lighting a music video

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DVX100Shooter

Veteran
I have seen a ton of music videos where they use these big bright lights in the background of say a performance scene of either an artist, group, or dancers. The lights and camera are facing each other with the band, dancers, or artist in the middle.

Wouldn't that cause some serious lens glare so you wouldnt even be able to see the performers? Obviously they make it work in these videos I see on Mtv and all.

I have seen this done on a sound stage and on location at night. I guess they can use certain lenses to cut down or reduce the amount of glare of shooting right into those lights.
 
A matte box with a french flag would help a great deal in keeping the light from hitting the lens directly and causing a flare.
 
I have a matte box with a french flag but maybe I need to pratice using it. It seems that I would always get the flag in the shot! I would have to zoom in some so I dont see it which would change the shot composition I was going after.
 
I think he's talking about shining a light directly into the lens from behind the performers. Right? Oftentimes, these videos are actually shot on film with very high grade prime lenses that can handle this kind of direct light better than our humble camera. You should try it with a DVX though. The mattebox won't really help you, and you might get a lotta flare, but you might get something you like. The lights would have to be pretty powerful, and maybe you could snoot them off to make them small, powerful sources. I'd think that would limit the flare. Try it out, let us know how it goes.
-Ryan
 
The back light doesn't have to be the light you see in frame, it can come from a slightly different angle off frame as the main source and the one you are shooting to simulate a source can actually be a low watt with heavy dif, just hot enough to look hot but not blow out like crazy.
 
A few things to bear in mind:

First, most high end videos are shot with very good lenses. These lenses tend to handle flares a little more gracefully than something like a DVX.

Also, most of the lights are not used at full intensity. They are dimmed down enough to not interfere with the foreground to the point of not being able to see.

I just did a video with 6 9-lights in the background. We had the 9-lights on a dimmer and kept then below 50% or so. Sometimes we would chase them, and change the intensity just to make it more dynamic.

Kevin Zanit
 
This is why I have started using my photography meter (actually I upgraded what I had to a "film" meter). I'm starting to learn that, just like in still photography, it's really all a numbers game, it's all about ratios. I mean film (or 24p video) is just 24 still photos a second right? So light the same way. The point of this is to reinforce what others before me have just said, not every light has to be full on. With strobes (for still work) we have the ability to adjust the strobe through a variety of F-Stop settings to manage the output. With hot lights you don't have that, but I've built a few dimmers and use them quite a bit, you just have to be aware of the temperature shift. You can also scrim the light, or physically move it. You can use gels to correct for temp shift or to disguise it with color. Also you can use flag to control spill, this often works better (in my experience) than the french flag, although that too has its uses.

Matt
 
all this is great advise, so follow it, but also, first and formost:

Its video, not film, so plug that puppy up to a TV on set and see what it looks like, and adjust/move the lights as needed.

dimmers are always a nice thing to have, wish I had some :(
 
Cheese, I built two for around $75 with parts from home depot. Just make sure you buy dimmers that can handle the wattage and you're good to go. If you don't know anything about electricity, you should research it though...

Matt
 
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