Lighting a spoke person in a conf room

[Olivier Prudhomme]

I like everything you say! So helpful.
With all this info I am really starting to see what I am going to do. It gives me options and it makes me think about things I wouldn’t have until I would have been faced with them.
I actually do have a flip camera that i never used and been trying to sell! I knew I was meant to keep it … and use it.
I need to see if it goes to a sleep mode or if i can just press record since it won’t be on the whole time (4 hrs is too long).
I also thought of keeping a log on a pad to write the time when the speaker goes to the slides but also to mark pauses, and things like this so I can find them easily in post. I’ll have at least 8 hours of video and I don’t want to have to go through the whole footage to find these moments I’d have to get rid of.

As far as framing I think I’ll stick with the Medium shot because even though I love the idea of creating space on the right, I won’t know when to widen the shot. I’d rather keep things simple/clean/under control for now.

Good point regarding the eye line and the laptop… I need to talk about this with the client.

Creatively: Even though the client “bought” a one-camera shoot, I was thinking I should bring my DSLR as second camera so I could enhance the presentation with B roll shots in post and give my client “more” than he purchased to kindda do a great job since it’s my 1st one…
I don’t want to do a whole A-cam B-cam. The DSLR limitations in recording time would make it a nightmare in post. And also the footage looks deifferent between my DSLR and the A cam – HMC40.
But how do you think I could use the b-cam?

[Mark Suszko]

Sounds like you’re more confident now; that’s good. You know, there’s nothing stopping you from setting up a mock version of this in your living room or kitchen, and having some no-stakes practice to get a feel for how it will go.

You mentioned logging the timing of the slides as another simple option, and that should work fine.

A common trick we use for note taking when shooting news events is to set the time code on the camera to ‘time of day”, and “free-run”. This means that whether you run or stop the camera, the time code generator stays running, keeping synchronized time with your wristwatch. How we use that in news is when the reporter is at a distance from his or her shooter, and they hear a good sound bite they know they will use later, they can glance at their own wristwatch and jot down that time and just the firstt hree words and last three words of the sound bite, and it will closely match the time code of the shot. “Say, Bob, I need the quite the Senator makes that begins at about two-forty-seven and a half, he starts by saying After re-evaluation of the issue”. That frees the reporter up to wander independently of his shooter and still be able to log things on the fly.

So, you can use that same system when logging the slide changes on a note pad, even when you’re not handling the camera because it’s locked-down.

4 hours of just a medium shot could be pretty boring to shoot, but even more boring to force someone to WATCH. Hopefully, the actual program material is quite a bit less than that.

Meanwhile, it’s easy to quickly, manually re-frame a tighter or looser shot in the several seconds a person takes to catch their breath or pause for emphasis. You can practice doing this very easily by recording a friend or relative as they tell an involved anecdote. You listen for the pauses, then make the framing change with a snap-zoom. People speak in paragraphs when telling a story, teach yourself to listen for the “summing-up” tone of voice change, that’s your cue to zoom in or out during their taking a breath. Then you go back into the tape and cut the 5-10 bad frames out, and see how much better the thing flows. it looks a hundred times better than slow zooming in and out all the time, an effect derisively referred to as “tromboning”, like a slide- trombone player.

Slow pans at a fixed distance are really much easier than zooming in and out, and you can always cover the move by cutting away to a full-screen of the slide until the new framing is established. Then you can pop to the 2-shot or diptych. You go back to the full-screen graphic to cover re-establishing the centered medium shot, but every once in a while, try a slow online pan instead; you’ll get the hang of it. Particularly if you practice it at home.

I described this technique briefly before, but will expand on it, since you’re reticent about pointing the camera manually and panning back and forth, if you keep it slightly wider than you need, you can go back in post and scale the shot up about 25 percent without getting too soft, to create occasional close-ups that will always have perfect timing, without needing a second dedicated camera. That scale-up also lets you pan the shot over to create graphics space on the side. This works better when the original footage is of much greater resolution than the master. For example, shooting HD enables you to do this trick in a Standard-def master and get away with it pretty well. Shooting 2K or 4k and posting to an HD timeline also lets you fool folks into thinking you have multiple cameras, if you shoot much wider than needed and then re-frame in post. if you plan on trying this, be sure to shoot a wide safety “plate” shot of the location without the speaker in the shot, so you can create simple, invisible extensions of the background as needed.

Since you’re nervous, probably commit to creating the “2-box” or “diptych” effect with your medium shot in one box and the slides in the other, as part of the variety of shots you present. Not hard to create at all. The background of such a 2-box is a good place to emboss a subtle graphic of the show title or company name, that kind of thing. It becomes a kind of “wallpaper” behind the 2-box, conveying things like general chapter information, or just the logo/corporate identity.

Your DSLR won’t be able to record 4 hours non-stop, unless it’s pretty advanced or connected to a laptop running Adobe’s capture program… Probably use it to shoot major intro and ending segments as the “b” camera, on a wide shot. With a short 1/4 inch threaded metal bolt in the main camera’s cold shoe, you can attach the DSLR to the main camera so both lenses are always aligned and nearly co-axial. This trick works great with a Go-Pro, or the cheaper imitation go-pros, BTW, and the wide view of the go-pro is suited to being re-framed and positioned in post, plus, they can run a long time with the right battery and cards.

[Olivier Prudhomme]

Just read again all the wonderful stuff you took the time to write.
Thanks again and wish me good luck: shoot this wednesday and thursday!

[Mark Suszko]

[Olivier Prudhomme]

LOL!! Thx!!!

[Olivier Prudhomme]

Day1 over.
Screenshot, no color correction.
The room was in full sun. BG was originally white but I improvised what I consider a decent backdrop.
It was so hot that the speaker was sweating…. shining.
No make up artist….. 4 hour meeting so no way to stop.

what do you think Doctor?
🙂
Day 2 tomorrow… I could use any tip!!!

[Mark Suszko]

I’ve seen worse, especially first attempts. What does the client think so far?

A pan powder stick can reduce shine. Or keep a box of sturdy tissues nearby to blot or reduce shine.

I hope the eye line isn’t on her screen the whole time… did you try moving it nearer to your lens? It would be best to keep the laptop out of shot.

So, how much of this is the sunlight alone, and how much is from your lights or reflector?

Take a wide shot with a still or phone cam tomorrow, so we can see the entire setup.

[Olivier Prudhomme]

You’ve seen worse?… 🙂 well… I was expecting better…. I thought it looked nice!!! 🙂
What would improve the shot do you think?
I can not control the laptop.
I worked on the bottle of water all day so it’s not on the shots.. but it is very often.

I pulled down the black curtains to control the sunlight as much as possible.
No room for hairlight.
The key and fill light are against the wall.

The client is happy because it’s only for internal use and they were going to do it themselves with a regular camera and no audio recording device.
BUt keep being hard on me!!! The day I’ll read “great” I’ll know it IS great 🙂

[Mark Suszko]

“It’s only for internal use” is always a lie. They just believe it at the time they say it. Purposely or not, everything gets out eventually.

Find a box or something that’s lower than the table, then put the water bottle on that, below the table level.

I know your setup doesn’t allow more distance between her and the background, but that would help. Still, the background looks good, best of all it isn’t distracting. Certainly better that what you started with in the bare room. When you make the 2-box effect, you can color-sample the scene to drive your colors for the backdrop and box frames, making everything look unified.

You might back the lights off her a just a *little* bit, a foot or so, and/or add a wee bit more diffusion, to help with those hot spots. Clothes dryer sheets can be used to blot oily skin to reduce shine. Keep looking at the Lowel tutorials to help guide your sense of placement for the lights.

You should be sure to take a short still shot of her in the frame, without the lighting turned on. Later, when they ask about why it matters to do all this extra effort, you can point to before/after pics to make your point. One version looks amateur. The other, fully-lit version projects professionalism.

I think it already looks much more professional than what they probably expected.

How is the audio: clear, I hope? I don’t see a lav mic, so what kind of mic did you use and where did you place it? Tell me you’re not depending on the camera-mounted shotgun as main audio. I will be sad if you did that. You are allowed to make poor pictures as long as the sound is rock-solid and clear. If the sound is poor, nothing else can save you.

Good luck, post more wide shots of the room!

[Olivier Prudhomme]

I understand what you’re saying as far as “it’s only for internal use”…. I’ll keep that in mind.

Good idea for the bottle of water and I”ll see what I can do for the sweaty fronthead.
I also love the idea of the “here it is w/lights and sound”…. and here it is after you paid me”. Great great idea!!

I hired a pro for the sound. unfortunately we had to have a fan on since the AC wasn’t working and the room was exposed west….
I know too well the importance of sound vs. visual (I’m a an editor in a network so if I never shot before at least I’ve dealing with footage, great footage…. and bad audio = bad cut)