Sitcom Lighting

[umuima]

Coming up in a few weeks I'll be shooting a sitcom style teaser in a small apartment. It's generally a pretty dark apartment with one large sliding glass door. We'll be shooting mostly in the kitchen, and I really want to fill out the room to get it nice and bright, i.e. Seinfeld. I've attached a photo of the area. The light in the apartment is really gross (that photo is at night though). I'm wondering what you guys think would be a way to light it to accomodate as little setups as possible for a 2 camera shoot. Shooting on 5D / t2i. We have a budget but a small one and have to order stuff soon.

 

[Paul Hudson]

It will be a challenge to light a small apartment and make it look like a sitcom. A challenge but not impossible.

You must first remember sitcoms are shot with multiple cameras and because of this the lighting tends to be very flat. To achieve this the generally light softly from a grid. This reduces any problems with lens flares and dark spots.

First build a nice room ambience up, possibly by bouncing lights off ceiling. Of course, this will mean you cant shoot the ceiling but the ceilings are rarely shown in sitcoms because there is none.

When using key, fill, rims, hair and kicker lights go very very easy and soft.