I could use a quick lighting critique!

[Rick Wise]

In post you could easily pull down the exposure a notch. Nothing on the face appears to be at clip.

Suggestions:
–raise your key quite a bit higher to drive the nose shadow down at a steeper angle. But not so high that your subject’s eyes no longer catch the key.
–reduce your exposure until the hot side is around 60 IRE; alternatively, if you have zebras on your camera and you can set them to 70, adjust exposure so that there is just a HINT of zebras in the hot spots, usually the bridge of the now and a bit of forehead. Then reduce the fill side a bit; you have almost no difference between key and fill. But this is just a matter of taste.
–The background seems to be at clip in the area behind the subject. You might want to even out the lighting on the background so that it is consistent. Alternatively, darken it considerably and add some sort of pattern with a light through a cookie of your devising.

I see that you are using the Genaray LEDs. I have been intrigued by their round design. Are you using them raw, or through some diffusion? How do you like them?

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Travis Roesler]

Great suggestions and feedback!

1. Key Light raise – done… and good call.

2. So you would agree that my video guy that the key is slightly overexposed? I am shooting with an FS100 so I can definitely adjust the zebra stripes. I honestly think the key looks pretty good, I don’t think that I’m losing too much detail in the face, so I guess I’ll let the camera sort it out.

3. I actually already turned down the fill a bit to give my face more contrast, so I completely agree with that suggestion and already fixed it.

4. The background is meant to be slightly lighter right behind me… it makes me seem like a glowing beam of martial arts knowledge. I kinda like the gradient effect that it creates, so that was fully intentional. Before this, I was using a poorly executed green screen and just putting in a plain white background. Trust me when I tell you that this is a drastic improvement.

5. With respect to the genaray’s, I really really like them. They are light, sturdy, durable, they lock into place like a rock, have remote dimmers (in addition to on-light dimmers), they don’t put out much heat at all, and in general, I think that they are very well contructed.

The only COMPLAINT that I have is a very light squeal that is emitted from the light at anything brightness setting other than the highest and lowest settings. It doesn’t appear that my mic picks it up, but it will wear on your nerves after a while. My solution is just to position my lights correctly at the highest settings and go from there.

This would be easy to remove in post production even if the mic did pick it up, but still, it’s a little irritating.

They come with their own little diffusion sock that fits like a glove, and that’s all the diffusion that I’m using currently. As far as I can tell, it’s more than enough as might light doesn’t appear too harsh.

I got these so that I could just secure them to the ceiling, and raise them when I want them out of the way. My goal here is to be able to flip and “On” switch, step in front of a screen, and be filming it 2 minutes or less. So far, it’s coming along very nicely.

Thanks for your feedback, and I hope my genaray review helps!

[Travis Roesler]

Ok! You were absolutely right about a lot of things! Here’s my next submission!

[Rick Wise]

Thanks for the Genaray review. As for your new screen grab: Looks better but:

–note the shadows at the bottom of the frame. Why?
–Key still not high enough.
–Try moving the key further to the side, away from the camera to achieve more of a ‘Rembrandt Patch” look. Look that up if you don’t understand the term.

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Travis Roesler]

Ok… I think I have it. Please note that the picture actually embeds slightly darker on the site than it actually is.

I really really really appreciate your help… the difference between this post and my first one is huge. I can’t thank you enough.

1. Key all the way up to the ceiling.
2. Shadows virtually eliminated to create a smooth gradient in the background.
3. Researched the rembrandt patch, and you can SLIGHTLY see the “triangle” under my right eye… at least as much as my facial structure tolerates.

Any more “Patch” than that and my right eye looks unusually dark.. as my eyes are kinda sunken in.

I’m pretty sure this is my final product… I don’t think that I’m going to get it any better than this!

[Bill Davis]

Here’s my 2cents.

I’m not fond of the glow behind the head being brighter than your subject. I get the “glowing brain of expertise” idea, but the reality is that the human eye is naturally drawn to the lightest object in any frame. To me that should always be the person speaking. Period. A brighter backlight makes me squint to see the person speaking and risks viewing fatigue over time.

I occasionally set up this kind of radial gradient look and I like it. Just with the brightest spot at least a full stop lower than the subject face and additional falloff or color moving away from the face.

Your call, but making any performer easy to look at is good. Making them even a tiny bit harder to see is less good,

Advice worth what you paid for it.

; )

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Craig Alan]

I would tweak it some more. You want to see the catch in both eyes. It’s ok to have an aura around your subject but overexposed is not a good choice. Try lighting your background with more diffusion. I think that will even out the b.g. so you don’t have the shadow creeping up from the bottom. Get your subject further from the background. Use a back light to get a glow around the subject’s head. A 300 watt fresnel should do the trick. Play with color correction in post – you might be able to improve this shot a lot.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Travis Roesler]

Damn… I know this is good advice. Ok… let me reposition that top light to make it a little less bright around my head.

Thank you for the feedback… I also felt as if my face wasn’t standing out enough.

—Trav

[Travis Roesler]

Hey Craig,

Thanks for the heads up… I will throw another diffusion sock over the backlights and see what happens. I don’t really have much room for an umbrella, which brings me to my next point… I’m pretty much stuck 3 or 4 feet away from the background! I’m shooting this in a relatively small office space, and my camera is back against the wall.

… 4 hours of tweaking later …

I have my next shot… I’m going to post it as a response to the entire thread… if that’s possible.

[Travis Roesler]

Ok… I think this is it… jesus I hope this is it.

Please ignore the shadows on the edges… my paper has gotten a little wrinkled and I ordered a new role.