughts.
