Lighting for two-camera shoot.

[Bob Hart]

If anyone has any suggestions for lighting for an indoors two-camera shoot of close-up and reverses of dialogue interaction, this would be greatly appreciated. When it comes to lighting skills, about all I am good for is using them to keep a big mac warm.

Whilst it is someonle else's project, I will be assisting so knowing what to expect might be helpful.

My understanding is that two-camera shooting is best reserved for action sequences and that creative lighting can be compromised by having to allow for two cameras.

Available kit as I understand things is that there may be one 2K ARRI fresnel style dimmable light and smaller 600watt ARRI style or Lowell open style lights.
More than about 4K worth of light and circuit breakers begin to trip in the building.

Any advice as to a lighting plan would be greatly appreciated.

Cams will be JVC GY-HD---/Mini35-400.

[Heiko Saele]

If you need the setup to be as easy and as quick as possible, I can recommend two of the 600W Lights with reflectors (white flexible styrofoam reflector fixed to the barndoors, light points upwards hitting the reflector) to act as key and hair lights. Place them on the on-camera side, as frontal as possible. If they're almost frontal you probably don't need any fill from the other side. If you do need fill or want to bring the ambience level up, one lamp bounced from the wall and ceiling of the off-camera side should do the trick.
Use the other two 600W lamps to light the backgrounds. A cucolores and/or different gels can help to make boring backgrounds more interesting.

This setup is far from perfect, but it works pretty well when you don't have much time and your equipment is limited to four open face lamps with standard tripods, a few reflector boards and a few gels.

[Cole McDonald]

Watch the George Dibbie interviews on http://www.2nd-unit.tv he discusses using the "Dibbie Cross" which would work for you... but as always, it is a single solution out of an infinite number of possiblities. The lighting needs to fit the mood of the scene as well as the mood of and its purpose in the whole script. And different people would light the same scene differently as well. There's really not a "one size fits all" solution here.

Is there a particular scene from another movie or television program that the lighting jumps out at you that has a similar setup to your scene? We could dissect that for you and give a sense of how that's done.

[Allen Green]

You may also try a China ball chimera on a boom arm overhead in the center this puts a nice soft light on each face. Try to drop it in as low as you can. Then your hair lights on each subject, and light each background with 600's and a cookie to whatever pattern you desire.
M2C
good luck

[Steve Oakley]

if they are more or less facing each other use the 2 600Ws. place each 600 behind each person 3-5ft back. the light will serve as the closer person's hairlight, and the other person's key. you need 1/2 scrims ( maybe 2 per light ) or nets to cut the bottom of the light serving as the hairlight down. another way is double or triple up some full frost on the bottom of the barndoors.

height should be about 5 ft or so if they are seated. bounce another light into a white card or foamcore as fill. you can move the lights around a bit for a little more mood / side light effect. also you need to watch lens flare. usually I've done this in a studio with a grid since you don't have to worry about a stand getting into the shot because the ideal position will place the stand right behind the person's head. usually you can move it over a couple of inches and be clear. not that hard to do once you get it working.

[Bob Hart]

Thanks to you all for your suggestions and advice. I now have some options which I will pass on. For any furthur advice I remain appreciative.

I don't have a chimera china ball light but I have made two smaller porchlights on poles which I mount CF lamps inside of. I shall experiment with these.

[Richard Alvarez]

"Cross-Key" lighting is the standard set up. As others have mentioned. Light number 1 is placed in a position to act as the Key to Actor "A" and the hairlight/fill to Actor "B". Light number 2 is placed to act as the key to Actor "B" and the hair/fill for Actor "A". The spill from the open faced lights can be bounced back for fill.

[Heiko Saele]

Originally Posted by Steve Oakley

if they are more or less facing each other use the 2 600Ws. place each 600 behind each person 3-5ft back. the light will serve as the closer person's hairlight, and the other person's key. you need 1/2 scrims ( maybe 2 per light ) or nets to cut the bottom of the light serving as the hairlight down. another way is double or triple up some full frost on the bottom of the barndoors.

I wouldn't point open faced lamps at people without diffusion. That's why I said use reflector-boards with the lamps - the light will be like from a nice softbox. The downside is you can't scrim the reflected light, so the edge/hairlight will be a little hot (but you can make it acceptable with the right positioning)