Lighting set-up advice (filming LCD TV)

L

Lkorver

Well-known member
I'm not a beginner but certainly far far from an expert on lighting. I've got a corporate video I'm shooting on the hpx170 (just got 7D but not ready to roll it out yet!) We'll be shooting in a large photo studio with a black background (muslin/silk/velvet i presume). There is one actor standing beside a black web tv receiver which is sitting on top of a black stand. He will be pointing out features and discussing the product to the camera. I'd love for the background to fall off and be almost completely dark.

I'm thinking of using a riffa softbox mounted above and in front of the actor and a frezzy 300 spotting the receiver + stand. Both actor and equipment will be subtly back lit as well. I think this set-up will be quiet simple to set up, probably just a matter of tweaking the back lighting and keeping the softbox on the actors face and off the background.

anyone see any possible issues or have any tips for this set up?

The second setup is the same actor and receiver set up with a 42inch plasma that the receiver will be controlling (web tv). I'd like my ratios pretty even so that I can see what is on the tv screen but still have the actors face exposed properly.

Any ideas on how to accomplish this and how much light I should bring to cover my bum for this shot? thanks in advance!

Luke
 
color temperature?

color temperature?

I'm pretty sure I might have to go with daylight balanced lights to match the LCD? I know computer LCD's look super warm when shoot with a tungsten white balance.
 
We just wrapped a shoot yesterday with a computer display and tungsten lights. The LCD was way cooler than tungsten, and a bit greener. Cooling our lights off to daylight helped immensely to match things up. Nothing to do but shoot some tests with the production kit and see what happens. With a locked off camera and no crossing objects, it's an easy fix in post, no matter how you do it.

Also consider flagging the light coming from the lights with black foamcore and get that dark BG as far away from the lit subject as possible.
 
So let me get this straight, you are going to shot black products, on black stands, in front of a black background, and need to light talent also? I think that the question may be not so much how much light you bring, but how many C-stands and flags you bring. If you are going to light the talent with a big soft light and want the background to fall off to nothing... you will need to flag the shi*t out of that riffa. It sounds like you want a theatrical look and for that, I would see about getting some more theatrical lighting. Since you are in a studio, I assume you can mount lights up high. I would light the talent's block with fresnels from above, and give them modeling with either high mounted back lights or floor mounted kickers (side lights), which are flagged to keep the light off the background. Depending on the blocking, of course, you might think about keying the products with cooler, (or warmer, depending on you aesthetic tastes) soft lights from low on the floor from the front, and back light or side light them with fresnels or harder lights that are warmer or cooler (depending as above).

Good luck with that. I have had a couple of gigs where I have tried to have the back ground fall off to black and, sorry to say, I have fu*cked up (in my opinion) every time. The problem is that with video, I try for a cinematic aesthetic, and that means going with a wide aperture, and slower shutter speed. Of course by doing that, it is hard to get an exposure that does not register the background. If you want, try going with a smaller aperture and a higher shutter speed and see how that looks for you.
 
thanks David and Atomic. So it seems I should probably go with the theatrical lighting design. Could I get away with using fresnels or do I need more spotted theatrical lights like par cans?

The black background/black stand was definitely not my call, hopefully modeling the product with some warm or cool light will help make it stand out a little better. I'm going to try and convince them to shoot in a living room setting and avoid the whole black background deal.
 
I support David's (I'm paraphrasing) "flagsflagsflags!!!1!!1!" advice. :) Seriously, though, if you angle your lights right, use barndoors, and large black foamcore flags (they come as large as 48 x 96!), you can pull off the black BG thing. Consider more oblique lighting angles and using white reflectors as fill to help fron overlighting and creating excessive BG spill. Many have done this just fine - refer to the original iPhone instructional videos. You'll need to make sure you clamp/crush the blacks in post somewhat, too, and for Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake, make sure your talent doesn't wear black. :D Something many folks don't consider when lighting for pure black, pure white, and greenscreen shots is the amount of physical space you need to do it right...quite a bit, in reality!

Don't go crazy with lights. What you want is to control where the light falls. PARs vs fresnels isn't the way to think about it...although fresnels will spill less light than, say, an open-face fixture, so that part would indeed help you out.

If you go the living room route, make sure you choose or style/art direct your BG carefully so it's not distracting. Shallow DOF can help, but then you're faced with lighting an entire room...which, to me, sounds more complex than lighting a subject and preventing light from contaminating a black duvetine or velour BG. FWIW, just my take. YMMV!
 
found that iphone shoot. It seems to me they used a green screen for that spot, what do you think, it just seems so uniformly black (no noise).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVtlvA-yZlk&feature=related

Do you think green screen could be a more simple way to pull off the all black effect?

Just talked to client, they are cool with having some gelled uplighting on the background so it seems they are flexible as far as the background goes, they just want it to be "dramatic". Since it's just me on set I'm just trying to find the simplest way to get the best look. Appreciate all the advice so far!
 
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