Lecture Lighting

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ibhhvc

Active member
I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations or experience with lighting lectures? I'm looking for lighting solutions that can easily light the lecturer for the video, but not get in the way of the students watching the lecture in the classroom. Ideally, I would find some semi-permanent solutions that could be installed in the lecture hall...

It seems like the main challenge is that the professor wants to be able to move wherever they want, across a 20'+ span, and they need to stay lit across that whole span. Theatre style spots or fresnels could work, but I don't want to wash the speaker out and I would like to get the flattest light possible so the lecturer isn't moving in and out of hot spots.

Any thoughts at all would be great...
 
My church runs in a lecture theatre and we've been using one of the excellent ETC Source4 Zoomspot Jr profiles. They have a 25° - 50° adjustable beam angle so you can have to do is calculate if it would be wide enough at the distance you plan to mount it. They also have shades so you can easily stop them from spilling on to the screens in the theatre. They have gel frames so you can put CTB or other gels in front of them to make the light match whatever you like. The projector in our theatre is mounted in this turret thing at the top of the seating, so I just place the zoomspot on top of it on an H-stand.
I've been so impressed with these, I bought two myself and I'm also bumping a theatrical show this week with nine of them.
 
That looks like a great, affordable unit. I'm used to using lights like this in a theater setting, but I'm so used to using flat light from soft boxes or bounces in video that I wasn't sure how a light like this would play out. I guess I would be concerned that the light wouldn't "wrap" as well and would create hot spots and shadows that a softer light source wouldn't. But it sounds like you're happy with how these units perform so that's great. Many thanks!
 
I'd skip the source four - it's basically a Leko... someone will have to operate it and keep it aimed at the speaker as he walks around. Which works fine in theater since everything's rehearsed, maybe not so well when you have to find someone to run a hot follow spot for every lecture. And it will look like some old Marilyn-Monroe-in-the-nighclub-act movie. A hard circle of light. If you open it wide to fill the stage, it's just gonna be harsh as hell - it's not like a fresnel at all, it's very focused hard light.

I'd consider something like truss or pipe mounted LEDs or biax flos across the front of the stage area, up top. They're pretty soft, and for a permanent install it wouldn't be hard to add some diffusion, create some boxes, whatever.

Biax flos are really cheap these days, too, like this model on Amazon. Get a set with barn doors so you have some control, most all of 'em do.
 
ibhhvc said:
I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations or experience with lighting lectures? I'm looking for lighting solutions that can easily light the lecturer for the video, but not get in the way of the students watching the lecture in the classroom. Ideally, I would find some semi-permanent solutions that could be installed in the lecture hall...
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Visit your local TV news room. Have a look at how they light their evening news set. It's typically a whole bunch of very small biax fluorescent units, up very high, pointed down at about 45 degrees. Provides a nice even light with hardly any shadows.

You can do something similar. You can use a couple of light stands, suspend a piece of schedule 40 aluminum pipe between them (making a tiny light grid). Get a handful of pipe clamp to baby pin clamps, and hang your small biax units. It'll be up high and out of everyone's way, and the light stands will be off to the outsides and out of the lines of sight (hopefully). Students can still see, prof. can still wander around. If the facility will let you (or do it for you) you can replace the light stands with permanently installed pipe hangers and make it a permanent installation. You can usually get all the parts at a theater supply place.
 
Bruce Watson said:
Get a handful of pipe clamp to baby pin clamps, and hang your small biax units. It'll be up high and out of everyone's way, and the light stands will be off to the outsides and out of the lines of sight (hopefully). Students can still see, prof. can still wander around. If the facility will let you (or do it for you) you can replace the light stands with permanently installed pipe hangers and make it a permanent installation. You can usually get all the parts at a theater supply place.
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You can also use super clamps or mafers with baby pins for hanging... and I would really really suggest you get a handful of cheap safety cables!!!

If you're going to run a long pipe like that, aluminum light stands are risky, even c-stands are dangerous. Get a couple steel beefy babies. They cost the same as a turtle-base C-stand and beat the heck out of a c-stand for most uses. Keep in mind c-stands are designed for tiny lights and are generally used for flags & such.

Your best bet for something like that's a DJ truss. I got a 20 footer for about $200. Handy for music videos, too.
 
The original poster has not provided anywhere near enough information to support a practical solution to his problem. This seems to happen a lot on these forums and its frustrating. Rigging a ring of fluorescents is one viable solution and frankly so is just pointing a Source 4 Leko. It all depends upon the space and the limitations of budget . The original poster needs to present a whole lot more information including diagrams and photos of the space and whether and where slides or other AV aids will be used in the room, plus the budget limitations available. Short of that all this talk of clamps and trusses & biax's is putting the cart before the horse.

However, by far the best idea though would be to just hire a good professional Gaffer to come out and look at the space and suggest realistic solutions. Bring in more than one if you want a second opinion.
 
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