Lighting For Interviews / Talking Heads

[Silas Barker]

Hi all!

First, this forum has really been helpful throughout the years, thanks for taking the time to help me out!

Currently I have some Britek 300/600 watt Tungsten Lights with soft boxes that look pretty nice for interview / talking heads shoots. I recently bought a few extra ones because some of my 10 year old ones were going out. Realized I might want to look into LED too.

A few years ago I bought some Ikan LED panels but they don't diffuse like a softbox unfortunately so I returned them. I like how cool they were and the color temperature adjustments.

What are people using for talking head lighting set ups these days? The Britek bulbs don't last super long and its $20 a bulb. Looking for a longer lasting set up. Open to LED but not sure if its able to perform like a softbox. Thanks in advance!

[Oren Arieli]

I'm a big fan of point-light sources, the monoblock style lights with COB (Chip On Board) technology. If it's got a Bowens mount then it's even more versatile, since you can add on dozens of affordable modifiers. Fresnel lights are nice for the throw, but for diffusion, I like the Alzo Digital 3000 series, CAME-TV has a Boltzen line that is affordable, as does Aputure Throw on a softbox and grid and you've got a powerful, beautiful light.
My recommendation is to go with daylight balanced if you're shooting on-location at offices. Most of them have windows, so you won't have to worry about gelling your lights to match incoming daylight.

Somewhat of an older review I did of my Alzo 3200 here:

Alzo 3200 High Intensity LED review - YouTube

I now have their higher CRI ultra-low noise version.

[Michael Liebergot]

I purchased some edge lit FLAPJACK LED lights from FOTODIOX a couple of years ago and love them.

They are small, ultra compact, cool, and soft.

I posted this a few years ago but thought that I would copy and paste my experience with them.

I had a simple black limbo interview to shoot in a small boardroom today so I brought along a pair of new Fotodiox LED Flapjack 300R lights to try out and was very impressed with the outcome.

Nice soft light with plenty of output for a closely lit interview.

Since these lights don't have much throw then they also helped with light spill onto the back backdrop, which was only 2 feet behind the interviewee.

I am attaching a picture that is untouched to show the outcome of the shoot. The only issue I had was that I brought the wrong hair light which was too hot even turned down all the way.

Since my previous purchase I have also picked up the smaller Flapjack C200S for on camera and hair light purposes. Love them.

Now for lighting for interviews they are great. For lighting rooms and such, not so much as they have a lot of spill and are not strong enough to light up backgrounds. For traveling they rock.

https://www.fotodioxpro.com/fotodiox...nch-round.html
Attached Thumbnails
Quest for the lightest light kit-wwii-interview.jpg

[Doug Jensen]

Here are a few examples (both indoor and outdoor) that were shot a couple of weeks ago during an interview lighting workshop I was teaching in Maine. Most of the setups were done with my Litepanels Astra 4X and my Astra Soft. The goal of the class is for the students to learn simple techniques for setups that can be accomplished by one person in about 30 minutes with gear that can be carried on a cart.

Maine Media Workshops "The Art of Lighting and Shooting Interviews" - Sample footage from the September 2017 class on Vimeo

[Steven Digges]

Doug,

I always enjoy your posts. Even after more than 25 years of image making and interviews I would love to attend one of these work shops. Unfortunately my bucket list is still long.

In my experience these are the two most difficult interview issues to overcome. They are sometimes as emotional as technical. I am sure you cover these two things but I have to ask?

Male subjects - bald or balding heads. Lighting? Powder/makeup? Talking the subject out of the inappropriate hat he wants to wear? Or shooting with the hat on? Men can be incredibly sensitive about this.

Female subjects - I learned a long time ago that many females feel they have at least one "bad" feature, be it real or perceived. Often they do not mention it to you on set so I try to look for it. When shown the finished work the very first thing their eye goes to is that feature to see how you handled it. These days I find myself shooting without a makeup artist more often than not. Other than traditional soft lighting techniques do your workshops cover difficult facial features you want to be careful with?

Kind Regards,

Steve

[Ed Roo]

This is how I set up for my monthly veteran oral history interviews. Key light: Litepanes 1x1 daylight flood. Fill light: Litepanels 1x1 daylight spot. Hair light: Litepanels 3" ENG.

The LT on Vimeo

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Steven Digges

In my experience these are the two most difficult interview issues to overcome. They are sometimes as emotional as technical. I am sure you cover these two things but I have to ask?

Thanks for asking, and it'd be cool to see you at one of my workshops someday.

I absolutely do cover the kinds of issues you have brought up in your post. A good interview setup is about more than just plopping down a few lights in the right places and pressing record on the camera. Make-up, bald heads, eye glasses, nervous subjects, reluctant subjects, wardrobe, putting the subject at ease, and how to get the soundbites you need from the subject, are all topics that we cover during the class. In fact, wrangling the subject so we can get what we want from them begins even before they walk through the door and sit down, and it continues right up to the moment the lights are turned off.

[Ben Johnston]

Cheap bank of fluorescent tubes (Kinoflo immitation), with big diffusion panel in front (inside of a 5-way reflector). Not much output with the diffusion, so needs to be quite close.

Bounce for fill. Small LED for hair light.

[Marcus Martell]

How close?

[Paul R Johnson]

We'll never know - the topic is 4 years old!

[Marcus Martell]

Can i ask you when you are using led Lights in interior locations what temperature do you set on camera?

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Marcus Martell

Can i ask you when you are using led Lights in interior locations what temperature do you set on camera?

None.
You should never dial-in a random color temperature by hand because there are too may variables between different LED lights. Even if you think you know the kelvin temperature of your lights, how are you going to account for magenta/green? Plus, unless you are starting from zero in a totally dark room, you have the unknown factors of ambient lighting, daylight from windows, the color of light reflecting off the walls, etc. All those things need to be factored in.

The best way of setting the white balance is to finalize the lighting, put the camera on memory A or B, hold white/gray/warm card exactly where the interviewee will be sitting, aim the camera at the card, and then press the white balance set button. It is the same general idea as using the WB eyedropper tool in post -- but you are doing it before the color is locked in. Setting the white balance this way is also much faster because it removes all doubt, eliminates judgement calls, and does not require a calibrated color monitor and ideal viewing conditions. Just aim the camera at the card, hit the set button, and start shooting. Simple.

[Greg Smith]

It's also a good idea to record a few seconds of that white card held at the subject location, after the auto white balance, so you have a reference you can use if any minor tweaking is required in post. This is especially useful when shooting with multiple cameras whose auto whites may not be calibrated precisely the same.

[Doug Jensen]

I agree that recording the white card can be helpful for touch-ups in post or matching cameras. If I am shooting S-LOG I also try to record a couple of seconds of the talent holding the card in front of their face at the beginning of the interview so I have an exposure benchmark as well.