I’ve come to a place where I need some advice from those who have the experience. Lighting is the venue I’m least familiar with, so I apologize for my ignorance. I’m not expecting a cookie-cutter solution, I am hoping for varied advice that I can use to come to my best conclusion on how to proceed.

We’re shooting ~18 hours of chroma key in a news room like setup; the talent, my wife, is on a barstool behind a small desktop with a laptop. The “studio” is our bedroom which is 25’x16’, the “crew” consist of my wife and our daughters. -– We filmed ~8 hours of practice to allow my wife to become comfortable and to asses where our weaknesses were. The results were great but we know we can do better.

What we are considering is lighting for the chroma-key and an overhead soft-box. All of our existing lights are halogen. How to light the background is one question and another is the overhead soft box. I’m sure I’m lacking more than just that also. Beginner rules apply; we’re just about to the end of our budget again (if not already well past it). We are pushing for the best results we can and hoping to do it under $500 no more than $1k for additional lights.

Here is the configuration we have in mind (http://kristinwheelan.com/dvinfo/lighting.png). (the room is actually longer up/down than my sketch).

My best judgment tells me, at this point, these are the lights I need to purchase.
SB001? = pair for light the chroma.
OSB02? = the overhead.



What we have is:
* 600w halogen with a soft box.
* 2x 300w halogen spots (1 umbrella diffuser and both have barn doors).
* 2x 4x4’ diffusers
* 2x 4x4’ reflectors.
* 8x 250w halogen construction lamps.


We’re looking at buying a pair of 500w tungsten soft boxes for the chroma and 250w tungsten for the over-head light.
* Is tungsten, florescent, or halogen the best for lighting the chroma?
* Should the chroma be better lit than the talent? (how much power on the chroma?)
* Is tungsten, florescent, or halogen the best for the overhead lighting on the talent?
* How much power do I want coming down on the talent from above?



If there is any other major mistake I’m making I would love to know. I hope to do the best I can even if that means I've got it all wrong right now..

Thanks for any input, Mark.

Is renting lights an option?

How ghetto do you want to get? How handy are you at building stuff?

How good do you want it to look? How does it look now?

Why greenscreen and not a real background.

I have a few basic questions, or observations that might help.

First, Using a broadlight directly overhead is not a conventional, nor very flattering method of lighting. It produces deep/dark eye sockets and gives the face a very rounded look. The shadows around the neck can also be a problem. I'd suggest a more traditional 3point approach (key, fill, rim). This, of course, requires more lights but it will make a huge difference in the look of your final product but it looks like you have some fixtures that could do the job.

Another thing that your doing is multicamera on a greenscreen. It's not that it's wrong, it's just not done very much except on virtual news sets that have live switching. If the talent is addressing one of the cameras directly, cutting to the other camera will be odd unless she turns to that camera and addresses it also. If she does that, you might as well shoot it single camera - which is much simpler on a greenscreen shoot as you will read next.

Good chromakey requires a rather long room because you need to physically separate the talent form the greenscreen (or blue). Too close and you will get spill falling on the talent, Not good. Unless you have a very wide backdrop you will need to have the camera some distance from the talent so you don't shoot off the backdrop. You could always mask that part off in post, but it's best to fill the frame with green.

The single most important thing to remember is to light the backdrop evenly and with consistent color. The 8 hardware store fixtures you have will work, but they might have drastically different color temps. They will most certainly have horrible spread, which is the smoothness of the pattern of light across it's pattern. Using a strong diffusion gel on each light will be necessary. I would also recommend using 1/2 Plusgreen correction gel along with the diffusion. Since the hardware store lights don't have barndoors or gel frames, you'll need to use your creativity to attach the gels. Make sure you don't get any of the spill from these lights on your subject. Use flags, black cloth, or foam board to block the spill.

Lastly, it helps to rim light your subject with a slightly warmer light (tungsten will work). This helps to define the transition between hard to key thing like hair and it reduces areas that may reflect the greenscreen (shiny skin for example).

I hope this helps.

What we have is:
* 600w halogen with a soft box.
* 2x 300w halogen spots (1 umbrella diffuser and both have barn doors).
* 2x 4x4’ diffusers
* 2x 4x4’ reflectors.
* 8x 250w halogen construction lamps.


We’re looking at buying a pair of 500w tungsten soft boxes for the chroma and 250w tungsten for the over-head light.
My math says that right now you're running 3200 watts, and after your proposed purchase you'd be running 4450 watts. In the states, a standard 15A circuit should run 1440 watts, so you'd need to spread these lights out on at least 3 (perhaps 4) different circuits.

I earlier asked "How ghetto" and "how handy", but assuming the answers are "pretty ghetto" and "pretty handy", I'd take three shop lights (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100193761/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053), one on each side vertically, and one above, horizontally, illuminating the greenscreen. I'd use the halogen with the softbox as a key, and a halogen with barndoors as a back, with a 4x4 reflector as a fill.

The aforementioned advice about plus green gels for the keywall lights and something warm for the talent is good advice.

I think this would get you "wow, that looks pretty pro!" comments from your friends. If you want "NBC Nightly News" quality, we can get there, but not in your bedroom and not from home depot.

Some information that may be helpful:
YouTube - Walter Graff teaches greenscreen lighting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70SQCLk5e7Q)

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/photon-management/7399-green-blue-screen-tutorial.html

For the issues of heat generation, cost and power usage, I would suggest going almost entirely fluorescent. You can build DIY rigs on the cheap (for reference, I recommend Jay Holben's book "A Shot in the Dark") Amazon.com: jay holben: Books
He not only covers lighting theory, but also how to put together a decent DIY lighting rig on the cheap. Make sure to research your bulbs though. You'll want the best quality matched set you can find (most likely in the 3200K range). Buy enough extra bulbs so that you're not mis-matched when the time comes to replace a light. Pick up a bit of minus green (magenta) filtration so that any spill hitting your subject will be easier to key out. Tungsten might still be the best bet for your hairlight. I use the Prolight 250w with a snoot.

Do you ever feel like we come in here to give each other advice that we already know, and then the OP never returns?

Oren mentioned heat generation.
Hot lights = hot room = unhappy, hot, shiny talent.
Maybe if you have heavy duty air conditioning you would be able to keep that room cool (enough), but I somehow doubt it. Especially if your 18 hours of shooting includes some sessions that are many hours long. Might be worth considering some lights that run cool — and also get the benefit of low power draw.

(Mike -- yes, often!)

Do you ever feel like we come in here to give each other advice that we already know, and then the OP never returns?Ha! We were reading last night before your post. Sorry for not responding, there was a lot discussion and information to digest and asses. Our schedule allows us to work on this in evenings and weekends when we don't have family business going on. (proud vanity: we have 2 daughters going to the California state science fair. Last year only one daughter was eligible, she brought home 2nd place).

We were doing audio test with the new mic set-up the last 2 nights. Wednesday we were here at home and out at the university last night.

In general we're trying to get above the ghetto level. We're at the chroma-key stage but we have ~8- hours of on location and interviews in several states, that comes this summer. For the interviews its important that we at least look like we know what we're doing.

From what we are reading, we're targeting a decent pair of fluorescent soft-boxes and a small roll of 1/2 +green gels to cover the chroma. Also some warming gels for the talent. Our thinking is that we can use the soft boxes for interviews and on location where we'll need to back the lights out further. (as opposed the const. lights). -- Any recommendation on warming gel colors for halogens on a fair complexion? (Irish). -- We plan on purchasing "xxxx" on Sunday before B&H closes for the week.

The room is 25', the talent is 10' off the 6x9 chroma key. The camera is ~12' from the talent, we can get the feet of the bar stool in the shot if we decide to (we're still trying to figure out if we want that).

I have additional 2 x 30A electrical circuits I wired in years ago when I used to run SETI on 16 PC's.

The 2nd camera on the chroma key is only for the last 2-4 minutes of each +40 min. segment, the lecture closing. (LANC controlled). The 2nd and 3rd camera will be more important this summer.


About the project.

The project is a postgrad psych class and is somewhat of an experiment, it began as something else. In short; the university got involved and they negotiated approval for the online curriculum which has traditionally only been accepted in actual classroom hours. As part of the approval agreement there is a time schedule that's ~6 months sooner than we originally planned.

Our decision to use the green screen is a combination of time and money. or lack thereof. The content is massive with tons of text and reference, and to a lesser extent graphics and inserted scenes. We also believe we can integrate some discrete learning techniques in an artistic manner to keep from being deathly boring as well.

We are the producers and it's all risk for us at this point. Our original plan was more of a nickle-dime project for CEU's, but now it's something considerably larger. Eventually we do plan on creating several CEU's modules for clinical professionals. -- So it makes sense for us to work towards that goal.

Over the last 2 years we have practiced quite a bit to prepare for this. We've shot a few video presentations and event promos for several local non-profits groups (for free). Over the last 8 years I've been shooting many of our kids school related events and producing videos for the school/kids (also for free)

It was just 5 weeks ago that we were informed about the new deadline, since then we purchased; a 3rd camera, two mics and minivan to get all the gear and the family to the locations. -- again, we're already well ahead of our planned budget.

Our gear: A pair of Z5U's+MRC1's, an FX1, a pair of Schoeps CMC641's, Senn MKH-416 & MKH-816T, Sony UMP lavs., x2 Sachtlers and a Lebec. The lights I mentioned above and most of the tid-bits it takes to make it all come together. -- Light are important but they are the one aspect you can fake, so we've left them for last and now we need address the issue. Eventually we plan on building a dedicated studio up at our cabin (where it's very quiet).

DVinfo is my go-to site, I have a Google search specifically for DVinfo on my quick launch bar. I'd say I read here 2-6 hours a month, every purchase we've made was based on what we've learned here, from you. I value the information everyone has contributed here, I've learned more pro-tips than I can count. We are meticulous about the project and have invested over a thousand hours developing it the last TWO years.

I'll add that I appreciate all of you taking your time to post in my thread. I find that most of the questions I have are already answered somewhere, so I've never needed to create a thread before. Admittedly we are a little nervous right now, we are also confident in our abilities.

We decided to skip our plans for florescent soft boxes and look further. At this point we're considering a pair of cool light 600 LED's for lighting the green screen.

With the +green LED light, that may help illuminate the background chroma. By putting some -green on the rim might help to bring out the talent ....provided we keep our distance and not allow our light to blend.

We may be wrong on this but we'd like to go with 5600k LED's background lights behind our tungsten lit talent. If it works as we hope (5600k chroma lighting/ ~3400k talent lighting. WB on the talent.), it will help us to make the full transition to 5600k lighting on the next round of purchases.

(I'm still grasping the nomenclature for lighting)

Oren mentioned heat generation.
Hot lights = hot room = unhappy, hot, shiny talent.Kern County get's HOT enough without benefit of video lights in the summer.

I can think of nothing better to light a greenscreen than 4' fluorescents. LEDs are soft, but soft like 1000 tiny spotlights put together.

I am still in favor of 4' kino-flo style lights - one or two on the top shining down, and one on the left, one on the right.

Thanks for coming back into the thread Mike, Ill make the effort to be more attentive to it.

Florescent may be the way to go but the DIY method sure seems to be a finicky prospect. I am a pretty handy guy but the variables of DIY Flo lighting can be unforgiving from what I gather. The HO ballast are fairly expensive and dimmers even more so. I have found some good things mentioned about the unmatched Phillips TL950 or the BlueMax (http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/photon-management/484950-best-daylight-fluorescent-bulbs.html#post1571168), which may be affordable for x6 paired fixtures. I guess maybe my inexperience and need to make it work right has me scared. -- Let me add the caveat, that we do plan on making substantial equipment purchases over the next 18months, including proper lights (read: a variety of upper quality lights).

While we may be guilty of consumer seduction by the nifty tech of LEDs, for us they do have several immediate advantages. When we shoot the interviews we will be shooting in doctors offices, hospitals and even in peoples homes. Having a smaller foot-print is certainly better for those shoots, not to mention the logistics of traveling 800 miles in a minivan with 3 kids. Having lights that are ready-to-shoot is important right now, I'd rather be able to focus on the project as opposed to worrying about equipment I built. -- The disadvantage is the LED 85 CRI although they do include corrective gels.

So I guess I would ask you: do you think I can get it to work with 1300w eqiv. LED thru soft-boxes or are you strongly against that idea?


*********

I know I may come across as persnickety, and I wish I was better able to help you help me. We are committed to our path and will be putting everything we can into it over time. Our niche is narrow and specific, our content has value and we want to develop it in the best delivery we can.

I think I'm confused by the scenario.

For a studio set up in your bedroom involving a greenscreen and a desk on a budget, I would recommend 4' fluorescents in the above mentioned configuration. For a "low/no" budget, I would recommend buying 3x 4' shoplights from home depot and rigging something up ($100ish); for <$1000 budget I would recommend 3x 4' 2bank fluorescents from some off-brand - coollights or cowboy studio or ePhoto or the like; for >$1000 budget I would recommend 3x 4' kinos and probably a ton of other stuff.

For travel, fluorescent tubes travel better than I would have predicted before they came mainstream. LEDs in my experience (about a year) travel EXTREMELY well, they are very lightweight, hard to FUBAR, low energy. The color is okay, about as okay as fluorescents. I think LEDs would make hotspots on your greenscreen that could potentially be overcome, but it's not something I would assign to someone with little/no knowledge about lighting on a strict budget 800 miles from home in a doctor's office with 3 kids.

But those two scenarios are pretty far apart.

There is an adage in business that you can pick 2 of three: time, quality, good. Can you give me an idea of where you sit on these three?

I initially had the impression that you were trying to pull off something with nothing, but you keep mentioning CRI and the like. Can you really see, with your eyes, the difference between a high CRI and a low CRI? I think a lot of concern is raised by hollywood-level DPs in forums like these about CRI and flicker and ballast (and so on), and while I certainly wouldn't shoot a National Geographic special without the absolute best, I think there are a ton of guys out there (you) who would be well served to order a couple of 500 LED ePhoto specials via Amazon Prime and have a go at it.

In short, I think 4' fluorescents are best to light your green screen. It sounds like you have a ton of lights already, and if you posted a few photos of your setup we could probably give you a few suggestions to make it better with what you've got. All the better if you gave us a $ amount to work with.

Mark,

In all honesty, reading back over this thread, I think you're in pretty far over your head.

I can see you're smart and energetic and have the perfect "can do" attitude, but that combination works best if you have the luxury of TIME to buy gear AND gain the practical experience of using it before you attempt to create content that must stand the test of time. You DON'T want to look at your work in 1 year and feel miserable about it because while the content is fine, your methodology for recording didn't match the goals of the project. And let me clue you in on something.

Every single, solitary working professional here — if you ask them to look back at their work from their first 5 years of doing this— will CRINGE at how amateur they truly where while they were learning.

Travel to a wide range of situations and trying to achieve consistent quality is a LARGE undertaking. It's precisely why 60 minutes or 20/20 even today rely on pros that have BOTH large equipment lists AND the expertise to use the right tool in the proper situation.

Yes, often those pros pull out the same 5 tools and deploy them in close to the same way on many jobs. And if that was as far as it went, you could simply buy the five tools, study their use, and you'd be good to go.

But that's NOT how this actually works. At least not in real-world location video.

Here's why.

Your first 5 shoots in a light-walled modern academic office with no decorating or audio issues might yeild growing confidence and even acceptable results - but your NEXT setup in a dank, booklined cramped and cluttered office might lead to footage that you consider an abject failure. Because that particular situation is BEYOND your skills and equipment to address..

And dozens of things. A window here. Old fluroescent tubes there. Talent with a bald pate. Buzzy AC circuits. Or something as simple as high humidity making the talents faces shinier than usual - ANY and all of these can take a "this gear and what I know about how to use it works just fine" situation and turn it into a "take these back to the truck and bring me the (insert alternate equipment here) situation.

The point is that THIS is what separates the "I can shoot under any conditions" folks, from the "I've taught myself to shoot in THIS situation adequately." folks.

I'm NOT trying to dissuade you. Just make your expectations realistic.

The ONLY path to consistent, repetitive results in this business is knowing how to REACT to differences in the field.

This is what you'll be learning. But signing for the job without the knowledge already on-board is a HUGE risk.

Bite the bullet. Befriend someone who knows how to do this stuff. If they won't drive with you and the family, bite ANOTHER bullet and fly them to your locations. Yes, it's a pain in the ass and may change the profit profile of what you're doing. But it's also the smartest path to avoiding project implosion and eventual failure.

If you're personally NOT what the British call a "lighting cameraman" right now - you need to hire one.

If not, your time and efforts in this has a very low chance of success.

I know it sounds harsh. But it won't when this is all said and done and you're either sitting on a stack of really good content assets upon which to build your services reputation - or you're one of a thousand "do it yourself" video producers with a shelf of aging content that will never generate a return.

If your content is TRUELY worth committing to videotape for others, it's worth doing right.

You can LEARN - or you can DO. But in the arena of single-chance live recording - there's typically a HARSH penalty on anyone who imagines that they can do both at the exact same time.

Honestly, your thread title is in error. Your "time to purchase" was actually about 5 years ago. If you do it now, you'll be ready to go in ANOTHER five years. That's how it really works. Sorry.

My experience, anyway.

Good luck.

I think I'm confused by the scenario.Yes sir, it is confusing and overwhelming to me as well. The mainstay of the project is going to be filmed in chroma-key in a makeshift studio. We also have a number of interviews and two people discussions to filmed on-location(s). We have spent have a considerable amount of money on quality audio and video equipment. We skimped on lights because we could fake the lighting (surprise) and we didn't really know what we were lighting for until recently.

As we prepare to begin filming for real, we need to find a versatile method of lighting that will accomplish the task on a budget and yet not be completely hokey-dokey. $1k is great but $1,500 not out of the question. Over the next 2 years we expect to reasonably spend $4k-7k on lighting (including a meter).

What we currently have for lights is cheap. A Britek 650w spot, a pair of 300w floods, 2ea of 4x4 reflectors and diffusers. It's not much but it will get us our first project. We already plan on re-shooting the entire thing in <2 years once we have more resources for a better production value.

We have another project on the same scale that we will begin developing once this project is finished. We should have our first Arri's by the time we shoot it.



For a studio set up in your bedroom involving a greenscreen.... You seem to believe in flo's for this purpose and you're right; all the chatter from DP's about CRI and flicker does worry me, listening to the pros saves me headache.

If you're confident then I may give the flo's a shot. I can certainly afford to purchase 4' doubles with some of the better standard flo lights available. (in fact I believe have some hospital grade fixtures in my garage rafters, still boxed)



For travel, ....LEDs in my experience (about a year) travel EXTREMELY well, they are very lightweight, hard to FUBAR, low energy. The color is okay, about as okay as fluorescents. I think LEDs would make hotspots on your greenscreen that could potentially be overcome, but it's not something I would assign to someone with little/no knowledge about lighting on a strict budget 800 miles from home in a doctor's office with 3 kids.

On location we aren't planning on using chroma, although we don't know where we're going to film. We only have commitments for people to film with us. When filming with professional clinicians it is important for us be competent, or at least appear so. We really don't want to carry in a truck load of equipment and string power cords around a psych ward or someones home. The construction lights are out of the question.

Being able to travel is important to us personally and professionally. Normally we like to travel as a family, the last 2 year all the vacations have been 'for purpose trips.'



There is an adage in business that you can pick 2 of three: time, quality, good. Can you give me an idea of where you sit on these three? We want quality and creativity, time is something I can afford generally speaking. The time frame for this project has been shortened but we have several months to get it finished. Editing is my strength.


At this point we are convinced we can work with the improvised flo's on the chroma, I can use masking as my fall back on that. We are also going to look at buying a few LED's to help us with the talent, which probably more important. I think we are going to go with some combination of the CL-LED60056S and CL-LED25656S cool lights. There is some love about the cool lights we can't ignore.

You have certainly given us much to think about Mike, that's what we were hoping for. I'm feeling more confident about the lighting at this point.

Mark,

In all honesty, reading back over this thread, I think you're in pretty far over your head....

Good luck.

I couldn't agree with you more Bill, it became something very large, very fast. And of course, that is what prompted my inquiry, and I would like to thank you for taking time to really consider my situation as you have, and to respond frankly from your experience. You mentioned reading the thread over, thinking back on your own development as a professional, and I appreciate what you have said about my strengths as well as the difficulties of getting it right given my current situation. It is a truly humbling aspect of life as any sort of artist, that an enduring record exists of every learning experience -- and when my wife first discussed the idea of doing a video version of her courses with the university, she got a terrible case of cold feet. She didn't want to do it at all because she feared she'd make mistakes and they would be recorded eternally for all time. Finally I had to look her in the eye and say: "Get over it." In the end, sometimes the 'perfect' can be the enemy of the good. I realize I am going to make mistakes, but I can't be afraid to make them. Otherwise, I won't be able to learn anything at all. And fortunately I've got captive talent. ;)

What is so valuable about the project we'll be doing is the years of clinical experience and research involved, and any production value is just 'gravy.'

Again, I appreciate what you had to say, and take it to heart. We will strive harder to make the best production we can. Thank you, Bill.

Frankly I'm interested to hear what others have to say about my idea of the 4' doubles on three (or four) sides lighting the keywall. I personally can't think of a better way on a budget.

A 6x9 greenscreen is small enough that two 4' four bank flos will provide enough coverage (probably, two bank flos would get the job done also). I don't see a need to have to rig one to come in from the top. And if it will be a greenscreen, there won't be a problem with using household i.e. non color corrected fluorescents. I would place the flo's a good 6 feet away from the greenscreen to provide even coverage. If the intention is to use the screen in a vertical configuration with some of the length as a floor cove (if you are considering seeing the base of the stool, you will need the green to continue forward and under the stool), it will start to get more complicated and more units may be required to help fill in the variations as the material changes angle. That said, chromakey software is far more sophisticated than it used to be and it's pretty easy to feather the key from a background that has a certain amount of inconsistency, if necessary. And of course, only the green that surrounds the subject/desk in the frame needs to be correct, the rest can be removed via garbage matte if necessary.

Lighting the greenscreen is kind of the easy part. Making the subject look top-notch is, as Bill noted, something of a craft. While the standard 3-point lighting is where most people start, there are many other ways to skin this cat depending on what look you want to emulate. Probably the best thing, Mark, is if you had a reference still of an existing "talking head" that represents the look you want to achieve. We very often get questions in this section of DVI along the lines of "how do I light this scene" and the result is 15 people offering completely different opinions, while the reality is that there could be literally hundreds of ways to do it. "Newscaster" is pretty specific but there are more or less glamorous versions of that out there.

While a couple of soft sources acting as key and fill on either side of the camera is the traditional approach, you can also set a large soft key essentially above the camera with a soft fill under the camera, which is a bit more of a fashion look but very flattering. While a lot of folks use hard lights for backlight, to me that is a pretty dated look and I usually prefer a more subtle soft backlight, like a flo or softbox. The exact height/angle to the subject makes a significant difference. The lower it gets, the more of a shiny rim it will create; go higher and it becomes more textural, illuminating and sheening the hair. Too high and it can start to hit the top of the nose.

Well, that's off the top of my head...

BTW, what happens to the bed and other furniture when you are shooting this using the whole length of your bedroom...?!

A 6x9 greenscreen is small enough .....My thoughts are to build a simple wooden frame and line it with double fixtures (8x4' doubles. upper, lower, sides) then put a white foamboard shield/reflector around the circumference to isolate it. 6' off the chroma is doable at the cabin, I would have to jack my frame a few inches but I can do that. I also think it makes sense for me to buy the higher CRI standard bulbs, for future uses. (As I understand you: the bkgnd color doesn't matter since it will be eliminated).

I'm a Vegas guy and the chromakey in it isn't that great. The uni provided me a nice copy of Adobe that has better tools and I've worked with it enough now to get good chroma results. Worse case can I export a pre-keyed file to Vegas. As for matte cutting, I'm not scared to do that.

As much as we would like to get a full body or walking shots, we are aware that we aren't anywhere near there yet. It becomes exponentially more difficult without a large painted stage and lots of dedicated lighting. ...some day though.


Lighting the greenscreen is kind of the easy part. Making the subject look top-notch is, as Bill noted, something of a craft....True. While it's all science it takes an artists eye to produce something pleasing to look at. In the past we have achieved good looks when we apply ourselves to the task, its not something completely new to us. Our lights are limited. We have the britek halogens and some daylight clamping CFL's we bought a few years ago. One soft-box, an umbrella and several Wescott reflectors. We have some gels and warming filters on our B&H wishlist. We're also deciding what combo of cool-light LED's to get. -- while it's not a dream lighting kit it will afford us options to work with.

I wish I were able be more helpful with what I want Charles. It's difficult for me to look at someone and plan to recreate the look. I study different looks and effects and I have a good eye for hues and colors. My approach is more of "what do I have" and where do I want to go. My wife has a very fair complexion and breaks out with freckles during the summer. What I can tell you is that I want to warm her with a softer relaxed presence. For her complexion we hope to do more with lighting as opposed to heavy make-up. Again, we look forward to trying some gels and seeing what it's like to have some control with the LEDs.

Being able to look at it and knowing exactly what to do may be above our experience, but we understand the methods have the time to adjust and experiment. Having a large monitor will be very helpful to these old eyes, the camera LCD gets pretty small when finer details matter. -- Once we find the look we like, we lock it in.


While a couple of soft sources acting as key and fill on either side of the camera is the traditional approach, you can also set a large soft key essentially above the camera with a soft fill under the camera, which is a bit more of a fashion look but very flattering. While a lot of folks use hard lights for backlight, to me that is a pretty dated look and I usually prefer a more subtle soft backlight, like a flo or softbox. The exact height/angle to the subject makes a significant difference. The lower it gets, the more of a shiny rim it will create; go higher and it becomes more textural, illuminating and sheening the hair. Too high and it can start to hit the top of the nose.

3 points is our plan, it's good that you offer us something where we can step out of the boundaries a little. We will give it a try and see if we can relax the presence making the 'conversation' easier to digest.


We feel it's important to present with subtle flair, we are trying to escape the usual lecture feel and bring some level of relationship with the speaker. Coming across as dry and boring or uptight and stringent are problems as we see it. Learning comprehension is always better when the students are relaxed and comfortable.

BTW, what happens to the bed and other furniture when you are shooting this using the whole length of your bedroom...?!Oh boy Charles, that's a sore subject with my wife, literally. The bed and springs stand upwards over the sliding glass doors, the dresser and roll-top didn't move. We (the crew) sit on the love seat next to the camera, using the night stands as a coffee table, marking time and watching for loose clumps of hair attempting to become famous.



A few of our own production notes we've been addressing. Our test shoot was to test the system and see how well it all went together.
The dresser and desk both needed to move, they really limited the movement of the key and fill light. I raised the key light high to gain some distance. You can see the steep angle on the face of the netbook. (not an issue if we film at the cabin).

We found the mic set up below and infront of the talent was greatly effected by her hands. We bought a heavy boomed C-stand system and second MK41 super-cardioid to come from above (+ a lav)

We've been monitoring the camera on a very small display from a mobile DVD player, we now have 27" monitor capable being connected straight to the camera. The larger display is going to pay off for me, my eyes just aren't what they used to be.

We're going to use the 24" monitor as a teleprompter attached to the talents netbook, to keep her face on camera better. She's not reading a script, she just has notes and runs with it.

My wife is an experienced speaker and has done a few dozen voice-overs, this is the first time her delivery has been to the camera, which was uncomfortable for her at first. During the 3nd night she found her groove and really improved her presence and delivery. (She was a nat'l debate champ in college).

I washed out some of the color and depth with the constricted lighting set-up, and the ceiling reflections from the construction lights knocked out my depth from the back.

At this point it makes the most sense to film at the cabin where we have more room and we don't have to worry about competing with the nearby airport.

I believe the home-flo's will increase the value of my chroma. That more control with my talent lights will increase those values as well. Changing the location to the mountains will increase the value of the set. -- All very important issue that improve the total production value.

Bill mentioned the financials of the project; We expect the projects will pay themselves off inside of 2 years but having my wife home on Thursday nights makes it worth all the effort. ;)

I've attached some samples of the chroma results we got. Fast movement chroma ghosting bothers me personally, although it's mostly negligible to most viewers. I have 3 samples where you can see artifacts on her moving hand. 1) fast movement, 2) moderate movement, 3) almost still.

Looks like you are in good shape Mark, lighting looks natural.

I can't say enough about how great is that people like us, who really want to become better, can come here and get input from people who have a passion for creating video. We appreciate all the input we've received and will do our very best to create something worthwhile.