Lighting a School classroom

[Daniel Schultz]

Hi Todd and Dennis.

Appreciate the responses (and allowing me to indulge in my obsession).
I’ve done a classroom shoot with natural and fluorescents before, and although it wasn’t terrible, I’d love to take it up a notch.

Dennis, the reason I wanted to bounce the HMIs of the ceiling was I wanted to turn off the flos. I was hoping to not have the mixed lighting. And, yes I want to use the natural light and supplement with the lights.

Todd, just viewed your ad spot, and I love the look you got. That was with natural and HMIs, right?

Appreciate all the info and advice–even the Keep-it-simple-stupid advice, which for me, might be the most important! (But, alas, I know I will continue to obsess. I hope you understand it comes from wanting to be as good as I can.)

Thanks all.

Dan S.

[Todd Terry]

[Daniel Schultz] “Todd, just viewed your ad spot, and I love the look you got. That was with natural and HMIs, right?”

If you mean just the classroom scene… that was mostly HMI. We turned off all the overhead flos and darkened all the windows (they had good light-blocking blinds) except one at the rear of the talent that was left partially open to give a bit of spill onto the back wall. Talent was lit with a single 1200w daylight HMI shot into a white 4×4 bounce card. A little 150w watt HMI was used as fill and to give the non-principal children a bit of backlighting.

As for the other scnenes, it was a mix. In order of scenes they were:

1) Glass hallway… mostly available sunlight, a little bit of HMI
2) Nurse… tungsten
3) Premature baby… tungsten
4) Orthopaedist… tungsten
5) Exterior kite.. available sunlight and reflected
6) Surgeon… tungsten
7) Classroom… HMIs and a bit of available light
8) Radiologist… tungsten
9) Grandparents… HMIs for key and backlight, available light, one tungsten special
10) Stairwell… HMIs and a bit of available light
11) Hospital room… HMIs, a couple of tungsten specials, and available light

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Daniel Schultz]

Hi Todd,

Thanks for the detailed info. I can look at each shot from the ad spot and understand better how the look was achieved.

Dan S.

[Craig Alan]

Daniel,

Whatever equipment you rent, make sure you have time to experiment before the shoot. Different camcorders, different settings, different amount and quality of light = different results. And keep in mind, poor audio ruins more productions of this type than so so lighting.

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Daniel Schultz]

Thanks, Craig.
This is why I’m considering using my own camera, an HMC150, just because I’m already familiar and comfortable with it.

Dan S.

[Daniel Schultz]

Here is some test footage of the classroom I’m planning to shoot, both with flos on and off. I really don’t like the look with the flos on. I don’t like the colors, the fact that there is no shape or shadow–everything illuminated and flat. Makes me want to consider turning off the flos and using HMI’s and onboard litepanel to support the window light.

Thoughts

https://reels.creativecow.net/film/classroom-test-footage

Dan S.

[Daniel Schultz]

Also, because the classroom is so busy everywhere, I was considering using a Letus Extreme 35mm adaptor to help soften the background clutter.

Dan S.

[Mark Suszko]

Too dark with the overheads off. Window not as big a factor as I had imagined, if that is typical amount of light. Looks okay with the daylight balance and overheads on. “Okay” meaning it looks like what people would naturally expect to see on TV news. You have to weigh how pretty you make the lighting versus how disruptive and expensive you want to get, for the result you want.

Letus DOF gadget will make individuals easier to look at by blurring busy backgrounds. But is it going to create a problem shooting 2 and 3-shots and wide shots? If you shoot from far in a corner, you may already get enough DOF blur action on all but the closest rows.

[Daniel Schultz]

Thanks for your response, Mark.
Windows are fairly typical.
I realize the flos give the news look.
I’m trying to create a different atmosphere than news for these. They’re modeled after webcast cooking shows, like for instance the ones on NYtimes.com. We’re creating a series for Scholastic, where I work, to go on the web, hopefully attract sponsors and become a popular series. This is why I’m hoping to bump up the visual quality a bit.

Here’s what we’re going to be shooting:
• Teacher in front of kids gather around him sitting on the rug in a “clump”
• Kids working in small groups (see the way they desks are clustered). These will be closueups.
• Then there will be some scripted, teacher-into the camera footage, which will serve as the intro and ending, as well as voice over for many of the closeups when the kids are working at their desks.

Let me know what you think , with that in mind. And again, thanks to all for your great advice.

Dan S.

[Daniel Schultz]

i’d just add that overall I’m probably going to be bringing the camera in close for the closeups, rather than zooming from a distance.

Dan S.