Re: 15ft x 15ft Dance Floor

[ectobuilder]

Re: 15ft x 15ft Dance Floor

What is the best way to light a 15ft x 15ft dance floor? Assume there is only one camera facing the action from one side only (i.e. one sided stage).

There will be three dancers maximum at any one time, all of which are 5ft-six inches tall. Environment is indoor. Assume that the background is well lit from 40ft away, now we must light up the action i.e. the dance floor.

The stage is also an open stage meaning there is enough room to work with on the sides.

 

[Tvdie23]

what is the budget like?
What is the look are you going for? references?
Picture of the location?
More details better chance for your question to be answer here.

 

[ectobuilder]

We want the dancers to stand out from the background (background is infinite white). We are not trying to create a mood, this video is a dancing demo to teach people, so the dancers need to be exposed well.

Budget, let's say $1000 to $2000.

The location is a typical night club located underground. A general conceptual answer is fine, I can work the concept into the specific requirements of the shoot.

So the question I have is how do we go about choosing the lighting? In terms of wattage strength, number of lights and position?

I'm thinking 4 to 6 flood lights, 2 or 3 on each side of the stage facing the dancers. And using two more flood lights in the back to trace the dancers. We do have a giant spot light in the back that can be used to separate the dancers from the background as well.

Do you think 5600K fluorescent lighting would work indoor if we white balance our cameras properly?

We will have one stationary camera and one camera handheld moving about. We were thinking a camera mounted LED Light for the stationary camera and none for the handheld camera.

And we turn off any practicals that don't match 5600K, we haven't scouted the area yet so this is still a variable.

 

[Michael Carter]

Skip the on-camera light, it will be useless for the look you want;

I'd rig two 6x6 (or larger) frames with very light diffusion and put quad biax flos through each, in front of the set, angled in at 45 degrees or so. I'd likely hang some white bounce along the sides. I'd also play with bouncing some harder light from the ceiling ( if you're bouncing from above, you need a little bit more focus from your lights to get up there), and maybe some harder rim light from behind.

If you just want big, soft white lighting without deep shadows, you need pretty big bounce or diffusion. If the ceiling is high enough, get some light up there as well - if dancers cross in front of each other, you'll want to minimize shadows. Optimally I'd hang some white fabric up high, angled a bit (front a bit lower) and clamp some lights above it vs. bounce. But you'd need a sort of industrial-style ceiling for that. If you have to bounce off a white ceiling, get some open face or fresnels up fairly high and "streak" them across the ceiling - those stands can help support bounce (seamless paper works great for this).

Light the BG with more soft light and it will bounce some fill in as well.

I've done this look often for TV spots and found the best lighting is with flos - they're already pretty soft. You could use tungsten for this and WB or gel, but the amps and heat of flo's is a hard thing to beat. If you have tungsten fresnels, they could make nice rim light - maybe just give them a half CTB for a little warmth and variation (and less damping of output). Flood them if they're small, and use flags in front of the camera to block any sources that are visible and flaring.